Real men are not threatened by anointed women of God.
I thought I had heard it all until I read about a new Tennessee-based organization called GodMen, a group of tough guys who are calling for a return to what they describe as “masculine Christianity.” Their theory is that men are staying away from church today because too many women are there.

These guys are tired of seeing flowers and ferns at the altar. They don’t like women preachers or worship choruses that sound like love songs. They want a church with some testosterone.

They don’t appreciate sermons about “tender Jesus, meek and mild.” They want a bold, buzz-cut Savior whose confrontation in the temple looks more like Friday Night SmackDown. (Imagine a chiseled, 310-pound Jesus lifting the smashed tables over His head and yelling, “Yeeeaauurrraaagghhh!” after tossing a few moneychangers headfirst into the crowd.)

Brad Stine, GodMen’s founder, is right when he says that many men are boycotting church. Guys certainly are bored with religion-as-usual. But Stine seems to suggest that the way to lure them back to God is to reupholster the pews with rawhide, hang deer heads near the pulpit and offer 10-minute locker room pep talks for sermons. We’re talking Promise Keepers on steroids!

Stine says men want church to be “real and raw.” But I think he veered off-track when he ignored some key biblical truths:

1. God’s nature is reflected through both genders. Genesis 1 tells us that both male and female were created in His image (see v. 27). So if we want His full nature to be revealed in the church we need both males and females to reflect it. Of course we can see God’s character in the wildness of rawhide and antlers, but He is also evident in the beauty of flowers and ferns.

We don’t need churches that are dominated by macho men or controlled by rabid feminazis. Instead, we must pursue a radical, New Testament faith that melts gender prejudice in the same way that it demolishes racial and class divisions.

2. God has always intended men and women to work in partnership. Everything God created in the Garden of Eden was good, but when He made Adam He said: “It is not good for the man to be alone” (Gen. 2:18, NASB). God did not create the woman as some kind of trivial afterthought—or as an extra appendage to help with the laundry. His divine purpose for the world was not complete until the woman took her equal place beside (not under) her husband.

3. Jesus spent a lot of His time with women. No other Jewish rabbi in Israel broke the gender rules as Jesus did. He had women disciples and allowed them to sit and learn at His feet.

He cared for widows, divorcees and those who had been abused and falsely accused by a cruel patriarchal culture. Jesus was no sissy, yet He defended and empowered women—and allowed His female followers to be the first to announce His resurrection.

4. The Holy Spirit releases women to be leaders. Many traditionally minded Christians love to quote the apostle Paul’s words to the Corinthians, “The women are to keep silent in the churches” (1 Cor. 14:34), as if that statement summarizes Paul’s view of women. It doesn’t. Paul was not a chauvinist.

The same Paul who sounds as though he limited the women of Corinth actually released those same women to pray and prophesy in church meetings (see 1 Cor. 11:5). He also had at least 12 women on his team, including a humble deacon named Phoebe; a skilled Bible teacher named Priscilla; and two rival church leaders named Euodia and Syntyche, powerful women whom Paul pledged to support (see Rom. 16:1-2; Acts 18:24-26; Phil. 4:2-3).

God did more than zap the church with heaven’s power on the day of Pentecost. He placed those divine flames on the heads of men and women alike—ushering in a new day of gender equality and crushing old religious mind-sets about who is and who isn’t qualified to preach and lead. The Holy Spirit made it clear that His gifting has nothing to do with hormones.

Come on, guys. Let’s get off the macho bandwagon. Real men are not threatened by anointed women of God.

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J. Lee Grady is the editor of Charisma. He also directs The Mordecai Project, a ministry devoted to confronting the abuse of women around the world. He will be preaching in conferences in Peru and Bolivia in June.

A popular female evangelist arrived at an airport and was escorted to the baggage claim area. After she retrieved her luggage she was taken to the passenger pickup lounge where she met her hosts from a local church, who planned to take her in a comfortable van to a nearby hotel so she could rest before speaking at an evening service.

The members of the welcoming team were not prepared for this woman’s icy response to their greeting. When they opened the door to the van, she told them bluntly: “I will not ride in that.” Then she stormed back into the airport with her entourage. After making inquiries, one of the church staff was informed by the woman’s assistant that Her Highness must be transported in a certain type of vehicle.

The stated choices were a Bentley, a Mercedes-Benz or a Lincoln Town Car! Nevermind that Jesus Christ rode into Jerusalem on a donkey. This regal woman of God insisted on arriving in luxury.

When I heard this story I didn’t know whether to start a petition drive or just vomit on the spot. I was outraged, bewildered and nauseated.

For the last seven years I have given my life to help empower and release women leaders in the church. I have dedicated my life to ending gender discrimination—especially when it limits women’s spiritual gifts and callings.

Yet when I hear of poor examples of women pastors and preachers, I must confess I fight discouragement. Yes, we need many more trained women church leaders—but we don’t need any more bad examples!

In my travels I have observed all kinds of women leaders, some who are stellar role models and others who would do us all a favor if they pursued different careers. If you have aspirations to pursue leadership in ministry at any level, I pray you will avoid becoming like the ones I am about to describe.

1. THE DIVA To this woman, ministry is all about her. She is the star. Surely she started out with genuine passion for God, but today her message is not defined by her unseen prayer life but by what people see on stage. Greed and pride have deceptively lured her into compromise.

She knows how to move a crowd. There is obviously a strong anointing on her life, but it has been subtly fused with a carnal agenda. She can inspire people to success and wow them with her own accomplishments, but there is nothing in her sermon that brings true repentance or brokenness. Her message may be loud, and it can elicit shouts at the altar. But the people don’t realize they’ve been drugged with a spiritual form of cocaine that triggers a religious high but can’t bring them closer to Jesus.

The diva is known for her demands. Someone must carry her Bible, her water bottle, her purse and her cell phone. Those who ask her to preach in their church soon learn that she is “high maintenance.” She will require the priciest hotel rooms and the biggest offerings—which she will collect with plenty of manipulative arm-twisting.

Her Christian values were once admirable. But the holy fire that burned in her heart a few years ago has been quenched by greed and an addiction to the crowd’s approval. She stopped studying the Bible and now focuses more on what she plans to wear at her conferences. She stopped spending time in God’s presence and began craving the glow of television lights.

The diva loves grand entrances. She comes into the meeting late and is whisked off the stage as soon as she has delivered her sermon. She doesn’t associate with common folks or spend too much time praying for them. A strange atmosphere surrounds her: A mixture of the Holy Spirit’s irrevocable gifting and a disturbing aura of self-importance. Only those who are discerning can recognize the difference.

2. THE CONTROL FREAK If you saw the movie The Devil Wears Prada you know the type of leader I am talking about. Unfortunately the main character of that film, the fearsome fashion publisher Miranda Priestly, has a few counterparts in the religious world.

Beware of this woman if she is in any church leadership position. She rules with an iron fist and leaves a trail of wounded bodies behind her. Somehow she missed the elementary Leadership 101 class, which teaches that every Christian leader must learn to serve. To her, authority is about dominating people.

This woman does not know how to delegate. She is not a team player. The control freak believes she knows all the answers, and therefore she must sign off on all decisions, no matter how petty. People line up outside her door night and day to get her approval, and anyone who needs an appointment is first advised to obtain a “weather report” on her shifting moods.

Somehow this woman never took care of her anger issues when she was a young Christian. Now that she has a position of power, no one is brave enough to challenge her ungodly behavior. She surrounds herself with yes-men and yes-women who dislike her authoritarianism but are too intimidated to admit that her ruthless temper is a sin.

The control freak has no peers and doesn’t have a relational style. She may claim to have an older mentor (who usually lives in a distant city) but she doesn’t open up her life to those who work with her. They are her subjects, and she demands obedience and long hours of work to prove loyalty. Her employees usually resign on a regular basis because of her harsh criticism and abusive words.

3. THE FLIRT I recently took a pastor friend of mine to a conference to hear a visiting woman preacher from another state. Imagine my horror when this lady walked to the podium wearing a dress that looked like it had been sprayed on.

Every curve and crevice on this woman’s body was visible to the ogling eyes in the audience. Some of the guys, to their credit, began looking at the floor toward the end of her sermon so they would not commit adultery in their thoughts. I wanted to run to the podium, grab one of those “modesty cloths” they use during prayer times and wrap it around Sister Shapely before anyone else stumbled.

This woman obviously missed the memo about adopting a “professional and sensible dress code” for ministry. Or perhaps she simply ignored the memo because of her own unresolved sexual issues. Somebody should have yanked her off the platform and sent her back to the new believer’s class, where godly women teach other women why it’s wrong to use their femininity as a sexual weapon.

The flirt disregards sexual boundaries. She hangs around with men alone in the church office, and might even counsel men alone. She may even use sexually charged language or veiled vulgarity in her sermons. (Note: Just because male leaders engage in this behavior does not make it acceptable.)

Women in ministry do not have to wear their hair in a bun or don ankle-length flannel dresses in order to be modest. There’s nothing wrong with looking your best. My favorite women leaders usually wear smart pantsuits, tasteful jewelry and comfortable shoes when they preach. They dress like respectable businesswomen—and they command respect from their churches because of it.

4. THE FLAKE God knows we need leaders today who understand the gifts of the Holy Spirit. But whenever there are revivals of Pentecostal power, the devil always lures some people to unbalanced and unhealthy extremes. In the modern charismatic movement, leaders who misuse the gifts of prophecy or other supernatural phenomena have deceived or irreparably wounded many people.

The flake may have had a legitimate experience with God, but because of pride she begins to believe that her gift is unique. She may even claim special access to God and have frequent visions or dreams that bolster her claims. These experiences might be from God. But if she does not stay grounded in biblical truth and seek accountability in healthy ministry relationships, she may elevate herself to a point where no one can challenge her revelations.

No one who steps out in the supernatural is going to get it right 100 percent of the time. We prophesy in part, and those who use the gift of prophecy are likely to “miss it” from time to time. But the flake will rarely admit to missing it. She will stubbornly contend that she heard from God, even if all the evidence proves otherwise.

It’s bad enough when flakes are in the pews because they can cause divisive splits in congregations. But when a flake is elevated to a leadership position, an even bigger disaster looms. That person may veer into extrabiblical methods or outright heresy because she cannot receive correction.

The flake usually has serious unresolved emotional issues. She may be prone to depression, and she might seek unusual spiritual experiences to soothe her damaged emotions. She is always in superspiritual mode and rarely enjoys the normal routines of life. My advice to the flake: Come down to earth!

5. THE FEMINIST I don’t believe all forms of feminism are wrong. In the early years of the 20th century, many brave Christian men and women worked tirelessly to win women the right to vote. Gender equality is a human right, and it is something that God set down in the first chapters of Genesis. Because both male and female are created in His image, we should work to correct the injustices of gender inequality and abuse.

But there is another more sinister form of feminism that has no support in Scripture. It is a bitter, vengeful attitude that places women against men, and often elevates women to a superior position. Sadly, this worldly spirit has invaded the church.

The feminist church leader has a man-hating spirit. She may be a gifted communicator, but if you listen closely you will hear the sound of a grinding axe when she speaks. She has not forgiven the men who hurt her in the past, and she intends to punish those men who get in her way today. Her unresolved issues are transferred to her audience. Her poison is injected into everyone who hears her.

She may claim that she believes in gender equality, but she will often surround herself only with women and refuses to put men in certain positions. Oftentimes the feminist has experienced at least one failed marriage and does not have any healthy relationships with men. Because she is unhealed, she cannot be an effective healer.

6. THE VICTIM This is the most pitiful of all the bad examples I’ve listed. She is guaranteed to make you feel sorry for her. And she might use a full box of Kleenex to help you understand her pain.

What the victim lacks in leadership skills she will make up for in sob stories.

Everyone is against her. She is suspicious of her own congregation. Other churches, she says, are maligning her. The devil, she insists, has targeted her ministry for destruction. Every trial that comes her way confirms that she is the focus of a demonic conspiracy.

Chaos surrounds this woman. Her ministry is always in turmoil. The victim moves from crisis to crisis, always anticipating another tragedy around the next corner. True joy has been replaced by a constant religious anxiety that repels people—thus making sure that her ministry will always be composed of a small “remnant” of people who have similar emotional baggage.

Of course if you suggest that this woman’s misfortune might be the result of her negative outlook on life, she won’t listen. That’s because the victim has found a bizarre form of pleasure in her dysfunction. She’s become quite comfortable at the center of her painful universe.

DON’T SETTLE FOR LESS
All these bad examples are in the church today—and each has her male counterpart. But I am not giving up in my resolve to see an army of gifted, trained women who will serve as pastors, missionaries, evangelists, CEOs, government leaders and social reformers. This is the hour for women to arise.

Instead of divas, we need humble women who are willing to serve even if they receive no public recognition. Instead of control freaks, we need leaders who wash the feet of their disciples and push them to greatness while modeling sacrifice. Instead of flirts, we need mature, dignified mothers of faith who have crucified their adolescent fantasies.

Rather than flakes who are tossed around by spiritual fads, we need discerning women who love biblical truth more than charismatic goose bumps. Rather than feminists, we need women who have resolved their issues with men and are willing to partner with them on equal footing. Rather than victims, we need women in ministry who are emotionally healthy.

Don’t be discouraged if you see yourself in any of these negative examples. There is probably a little bit of diva in all of us! And all of us have resisted the urge to become control freaks.

If you are called to leadership, God will guide the preparation process—and He will bring mentors and positive role models in your life to challenge and encourage you. If you allow the Holy Spirit to shape your character, you may end up being the good example the church is waiting for.

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J. Lee Grady is contributing editor of Charisma and author of 10 Lies the Church Tells Women and Fearless Daughters. For more information go to his Web site, .

 

Effective prayer cannot be half-hearted. This is war.
One of my closest mentors is a humble Nigerian apostle named Mosy Madugba, an amazing guy who has raised the dead, confronted demon-possessed warlocks and led whole villages to renounce idols and embrace Jesus. The miracles
are impressive, but Mosy doesn’t focus on the sensational. Prayer is his passion.

Mosy sponsors a huge annual conference in Nigeria called Global PrayerQuake. About 8,000 pastors and church leaders from many African nations attend this event in the city of Port Harcourt. For an entire week Mosy and his team offer training in intercession, and they spend hours praying for world evangelism.

When I was with these Spirit-filled Africans in January I could feel the ground move and the rafters rattle as they prayed. Everyone was rocking back and forth, shaking their fists and shouting in tongues. They were serious about dislodging devils.

The same contagious passion for prayer was evident in the city of Lagos, where I attended a pastors’ prayer meeting that same week that lasted from 9 a.m. until way past noon. Motivated by an upcoming presidential election, more than 700 leaders came to pray for the future of the country. They repented for government corruption and asked God to transform all of Nigeria for Christ.

Most of these pastors were on their knees or standing with their hands raised for almost four hours. They were not talking on cell phones or exchanging business cards. I wondered if our prayer meetings could attract so many pastors from one city.

The sad truth is that we Americans have become a prayerless people. Most of our churches don’t have prayer meetings anymore. Prayer, especially of the fervent variety, has been crowded out by trendy church-growth programs and sophisticated technology.

We are so hip now. Who needs old-fashioned stuff like fasting, travail or all-night prayer vigils? And tongues? We’ve relegated this to a back room for fear of being labeled fanatics.

Leonard Ravenhill, one of my favorite writers, was an unappreciated British prophet who often preached about the sin of prayerlessness. He wrote in his 1959 classic, Why Revival Tarries:

“We pray with a ‘take-it-or-leave-it’ attitude; we offer that which costs us nothing! We will display our gifts, natural or spiritual; we will air our views, political or spiritual; we will preach a sermon or write a book to correct a brother in doctrine. But who will storm hell’s stronghold?”

Thankfully God has raised up some American prophets today who are willing to storm hell’s gates—and to mobilize the rest of us to return to our knees. The men on our cover this month, Dutch Sheets and Chuck Pierce, are heroes of mine because they’ve taken a radical stand for prayer in a time of national crisis.

In the 1980s Chuck was instrumental in organizing prayer for the fall of communism in Eastern Europe. Dutch was behind a huge prayer campaign in 2000 that most likely swayed the presidential election that year. Two years ago both men committed themselves to leading prayer events in all 50 states in order to mobilize intercession for a sweeping spiritual revival they are convinced is headed our way.

Chuck, Dutch and my Nigerian friend Mosy have helped me discover that effective prayer cannot be half-hearted or lukewarm. It is not a job for sissies. This is war. It will require the audacious courage of an Elijah.

What would happen, I wonder, if thousands of churches in this country suddenly heard the alarm that is sounding in heaven today and began to take seriously Jesus’ words: “Could you not tarry one hour?” What if we put aside our timid, wimpish prayers and began to pray with bold, apostolic authority? What if we stopped relying on our smug American sophistication and started praying like a bunch of zealous Nigerians?

I believe God would stir us to the core and unleash His convicting presence on a wayward nation. The question remains: How desperate are we for a fresh Pentecost?

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J. Lee Grady is the editor of Charisma. Check out his weekly online column, along with many other exclusive Web features, at . You can also post your comments about this article on our Web forum.

We face a serious leadership crisis in the American Church.
No biblical character is more pitiful than Eli, the Levite priest who defiled God’s house because he couldn’t bring himself to discipline his two wayward sons. The Bible says Hophni and Phinehas were “worthless men” (1 Sam. 2:12, NASB).

That was putting it mildly. These rascals, dressed up in their sweet-smelling priestly garb, were responsible for one of the first religious sex scandals in history. They became Eli’s greatest shame.

Not only did these guys prey on vulnerable women (and engage in sex with them right in the doorway of the house of God), but they also were involved in the worst kind of financial exploitation. They cunningly manipulated people while taking offerings; then they misused the gifts for their own sordid gain.

Slick-talking preachers with zipper problems and big expense accounts­—does this sound familiar?

Eli’s fatal flaw reminds me of a problem we face today. He was timid about confronting sin. He tiptoed around the real problems. He lived in denial at a time when the church was in moral crisis.

Even though Eli questioned his sons’ behavior and warned them of the consequences, he did not remove them from their positions. Even though the people in the pews were shocked by Hophni’s and Phinehas’ sexual escapades and financial shenanigans, Eli let his privileged boys go right on taking offerings and raping parishioners. Year after year he allowed his sons to mock God and infect people with their corruption.

The story does not end well. Because sin had entered the house of the Lord, the ark of God’s presence was captured by the Philistines, and Hophni and Phinehas were killed in the raid. The Bible paints an ugly picture of what happened when Eli heard the news of his sons’ deaths: “Eli fell off the seat backward beside the gate, and his neck was broken and he died, for he was old and heavy” (1 Sam. 4:18).

That’s not a flattering obituary, especially with the mention of Eli’s obesity. Perhaps the Bible uses such graphically honest language to drive home the point that this pathetic priest was not only timid but also undisciplined in his personal life.

What does this obscure Old Testament character have to do with us? There are plenty of people today who have adopted Eli’s theology of greasy grace and sloppy holiness. Their mantra is “mercy.” They say there is no longer any need for church discipline or moral standards in leadership.

Among independent charismatic churches in America, we’ve developed a lovey-dovey culture that shies away from hard-line discipline and makes it easy for disgraced leaders to find new jobs fast. But I don’t see this lax attitude in the apostle Paul, who set high standards of character for all his leaders, blacklisted false teachers and even excommunicated people who continued in immorality.

Paul went so far as to turn certain crooked leaders over to Satan so they would learn their lesson (see 1 Tim. 1:20). Sounds kind of extreme, but extreme sin requires extreme measures.

The bottom line: Godly leaders draw lines and enforce moral standards—without becoming self-righteous and unkind. Ungodly leaders, on the other hand, may appear to be nice and compassionate, but they actually are being unfaithful to God if they refuse to require their spiritual sons and daughters to follow biblical standards of behavior.

We face a serious leadership crisis in the American church, and part of our problem is the sin of Eli. I am making an appeal to the fathers and mothers of the church: Will you please do your job? We need your rebuke and your rod of correction.

Please go to those who are exploiting God’s people financially and make them stop. Please confront those who are robbing the church for personal gain. Please go to those who are abusing others, sexually or in any other way, remove them from leadership and get them healed.

Please don’t let the Hophnis and Phinehases of today have airtime on Christian TV. Please don’t showcase them in your conferences. Please stop looking the other way when you hear about their blunders. Please restore discipline to the body of Christ.

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J. Lee Grady is the editor of Charisma. Check out his weekly online column, along with many other exclusive Web features, at . You can also post your comments about this article on our Web forum.

It is time for leaders in our movement to show some tough love.
Suppose you go to the hospital and your surgeon accidentally removes your spleen instead of your appendix. Then you learn that this same doctor cut out the wrong organ from Mrs. Johnson’s abdomen and amputated Mr. Smith’s right leg instead of his left one. Oops!

I guarantee a quack like that would lose his medical license no matter how friendly he seemed during office visits. And he couldn’t move to the next town and open a surgical practice. We have professional standards that apply not only to doctors but also to dentists, bankers, teachers, lawyers and even cosmetologists.

Unfortunately in our quirky world of independent churches, there is no such thing as an enforceable standard of professional behavior. A hairstylist has to obey the rules, but some of our preachers don’t. They make up the rules as they go.

Case in point: Paul Cain, the celebrated charismatic prophet who appeared in countless conference pulpits during the 1990s, stepped down from ministry in 2005 after he was publicly confronted by three high-profile church leaders. Mike Bickle, Rick Joyner and Jack Deere brought disciplinary charges against Cain because of a pattern of homosexual behavior and alcoholism.

Cain admitted his failures, stepped down from ministry and agreed to a regimen of accountability prescribed by a group of men who knew him. But a few weeks later he announced that he was moving to California to find restoration from some ministers that Bickle, Joyner and Deere knew nothing about.

Then, 12 months later, voila! The church in California announced that Cain was “restored” and ready to preach again.

Bickle, Joyner and Deere did the right thing by releasing their own statement on January 21, which said, in part: “We cannot say with confidence that this is a genuine restoration. … It will be harmful to [Cain] and others if he is released prematurely and then relapses into his past failures.”

Thank God somebody demanded a higher standard—at a time when so many Christians have gone squishy on biblical morality.

It is time for leaders in our movement to show some tough love and adopt some stringent policies about biblical restoration.

Cain’s situation is an opportunity for us to examine our movement’s credibility crisis. We need clearer guidelines on how to handle a leader’s moral failure. Here are four:

1. Forgiveness is immediate. God’s mercy is amazing, and He is quick to forgive a fallen leader who repents. God does not require any sinner to wallow in shame.

2. Personal restoration is a process. Repentance is not just feeling sorry for making a mistake. A leader must show a genuine sense of brokenness for the way his or her sin hurt others. If the leader is in denial about his failures, true friends must confront his deeply rooted pride, deception and self-justification.

3. Restoration to ministry should never be fast-tracked. Many experts suggest that a fallen leader should step down for a minimum of three years to find full healing. Some denominations require only two years of rehabilitation, but those of us in independent churches have required even less time. As a result of our hurry, many unhealed, unhealthy leaders are in the pulpit today.

4. Restoration should involve people who know the fallen leader. A fallen leader may be tempted to run across the country and find new friends who are wowed by his charisma but don’t see his dark side. But true restoration must include reconciliation with the people hurt by his or her actions.

I know some will complain that I am being “judgmental.” The truth is that I know several ministers who fell morally and then returned to their pulpits in God’s time, not theirs. Restoration is possible and should be our goal.

But I intend to stand with the apostle Paul, who demanded godly character of church leaders and warned early Christians to avoid the self-restored Lone Rangers of that era. If we don’t draw some lines today, the flaky prophets and the carnal con artists will bring us all down to their level.

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J. Lee Grady is the editor of Charisma. Check out his weekly online column, along with many other exclusive Web features, at . You can also post your comments about this article on our Web forum.

“The gay-affirming ‘gospel’ is a toxic heresy that must be addressed in 2007.”
At the risk of sounding old-fashioned, prudish, out-of-touch, narrow-minded and judgmental—not to mention totally uncool—I want to go on the record as saying that I strongly disagree with Jay Bakker.

Some of you are asking yourselves, Who’s he?

You might remember him as Jamie Charles Bakker, the cute kid who made a few awkward appearances on his parents’ Christian talk show, The PTL Club, back in the 1980s. The son of Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker, Jay was one of the most tragic casualties of the PTL scandal that sent his father to prison. In Jay’s 2002 autobiography, Son of a Preacher Man, he tells how he struggled with alcohol and drugs after his parents lost their ministry.

Jay returned to the national spotlight in 1994 when he launched Revolution, a creative outreach to disenfranchised youth. With his goatee, multiple tattoos and prodigal testimony, he fit right in with the punk-rock crowd. He began to plant small churches in urban areas all over the country.

So far so good. I can get excited about winning punk rockers to Jesus—even if you use tattoos or loud music to reach them.

But somewhere along the way Jay’s message got muddled. In 2005 he was invited to speak at a conference hosted by Exodus International, a ministry that helps people leave the gay lifestyle. Just before the conference began, Jay was yanked from the schedule because he would not sign a form that said he agreed with Exodus’ theology and conservative values.

A while later Jay let the world know what he really believes. He told Radar magazine: “This sounds so churchy, but I felt like God spoke to my heart and said [homosexuality] is not a sin.”

Before you expend all your breath gasping over Jay’s questionable “revelation,” consider that (1) he is quite popular among many twentysomething Christian leaders; and (2) he has gained considerable media attention in recent weeks because of a six-part documentary on his life, One Punk Under God, which began airing in December on the Sundance Channel.

In the TV documentary and in other interviews, Jay has made it clear that he embraces what he calls a “gay-affirming” gospel. He told Mother Jones magazine that he came to the conclusion that homosexuality is an acceptable lifestyle by “looking deeper in the Bible” and by visiting a gay-affirming church. He also admitted that one of his biggest ministry donors stopped supporting his work when he embraced this radical new theology.

I don’t mean to pick on Jay. As a child he was the innocent victim of appalling religious hypocrisy. But he’s a big boy now, 31 to be exact, and if he’s going to be in the game with the adults he needs to play by the rules.

So I’m blowing the whistle. This is an official apostasy alert.

In case you haven’t noticed, Jay is not the only voice in the blogosphere claiming that God has changed His mind about homosexuality. The Episcopal Church voted to ordain a gay bishop in 2003. Many gay-affirming churches are sprouting up in Middle America—including some that claim to be Pentecostal. In fact, the founder of the largest gay denomination in the country, Troy Perry, was raised in the Church of God of Prophecy.

What Troy Perry, Jay Bakker and the Episcopalians are offering America is a new religion that guarantees no hell and requires no holiness. It is a limp, spineless Christianity that cannot confront sin for fear of being “judgmental.” It is an impotent gospel that tells people who wrestle with homosexuality that they might as well indulge.

It welcomes everyone with a polite “come as you are” mantra—but in the end is incapable of breaking the power of addiction or sexual dysfunction. It uses feel-good words such as “tolerance,” “acceptance” and “grace,” terms that sound hip and sexy in today’s permissive culture. It is a golden calf, shiny and seductive, forged by those whose goal is to invent a new morality.

This gay-affirming “gospel” is a toxic heresy that must be addressed boldly from our pulpits in 2007. I pray there is enough moral backbone left in the church to face this challenge.

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J. Lee Grady is the editor of Charisma. Check out his weekly online column, along with many other exclusive Web features, at .

My wife gave me an iPod for my birthday last July but I waited until Christmas to open it. Of course I appreciated the gift. But I avoided opening the box because I didn’t want to tinker with another new form of technology.

I have reached my limit. And I am not the only one suffering from high-tech fatigue.
I see this condition everywhere. People talk on cell phones while driving. Some use their phones while e-mailing from their laptops. I see guys chatting in airport restrooms using their remote earphones. (No thanks. I’ll call from the gate area.)

I’ve even watched two people sit together in a restaurant while they phone other people at the same time. What we’ve lost in real connection with human beings we’ve made up for in increased broadband speed, sound quality and added video features. After all, who needs the lost art of conversation when we have TiVo, BlackBerry devices, Bluetooth headsets and smaller, sleeker MP3 players?

I am not against progress. But I have decided to seek a quieter life in 2007. I don’t need satellite radio, a new ring tone or a 42-inch plasma-screen television with Surround Sound. And I don’t want to watch TV shows on my phone. In fact, I’m keeping it on vibrate mode.

I am craving silence.

When the prophet Elijah was desperate to hear from God he had to tune out all the noise pollution. God was not in the violent storm, the earthquake or the fire. The divine message came in the form of a “gentle blowing” (1 Kin. 19:11-13, NASB). How long has it been since you heard that still, small voice?

My first mentor, Barry, taught me when I was a teenager about the importance of personal devotions. He called it “quiet time.” Far from being a dry, religious exercise, the habit of seeking God daily became a vital spiritual discipline for me. Thirty years later, I still carve out time each morning to pray and read the Bible. In that hour, I try to tune out the blaring noise of this crazy world so I can hear a word from heaven.

If you are starving for some quiet time,

I would offer the following suggestions:

1. Find your peaceful harbor. Even Jesus went to a lonely place to pray. He had to escape the demands of the crowd. Your quiet place might be a park bench, a back porch or your living room at midnight. Make sure it is a place where you can read, pray and worship without distraction.

2. Learn to listen again. Our nerves have been frazzled by the incessant sounds of pagers, newscasts, answering machines and infomercials. All this electronic clatter can increase stress and drain energy. How long has it been since you enjoyed the chirping of birds, the gurgling of a brook or the faint rustling of leaves in the wind? God can calm your spirit through nature.

3. Schedule a prayer retreat. You can find a fresh word from God when you vacate the familiar. Whether you go alone or with your spouse or a few friends, consider taking several days to seek the Lord at a lakeside cabin, guesthouse or anyplace that is off the beaten path. And when you get there, avoid the temptation to check e-mail!

4. Go on a media fast. In this world of 24-hour shopping channels and video-on-demand, we are headed quickly toward burnout. Your body needs a sabbath—and that includes your ears. Turn off your computer, silence your phone and mute the TV. Let Jesus lead you beside still waters where you can find true peace.

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J. Lee Grady is contributing editor of Charisma and author of 10 Lies the Church Tells Women.

Pride is usually the root of most moral failures.
Most people had never heard of Ted Haggard when I sat down with him at a restaurant in Colorado Springs in 1993 to conduct one of his first interviews with the Christian media. He talked about his many nights of prayer near Pikes Peak. He shared that witches had left animal parts on his doorstep. He told how he “prayer walked” a segment of property near his church and claimed it for God—and how it was later purchased to be the headquarters for Focus on the Family.

When I wrote a cover story about Ted for Charisma I made a new friend, and I even considered going to work for him. His gregarious personality, his refreshing commitment to teamwork rather than the one-man-show, and his passion for prayer and evangelism made me want to pull up roots and move to the Rockies.

I almost became a Ted Haggard groupie. And who wouldn’t want to follow him? He is funny, open about his personal struggles and eager to connect leaders in the church who don’t see eye to eye. He became a role model and a standard-bearer.

I wasn’t surprised when Ted’s New Life Church began to experience explosive growth. With that growth came more media exposure—and soon Ted was the poster child for American evangelicals. His boyish grin appeared in major newspapers and he often was asked to provide the obligatory Christian response on news programs. Most of us were relieved that someone with such an honest, nonreligious style could be our spokesman.

But we all gasped collectively in November when Ted admitted that he’d been involved with a male prostitute in Denver. It seemed like a bad dream when he abruptly left his pastoral position and resigned from his post at the National Association of Evangelicals. For me, the reality didn’t hit until he told his church, “I am a liar and a deceiver.”

Boom. Just like that, another hero had fallen.

Ironically, it was Ted who gave me hope that American church leaders could become relevant to their culture. Ted also taught me valuable lessons about integrity and personal accountability. That’s why it was so devastating that this man had such a humiliating moral failure in front of a hostile audience.

Sin doesn’t make sense, so we’ll probably never completely understand why these tragedies happen. But I’ve nailed down three things we must remember as we assess this situation:

1. Ted deserves our long-time support. Leaders of New Life Church have already removed him from his pastoral role—a disciplinary action that he and his wife, Gayle, supported. Proper biblical discipline was applied, swiftly and with dignity. What the Haggard family needs now are our prayers for full recovery.

2. We must guard ourselves from the snare of pride. The Ted Haggard I knew in 1993 didn’t care if anyone noticed the work he was doing. But after 10 years passed, he found himself in some heady situations, including conference calls with the White House and appearances on TV talk shows. Could you stay humble with those kinds of opportunities?

After televangelist Jim Bakker fell into adultery and went to prison for his financial misdeeds, he admitted that his big mistake was pride. It is usually the root of most moral failures. When we fall into pride, the grace to resist temptation wanes.

3. We must address homosexuality head-on. When news of Haggard’s sin hit the fan, the gay community went ballistic over the apparent hypocrisy of churchgoers who publicly oppose homosexuality while they participate in it secretly. Homosexual activists want us to change our message to say that some people are born gay and are entitled to enjoy gay sex with God’s approval.

We can’t rewrite the Bible. Neither can we simply condemn homosexuality without giving a skeptical world proof that God’s grace can overcome any sinful behavior. Although Ted Haggard fell from that grace, he has placed his life in the hands of the One who can repair his brokenness. Hopefully his eventual testimony of restoration will help many others do the same.

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J. Lee Grady is editor of Charisma and author of 10 Lies the Church Tells Women (Charisma House). His ministry, The Mordecai Project, focuses on empowering women in ministry and confronting abuse. To receive his weekly Fire in My Bones online column, sign up at .

People criticized Indri Gautama for daring to be a pastor. Today she is one of Indonesia’s most innovative leaders.

If you walk past Indri Gautama in one of Jakarta, Indonesia’s trendy shopping malls you might be tempted to think she is an investment banker or the president of a multinational corporation. Usually dressed in tailored suits, and never without her cell phone, the petite Chinese woman scurries from one meeting to another. She is constantly sending text messages to her office and talking in rapid-fire Indonesian to the dozens of people who work for her.

But Gautama is not a banker or a businesswoman, at least not in the strict definition of the word. She is the newest breed of Christian minister in Indonesia, one who possesses not only biblical knowledge and godly character but also plenty of marketplace savvy.

Those who know her best call her “Apostle Indri.” She is comfortable with the title because she has planted a thriving church movement in the heart of the world’s largest Muslim nation—a country that is not famous for its female leaders. She got her start in ministry by preaching to the residents of some of Indonesia’s most remote, poverty-stricken islands.

Gautama dared to challenge the system, and her courage has opened up a way for many younger leaders to follow.

“The men here looked down on me. Their attitude was, ‘Let’s see how long she is going to last,'” says Gautama, who is 49. “They thought I was too tough to be a pastor!”

Those who knew Gautama as a girl would never have expected her to be a Christian, much less a minister. But God had a plan.

OUT OF DARKNESS
She was raised in a wealthy family in Indonesia, and her parents practiced ancestor worship. Her father’s focus was always on money. Her mother had originally planned to abort her. When Indri was 10, her mom took her to Chinese temples to obtain healing from her frequent childhood ailments.

The sickness and dysfunction in her home made her a very angry girl. “I was taught that money was everything,” she says of her past. “I didn’t know anything about Christianity. I didn’t value God or people. ”

Much of her young-adult life was wasted. After graduating from college in Australia she moved in with a Middle Eastern man in Honolulu and spent much of her time in discos. During that rough period of her life she had seven abortions.

Yet in 1984, after returning to Jakarta, she heard the gospel and had what she calls a Damascus road experience. Her “first Bible,” she says, was a video of a Benny Hinn crusade.

Then, in 1988, she finally gave her life to Jesus Christ and was baptized in the Holy Spirit while visiting a dying AIDS patient in a Jakarta hospital. After she commanded a demon to leave the young man, a bolt of heavenly electricity seemed to shake the room.

“The doctors who checked on that man later said he had no trace of HIV in his body, and he gained 80 pounds in one night,” Gautama says of the incident. It was the first of a long string of miracles that would lead this woman to become one of Indonesia’s most prominent ministers.

STARTING AT THE BOTTOM
Don’t be fooled by Gautama’s executive image. Despite her penchant for nice suits and designer handbags, she is not a Christian diva. She cut her teeth in the ministry by giving her life for the poor. Early in her ministry she learned the importance of giving in order to break the cycle of financial lack.

In 1993, at age 36, she sold her passport business and a stuffed toy factory she owned and gave away her other businesses. She became an itinerant evangelist to the people living on the island of Sulawesi—and then to other dangerous areas where Muslims often burn churches. She lived among the natives, ate their simple food and challenged nominal Christians to repent of their spiritual lukewarmness.

“I was like John the Baptist,” she says. “They called me ‘the bulldozer.'”

Indeed, there is plenty of prophetic power in this small woman. Her gruff voice, which often sounds strained because she preaches so many sermons a week, gets people’s attention quickly. She grabbed even more attention when she began a church in Jakarta in 2002 with seven people.

Part of the fire in Gautama’s bones is a deep hatred of poverty. She abhors the fact that Indonesia is one of the richest nations in the world in terms of natural resources, yet many of its people barely eke out an existence because of ignorance and idolatry.

Gautama decided she would be part of the long-term solution to turning her nation around. And she started by reaching young people.

Apostolic Generation Church opened officially in 2003 after a divinely orchestrated meeting with Naomi Dowdy, an American missionary living in Singapore. Dowdy had successfully grown a 5,000-member church in another male-dominated culture, and she is known as an apostle among independent charismatic ministers worldwide.

When Gautama founded her congregation she had little training and no support from male pastors in the city, so she asked Dowdy to mentor her, both in her personal life and in church growth strategy. The result: Apostolic Generation Church now has grown to 1,800 members, with seven full-time staff and 50 care cell pastors and other volunteers. In addition, the church recently broke ground to build an impressive downtown office complex that should be completed in 2008.

Known as Kuningan Place, it will feature apartments, offices, a 1,000-seat auditorium, a day care center and a parking garage housed in four skyscrapers, the tallest of which is 30 stories. Members of Gautama’s church sold the complex’s apartments in two months so that construction could begin. A prominent Australian architect designed the sleek buildings, which will dazzle Jakarta’s financial district with their steel and green glass.

“It has been so exciting,” Gautama says of the project—which has caught the attention of church leaders who once criticized her. Today, some of them have come to her for advice on how to grow their own churches.

Adds Gautama: “It has been scary at times because we are walking on water, but our faith in God will not be shaken. So we run and make huge leaps of faith.”

MAKING DISCIPLES
Gautama’s ministry is guided by the principle of mentoring. She believes that to build strong churches she must pour her life into those she is training. But she also knows she must learn from those who have successfully accomplished what she aspires to do. That’s why she looks to Dowdy as a spiritual mother.

“Naomi is the best, most emotionally stable and highly committed woman of God and lady apostle I have ever met in my Christian walk,” Gautama says of her friend and role model, noting that the mentoring relationship has provided her with “a safety net” of accountability.

Meanwhile, Dowdy and other American church leaders see Gautama as a model for younger leaders who will have an impact on the 21st century church.

“Indri is setting a trend for this generation,” Dowdy says. “She is willing to change and willing to become all that God calls her to be—which involves taking risks, receiving criticism but not being reactionary. Because she is so gracious she has been able to win over many of her former critics.”

American minister Barbara Wentroble, who founded her own apostolic network in Dallas recently, has preached in Gautama’s church and participated in conferences with her. “Indri is so bold and is such a risk-taker, even though she is coming out of a culture where women are oppressed. The culture has not held her down,” Wentroble says.

When you ask Gautama to describe her vision, she talks rapidly and with passion—just as she does in the pulpit at her church. “The members of my church know that they are called to be His transforming agents,” she says. “We are to win, nurture and disciple souls and develop them to be apostolic leaders so that we can advance the kingdom of God.”

But Gautama is not just talk. She works hard (so hard, in fact, that she has not yet found time to marry) and her staff puts in long hours to carry out the church’s vision.

Once a week Gautama hosts in her home a special care cell for 80 children and teenagers. The meeting lasts almost all day, and provides Gautama a chance to personally disciple those who will carry her vision years after she is gone.

“One 15-year-old boy is leading our junior youth care cell, and he recently led a 12-year-old girl to the Lord,” Gautama says. “That girl was a test-tube baby and was on drugs and suicidal. Today she is being discipled.”

And that will be Indri Gautama’s legacy. One way or another, this courageous pioneer will make sure that thousands of young Indonesians not only hear the gospel but are also trained to transform Indonesia for Christ.

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J. Lee Grady is a contributing editor of Charisma. He visited Indri Gautama in Jakarta years ago and interviewed her again a short time later.

It’s time to rediscover the humbling power.
My favorite scene in the new movie The Nativity Story shows a nasty King Herod barking military orders to his guards. He feels threatened by the prophecy of a new king in Israel, and he wants to make sure this renegade messiah gets caught. So he tells his soldiers to nab him when he arrives in Bethlehem.

Herod says the phantom king will be easy to identify since he will be a man of wealth and significance. So the soldiers station themselves all around Bethlehem, looking for a well-dressed guy traveling with an entourage.

But no such man of importance arrives in the little Judean town—only poor Jews, including an exhausted young peasant who has traveled 100 miles with his very pregnant wife, a donkey and barely enough provisions to stay alive. The soldiers let Mary and Joseph pass. After all, can anything good come out of Nazareth?

That amazing moment provides the essence of the Christmas story. When God sent His only begotten Son into the world, the “important” people didn’t recognize Him. Jesus’ parents were commoners. He didn’t come with fancy robes or royal fanfare. He slept on a bed of hay, and angels announced His birth in a lonely field when only a few shepherds were awake to hear the news.

Judging by Madison Avenue standards, this was a public relations disaster. There were no news conferences, press releases, book signings or fireworks displays. Jesus got absolutely no airtime on CNN or Face the Nation. It’s true that He got His own star, but only a watchful few even noticed it.

Herod expected any king worth his crown to enter the city with banners, dancing girls, trumpet blasts and big-budget hoopla. But God didn’t do it man’s way. He slipped in the back door.

Even the mysterious magi who visited Jesus after His birth took the low-key approach to publicity. When they saw the child they “fell to the ground” to worship (Matt. 2:11, NASB) and then returned to their country unnoticed. After being in the Messiah’s presence, they had no interest in returning to Herod’s luxurious palace to play his power games.

Bethlehem, as simple as it was, changed everything.

This Christmas, I hope to spend some time kneeling on the floor as I think about that manger. There is something about the birthplace of Jesus—a crude, cramped room that smelled of dirt and animal waste—that helps me reorder my priorities. If this is where the Savior made His debut, then it is only in the place of humility that His presence will abide.

Unfortunately in today’s church many of us have adopted Herod’s values. We are impressed by fame, wealth and sophistication. We think God likes grand entrances, entourages and red carpets. We’ve been seduced by our celebrity-obsessed culture. Some misguided ministers have even reinvented the Christmas story to fit their self-centered theology.

One prominent television preacher told an Atlanta newspaper recently that Jesus was actually very wealthy, and that He got much of His treasure from the magi when they visited Him as a child.

The Bible actually does not tell us the amount of gold the wise men presented to Jesus, but Bible scholars say it could not have been enough to make Jesus independently wealthy during His time on Earth. After all, if Jesus were that rich, why would He have needed a coin from a fish’s mouth to pay His taxes? And why would He have needed to borrow a tomb from an affluent friend?

People can waste their time arguing about how many gold coins Jesus had stashed under His mattress. But my Bible says plainly: “For your sake He became poor” (2 Cor. 8:9). The point is that Jesus—who deserved all the applause in the world, and who owns all its riches—took the lowest road when He came into the world. He was teaching us that the path to greatness starts when we lay down our reputation and become servants.

My prayer is that we all will find a place to kneel near Bethlehem’s manger. There, amidst the sheep, the straw and the simple swaddling clothes, we will rediscover the humbling power of Christmas.

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J. Lee Grady is editor of Charisma and author of 10 Lies the Church Tells Women (Charisma House). His ministry, The Mordecai Project, focuses on empowering women in ministry and confronting abuse. His weekly online column is available at .