Going to the Tough Places

YWAM aims to send church planters to every people group by 2015

YWAMers have never been afraid to go to the tough places. And today they are seeing God do a breathtaking work among the millions who don’t know Jesus.

“We are on track to have a church-planting team among every people group by 2015,” predicts Gina Fadely, YWAM’s director of frontier missions. “Then the task to evangelize will fall to the indigenous churches.”

The face of frontier missions is changing dramatically, says Fadely, 49, who is based in Florida: “One of the greatest changes is seeing the mission field become the missions force.” 

In the early 1990s, YWAM had 400 church planters working among the unreached. Today it has 2,300 missionaries, including more than 1,500 church planters. “Our dream is to see indigenous churches among every people group,” Fadely says. “The fastest way to see fruit is to go indigenous as quickly as possible.”

In the Middle East, North Africa and South Asia, YWAMers are planting churches among 248 previously unreached people groups and seeing churches multiply in more than half these locations. Increasingly, native missionaries are a growing force, but there’s still room for missionaries from the U.S. and elsewhere, such as China. “If we’re not looking strategically at China as the biggest sending force in the future, we’re missing the mark,” Fadely observes.

More than half of YWAM’s frontier missionaries work among Muslims. In 1992, the ministry launched the 30 Days Muslim Prayer Focus, calling Christians to pray for the Islamic world during the month of Ramadan. Within a decade, more than 1 million participants were praying for Muslim peoples, with prayer booklets produced in 35 languages.

The global swell of intercessory prayer is unlocking doors in Islamic nations. Jesus is appearing in dreams to many Muslims, says a YWAM worker in the Middle East. Fadely adds: “Many young people in the Muslim world are dissatisfied with life, and they’re curious about Jesus. They’re using the Internet to explore faith, and that opens up huge potential for cross-cultural evangelism.”

Some 2,500 YWAMers took part in a Reconciliation Walk to express remorse for the way medieval Crusades—which were undertaken in the name of Christ—mistreated Muslims. Teams walked the entire 1,500-mile route from Europe to Jerusalem. In Turkey, which is 99 percent Muslim, people lined the streets to applaud them.



How to Find Peace With God

Perhaps you realized you have never made a Christian commitment. Don’t delay that decision! We encourage you to embrace God’s love today and receive the salvation that only Jesus Christ gives. Here are five simple steps you can take to find assurance of salvation:

1. Recognize your need. The Bible tells us that “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Rom. 3:23, NASB). All of us are sinners, and we must admit our need for a Savior.

2. Repent of your sins. Our sins create a wall that separates us from God. By confessing your sins and turning from them, you will find forgiveness. The Bible promises: “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9).

3. Believe in Jesus. God wrought a miracle when He sent His only Son to die so that He could pay for all our sins. Put your faith in Him and believe in His power to save you. The Bible says, “‘For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life’” (John 3:16).

4. Receive His salvation. God has given us a great gift in His Son, but we must receive His gift. Thank Him for loving and forgiving you, and ask Him to live in your heart. His promise to us is clear: “But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God” (John 1:12).

5. Confess your faith. The Bible assures us: “If you confess with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved” (Rom. 10:9). You have been born again and are now part of God’s family. Tell someone else what Jesus has done in your life!



A Professor With Spirit

Considered the first Bible scholar of the modern Pentecostal movement, Gordon Fee has spent the last 40 years proving that the Holy Spirit and biblical scholarship can peacefully coexist.

Gordon Fee knows how it feels to be a lone ranger. Regarded as the first Bible scholar of the modern Pentecostal movement, Fee is a maverick. For 40 years he has fought an uphill battle in Pentecostal circles, within a movement that has been traditionally wary of theological endeavors and has placed far stronger emphasis on spiritual experience. 

When dealing with such quarrelsome topics as the role of women in the church, speaking in tongues and prosperity theology, the sparks inevitably fly. “I’ve put up with a lot of balderdash,” he says.

Yet his insights into the apostle Paul’s teachings have influenced thousands of believers. And his writings have opened up the New Testament for Christians across the theological span.

Now, at the age of 76, Fee looks back on a life dedicated to the unveiling of scriptural truths—and insists there is room for both the Holy Spirit and biblical scholarship in the Pentecostal tradition of the 21st century.

The son of an Assemblies of God (AG) pastor, Fee grew up in northern Washington state. He describes himself as “a pretty miserable kid” who took out his anger on the basketball court. During high school, he placed his life in God’s hands and experienced the baptism of the Spirit at a Pentecostal camp meeting. 

“I changed so completely that people didn’t know how to handle it,” he recalls.

At the age of 20, while a student at Seattle Pacific University, Fee preached his first sermon. He was ordained in the denomination after college and followed his father into the pastorate. But when he accepted an invitation to teach at the Seattle university, Fee was captivated by a whole new world—the arena of musty manuscripts and scholarly study. “It was as if all the lights came on,” he recalls.

Fee and his wife, Maudine—who thought they would head to the mission field—felt the Holy Spirit’s nudge in a different direction. Maudine worked nights so her husband could juggle his Ph.D. studies and look after their four young children. Poring over endless manuscripts put Fee under enormous pressure, but in 1966 he became the first scholar from a Pentecostal background to earn a doctorate in biblical studies.

As he pursued opportunities to teach and write, his reputation as an independent thinker and New Testament scholar grew quickly. Many Bible scholars, Fee says, write books to fit their theology. He strives to plumb the Scriptures without a preconceived Pentecostal bent, an approach known as exegesis in scholarly terms.

“I don’t think of myself as a Pentecostal scholar,” says Fee, who today holds a dual citizenship and lives in Vancouver, Canada. “I think of myself as a scholar who happens to be a lifelong Pentecostal.”

The AG hierarchy has always held him at arm’s length, unsure how to deal with one of their own who took the unprecedented leap into the world of biblical scholars. Fee’s exposition of the New Testament, especially some difficult passages, has raised eyebrows in his denomination, and his reluctance to automatically toe the theological line has caused some frustration at AG headquarters.

Today Fee is professor emeritus of New Testament Studies at Regent College, an interdenominational theological school in Vancouver. His willingness to stick his neck out on theological issues has emboldened a new generation of scholars who hold to Pentecostal and charismatic convictions.

Since Fee took his pioneering steps, other Pentecostals have earned recognition as Bible scholars, and many of them cite him as their inspiration. The Society for Pentecostal Studies in Cleveland, Tenn., is a forum for more than 600 Pentecostal and charismatic scholars. Director David Roebuck says of Fee: “His biblical studies have been very influential on the majority of our members.” 

For the most part, though, Pentecostals remain resistant to—or indifferent toward—theology and scholarship. After all, modern Pentecostalism was birthed in spiritual experience, not intellectualism. As the movement spread, Pentecostals simply didn’t see a need for theological pursuits. “We don’t need scholars; we just need the Holy Spirit!” has been the mainstream Pentecostal cry for the last 100 years.

Among evangelicals, few have looked to Pentecostals for in-depth biblical teaching. A commonly held view has been: “Pentecostal theology? What’s that?”

Says Fee: “In defense of my Pentecostal tradition, we grew up with an outpouring of the Holy Spirit that swept the world like a storm. For many Christians, it was ‘Father, Son and Holy Book.’ They would say, ‘I believe in the Holy Spirit,’ but that was it. The Pentecostal movement brought people into a direct encounter with the living God.”

So, do Pentecostals need Bible scholars?

“The question is not do we need Bible scholars, but are we willing to embrace them?” Fee responds. “If we are willing to embrace someone with a Ph.D. in history, why not embrace someone with a Ph.D. in New Testament studies, which, after all, is a branch of history?”

Fee adds: “Having a Ph.D. has not stopped me from being Spirit-filled.”

Fee is a sought-after author, and many Christian publishing houses want the rights to his books that help readers delve deeper into the Word. His most popular, How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth (co-authored with Douglas Stuart), is in its third edition and has sold more than 1 million copies. Perhaps the reason for its runaway success is Fee’s simplistic approach. “The worst enemy of Scripture is the numbers and verses,” Fee says. “Get rid of the numbers, and you can read the Scriptures.”

Fee admits to being amazed that no Pentecostal had theological books published before him. Students would listen to his lectures and ask, “Where can I find this published?” Realizing such a book did not exist, Fee decided he would fill the gap. Since the 1970s, he has written numerous books examining the New Testament and, in particular, the apostle Paul’s teachings.

Outside Pentecostalism, Fee has been rebuffed by some evangelical critics who view “Pentecostal Bible scholar” as an oxymoron. He’s been excluded from speaking in certain evangelical colleges because of his Pentecostal roots. 

“You need to know that I am a committed Pentecostal,” Fee explained to a peer at one college where he was invited to teach. “There was a silence on the other end of the line. They said, ‘Thank you,’ and that was the end of the conversation. They wouldn’t touch me with a 10-foot pole.”

In another instance, a group of scholars on an interdenominational study panel opposed every one of Fee’s proposals. But not all non-Pentecostals clash with Fee. Many respect his deep understanding of the Scriptures and the insights he offers, even if they disagree with him on some points. “Our young people need the affirmation that it’s all right to be an intellectual, to be a scholar and to be a Pentecostal,” he says.

Yet the arena of biblical interpretation, or “textual criticism” as it’s known in scholarly circles, can be a minefield of controversy. Fee has found himself repeatedly and unwittingly in the center of the debate over the role of women in ministry. After years of battling the issue, Fee is weary of confronting it. But he is adamant: God does gift women for ministry.

“It’s a given,” he says. “The real question is, Which comes first, gender or gifting? What [opponents of women in ministry] are trying to tell me is that gender comes above gifting. How can that be? The Spirit gives the gifting. If a woman stands and prophesies by the Spirit, and men are present, does the Spirit not speak to them? Come on! How dumb can you get?”

His advocacy, Fee says, is on behalf of the Holy Spirit rather than women. “The Spirit is gifting women,” he says, “but many evangelicals are not prepared to adjust because of the ‘box’ they’re in.

“I’ve been blacklisted over this issue,” he adds. “People have said, ‘We can’t have Fee speak because he’s pro-women.’ I am pro-Holy Spirit! I just can’t get over that some people think gender comes before gifting.”

Another area of contention for Fee is the prosperity gospel, or what he calls “health and wealth” teachings. His book The Disease of the Health and Wealth Gospels is a blistering rebuke of prosperity and perfect health teachings, which he claims have no basis in Scripture. What he describes as the “false gospel” of health and wealth has caused “immense damage” to the charismatic movement, he says. 

“Fight over tongues and prophecy if you have to, but don’t fight over something as unbiblical as [health and wealth theology],” he observes. Fee notes in the book that the theology of this gospel seems far more to fit the American dream than the teaching of Him who had “nowhere to lay His head.” 

“We shouldn’t reconstruct the Christian faith into an advancement of the American way of life, which I feel is the great sin of the American church today,” he says.

The problem with health and wealth teaching, Fee says, is one of hermeneutics, or “interpretation of Scripture.” He believes much of the prosperity teaching is dressed “in biblical garb” but “flies full in the face of the whole New Testament.”

Twisting certain scriptural passages to fit their theology, proponents of health and wealth are “guilty of selectivity,” Fee says, and then they “avoid … texts that stand squarely in opposition to their teaching.”

He highlights 3 John 2 as a key example: “Beloved, I wish above all things that thou mayest prosper and be in health, even as thy soul prospereth” (KJV). Fee says prosperity teachers interpret this verse as saying, in effect: “We should prosper and be in good health.” 

He contends, however, that the Greek word translated as “prosper” in the King James Version means “to go well with someone.” The equivalent of it today would be if someone wrote: “I pray this letter finds you all well.” 

He concludes: “The combination of wishing for ‘things to go well’ and for the recipient’s ‘good health’ was the standard form of greeting in a personal letter. To extend [John’s greeting] to refer to financial and material prosperity for all Christians of all times is totally foreign to the text.”

Fee also questions the prosperity movement’s interpretation of the term “abundant life” in John 10:10. The meaning has nothing to do with material abundance, he says, adding that “life” literally means the “life of the Age to come.” The Greek word perrison, translated “more abundantly” in the KJV, means “simply that believers are to enjoy this gift of life to the full,” he says. “Material abundance is not implied either in the word ‘life’ or ‘to the full.’”

The teaching of perfect health is a distortion of the Bible’s teaching on healing, he claims: “Gifts of healing belong in the church, but [perfect health theology] has created … neurotic believers, because they don’t seem to be able to muster up ‘enough faith’ [to be healed].” Again, proponents of perfect health theology “simply fail to do adequate exegesis, which has to do with determining the meaning of a text in its original context,” he says.

He cites Galatians 3:13, a favorite verse of perfect health advocates, in which Paul states that “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law” (NIV). Proponents link this verse with Deuteronomy 28:21-22, he says, in which disease is named as one of the curses of disobedience to the law. 

“There is not even the remotest possibility that Paul was referring to the curses of Deuteronomy 28 when he spoke of the ‘curse of the law,’” Fee states. “And ‘redemption’ in Galatians has to do with one thing only—how does one have right standing with God.”

The real issue, Fee says, is not how to get the biblical text “to work for us” but how to understand the text in the light of the full biblical revelation. He acknowledges that his sympathies lie with those who want to see God perform miracles of healing.

“One must ruefully admit that evangelical Christianity by and large does not expect much from God,” he notes. “Most Christians’ expectation level when it comes to the miraculous is somewhere between zero and minus five. Even though evangelicals often pray, ‘If it be Thy will, please heal so-and-so,’ they would probably … faint if God actually answered.”

Clearly Fee loves the Word, noting that heresies are creeping into the church because of lack of theological understanding and misinterpretation of Scripture. What’s needed, he emphasizes, is Spirit-filled living and sound scriptural interpretation. “If I could say one thing to the American church,” he cautions, “it would be this: Keep integrity with Scripture and spiritual experience.” 

Julian Lukins is a writer based in Sequim, Wash.

Visit  to watch Fee discuss how Christians miss the mark when studying the Bible



Professor Proves Pentecostalism and Scholarship Can Coexist

A Professor with SpiritGordon Fee knows how it feels to be a lone ranger. Regarded as the first Bible scholar of the modern Pentecostal movement, Fee is a maverick. For 40 years he has fought an uphill battle in Pentecostal circles, within a movement that has been traditionally wary of theological endeavors and has placed far stronger emphasis on spiritual experience. 

When dealing with such quarrelsome topics as the role of women in the church, speaking in tongues and prosperity theology, the sparks inevitably fly. “I’ve put up with a lot of balderdash,” he says.

Yet his insights into the apostle Paul’s teachings have influenced thousands of believers. And his writings have opened up the New Testament for Christians across the theological span.

Now, at the age of 76, Fee looks back on a life dedicated to the unveiling of scriptural truths—and insists there is room for both the Holy Spirit and biblical scholarship in the Pentecostal tradition of the 21st century.

The son of an Assemblies of God (AG) pastor, Fee grew up in northern Washington state. He describes himself as “a pretty miserable kid” who took out his anger on the basketball court. During high school, he placed his life in God’s hands and experienced the baptism of the Spirit at a Pentecostal camp meeting. 

“I changed so completely that people didn’t know how to handle it,” he recalls.

At the age of 20, while a student at Seattle Pacific University, Fee preached his first sermon. He was ordained in the denomination after college and followed his father into the pastorate. But when he accepted an invitation to teach at the Seattle university, Fee was captivated by a whole new world—the arena of musty manuscripts and scholarly study. “It was as if all the lights came on,” he recalls.

Fee and his wife, Maudine—who thought they would head to the mission field—felt the Holy Spirit’s nudge in a different direction. Maudine worked nights so her husband could juggle his Ph.D. studies and look after their four young children. Poring over endless manuscripts put Fee under enormous pressure, but in 1966 he became the first scholar from a Pentecostal background to earn a doctorate in biblical studies.

As he pursued opportunities to teach and write, his reputation as an independent thinker and New Testament scholar grew quickly. Many Bible scholars, Fee says, write books to fit their theology. He strives to plumb the Scriptures without a preconceived Pentecostal bent, an approach known as exegesis in scholarly terms.

“I don’t think of myself as a Pentecostal scholar,” says Fee, who today holds a dual citizenship and lives in Vancouver, Canada. “I think of myself as a scholar who happens to be a lifelong Pentecostal.”

The AG hierarchy has always held him at arm’s length, unsure how to deal with one of their own who took the unprecedented leap into the world of biblical scholars. Fee’s exposition of the New Testament, especially some difficult passages, has raised eyebrows in his denomination, and his reluctance to automatically toe the theological line has caused some frustration at AG headquarters.

Today Fee is professor emeritus of New Testament Studies at Regent College, an interdenominational theological school in Vancouver. His willingness to stick his neck out on theological issues has emboldened a new generation of scholars who hold to Pentecostal and charismatic convictions.

Since Fee took his pioneering steps, other Pentecostals have earned recognition as Bible scholars, and many of them cite him as their inspiration. The Society for Pentecostal Studies in Cleveland, Tenn., is a forum for more than 600 Pentecostal and charismatic scholars. Director David Roebuck says of Fee: “His biblical studies have been very influential on the majority of our members.” 

For the most part, though, Pentecostals remain resistant to—or indifferent toward—theology and scholarship. After all, modern Pentecostalism was birthed in spiritual experience, not intellectualism. As the movement spread, Pentecostals simply didn’t see a need for theological pursuits. “We don’t need scholars; we just need the Holy Spirit!” has been the mainstream Pentecostal cry for the last 100 years.

Among evangelicals, few have looked to Pentecostals for in-depth biblical teaching. A commonly held view has been: “Pentecostal theology? What’s that?”

Says Fee: “In defense of my Pentecostal tradition, we grew up with an outpouring of the Holy Spirit that swept the world like a storm. For many Christians, it was ‘Father, Son and Holy Book.’ They would say, ‘I believe in the Holy Spirit,’ but that was it. The Pentecostal movement brought people into a direct encounter with the living God.”

So, do Pentecostals need Bible scholars?

“The question is not do we need Bible scholars, but are we willing to embrace them?” Fee responds. “If we are willing to embrace someone with a Ph.D. in history, why not embrace someone with a Ph.D. in New Testament studies, which, after all, is a branch of history?”

Fee adds: “Having a Ph.D. has not stopped me from being Spirit-filled.”

Fee is a sought-after author, and many Christian publishing houses want the rights to his books that help readers delve deeper into the Word. His most popular, How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth (co-authored with Douglas Stuart), is in its third edition and has sold more than 1 million copies. Perhaps the reason for its runaway success is Fee’s simplistic approach. “The worst enemy of Scripture is the numbers and verses,” Fee says. “Get rid of the numbers, and you can read the Scriptures.”

Fee admits to being amazed that no Pentecostal had theological books published before him. Students would listen to his lectures and ask, “Where can I find this published?” Realizing such a book did not exist, Fee decided he would fill the gap. Since the 1970s, he has written numerous books examining the New Testament and, in particular, the apostle Paul’s teachings.

Outside Pentecostalism, Fee has been rebuffed by some evangelical critics who view “Pentecostal Bible scholar” as an oxymoron. He’s been excluded from speaking in certain evangelical colleges because of his Pentecostal roots. 

“You need to know that I am a committed Pentecostal,” Fee explained to a peer at one college where he was invited to teach. “There was a silence on the other end of the line. They said, ‘Thank you,’ and that was the end of the conversation. They wouldn’t touch me with a 10-foot pole.”

In another instance, a group of scholars on an interdenominational study panel opposed every one of Fee’s proposals. But not all non-Pentecostals clash with Fee. Many respect his deep understanding of the Scriptures and the insights he offers, even if they disagree with him on some points. “Our young people need the affirmation that it’s all right to be an intellectual, to be a scholar and to be a Pentecostal,” he says.

Yet the arena of biblical interpretation, or “textual criticism” as it’s known in scholarly circles, can be a minefield of controversy. Fee has found himself repeatedly and unwittingly in the center of the debate over the role of women in ministry. After years of battling the issue, Fee is weary of confronting it. But he is adamant: God does gift women for ministry.

“It’s a given,” he says. “The real question is, Which comes first, gender or gifting? What [opponents of women in ministry] are trying to tell me is that gender comes above gifting. How can that be? The Spirit gives the gifting. If a woman stands and prophesies by the Spirit, and men are present, does the Spirit not speak to them? Come on! How dumb can you get?”

His advocacy, Fee says, is on behalf of the Holy Spirit rather than women. “The Spirit is gifting women,” he says, “but many evangelicals are not prepared to adjust because of the ‘box’ they’re in.

“I’ve been blacklisted over this issue,” he adds. “People have said, ‘We can’t have Fee speak because he’s pro-women.’ I am pro-Holy Spirit! I just can’t get over that some people think gender comes before gifting.”

Another area of contention for Fee is the prosperity gospel, or what he calls “health and wealth” teachings. His book The Disease of the Health and Wealth Gospels is a blistering rebuke of prosperity and perfect health teachings, which he claims have no basis in Scripture. What he describes as the “false gospel” of health and wealth has caused “immense damage” to the charismatic movement, he says. 

“Fight over tongues and prophecy if you have to, but don’t fight over something as unbiblical as [health and wealth theology],” he observes. Fee notes in the book that the theology of this gospel seems far more to fit the American dream than the teaching of Him who had “nowhere to lay His head.” 

“We shouldn’t reconstruct the Christian faith into an advancement of the American way of life, which I feel is the great sin of the American church today,” he says.

The problem with health and wealth teaching, Fee says, is one of hermeneutics, or “interpretation of Scripture.” He believes much of the prosperity teaching is dressed “in biblical garb” but “flies full in the face of the whole New Testament.”

Twisting certain scriptural passages to fit their theology, proponents of health and wealth are “guilty of selectivity,” Fee says, and then they “avoid … texts that stand squarely in opposition to their teaching.”

He highlights 3 John 2 as a key example: “Beloved, I wish above all things that thou mayest prosper and be in health, even as thy soul prospereth” (KJV). Fee says prosperity teachers interpret this verse as saying, in effect: “We should prosper and be in good health.” 

He contends, however, that the Greek word translated as “prosper” in the King James Version means “to go well with someone.” The equivalent of it today would be if someone wrote: “I pray this letter finds you all well.” 

He concludes: “The combination of wishing for ‘things to go well’ and for the recipient’s ‘good health’ was the standard form of greeting in a personal letter. To extend [John’s greeting] to refer to financial and material prosperity for all Christians of all times is totally foreign to the text.”

Fee also questions the prosperity movement’s interpretation of the term “abundant life” in John 10:10. The meaning has nothing to do with material abundance, he says, adding that “life” literally means the “life of the Age to come.” The Greek word perrison, translated “more abundantly” in the KJV, means “simply that believers are to enjoy this gift of life to the full,” he says. “Material abundance is not implied either in the word ‘life’ or ‘to the full.’”

The teaching of perfect health is a distortion of the Bible’s teaching on healing, he claims: “Gifts of healing belong in the church, but [perfect health theology] has created … neurotic believers, because they don’t seem to be able to muster up ‘enough faith’ [to be healed].” Again, proponents of perfect health theology “simply fail to do adequate exegesis, which has to do with determining the meaning of a text in its original context,” he says.

He cites Galatians 3:13, a favorite verse of perfect health advocates, in which Paul states that “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law” (NIV). Proponents link this verse with Deuteronomy 28:21-22, he says, in which disease is named as one of the curses of disobedience to the law. 

“There is not even the remotest possibility that Paul was referring to the curses of Deuteronomy 28 when he spoke of the ‘curse of the law,’” Fee states. “And ‘redemption’ in Galatians has to do with one thing only—how does one have right standing with God.”

The real issue, Fee says, is not how to get the biblical text “to work for us” but how to understand the text in the light of the full biblical revelation. He acknowledges that his sympathies lie with those who want to see God perform miracles of healing.

“One must ruefully admit that evangelical Christianity by and large does not expect much from God,” he notes. “Most Christians’ expectation level when it comes to the miraculous is somewhere between zero and minus five. Even though evangelicals often pray, ‘If it be Thy will, please heal so-and-so,’ they would probably … faint if God actually answered.”

Clearly Fee loves the Word, noting that heresies are creeping into the church because of lack of theological understanding and misinterpretation of Scripture. What’s needed, he emphasizes, is Spirit-filled living and sound scriptural interpretation. “If I could say one thing to the American church,” he cautions, “it would be this: Keep integrity with Scripture and spiritual experience.” 

Julian Lukins is a writer based in Sequim, Wash.

Visit  to watch Fee discuss how Christians miss the mark when studying the Bible




Man (and 2.5 million Youth) With a Mission

Loren Cunningham and YWAM celebrate 50 years of reaching the world with the gospel

Loren Cunningham has always been a dreamer. As a young ministry student, he had a vision of waves crashing over the earth—waves that turned into thousands of young people taking the gospel to every nation. Fifty years later, that dream is one of the most influential missions movements in history.

At the age of 25, joined by a small band of “Jesus freaks” who shared his vision that Spirit-filled young people could be world changers, Cunningham founded Youth With A Mission (YWAM). Amid the hippie counterculture of the 1960s, at a time when short-term missions was virtually unheard of, YWAM ignited a missions revolution that sent waves of teenagers and college students proclaiming Jesus across oceans and continents.


Today, YWAM (pronounced Y-wam) is active in more than 150 nations. It’s estimated that 2.5 million people have participated in its missions training or short-term outreaches, using performing arts, music, sports and compassion ministry to share the gospel in word and deed. Hundreds of thousands more have served in YWAM’s evangelistic children’s arm, King’s Kids.

Some 16,000 full-time missionaries (known as YWAMers) representing more than 200 nationalities serve in 1,000 tremendously diverse locations, from the urban centers of Europe and North America to the jungles of South Asia. Most of them are under the age of 30. Their mission? To know God and to make Him known.

“God has given us the amazing privilege in our time of releasing young missionaries from 215 nations and many cultures,” says Cunningham, a former Assemblies of God youth minister. “The angels must have a fabulous view—a microcosm of when every people will gather before God’s throne.”

Cunningham and his wife, Darlene, are scheduled to visit 34 nations across six continents this year to celebrate YWAM’s 50th anniversary. Halfway through the global trek, Cunningham—who is enrolled in 14 frequent flier programs and holds two U.S. passports to expedite visas—describes the tour as “breathtaking.” 

At age 75, he has visited every nation—239 to be precise, plus 160 islands and territories. (The number of sovereign nations varies according to criteria used by researchers). “Others have done it as a hobby,” Cunningham points out, “but my travel is for one purpose: the kingdom of God.” For Cunningham and most other YWAMers, reaching the nations has been a journey of faith. Every missionary is unpaid. From the president to the newest recruit, all YWAMers raise their own financial support. And each one has stories of God’s miraculous provision. 

After Cunningham wrote Daring to Live on the Edge, thousands of new YWAMers from across the evangelical and charismatic spectrum took up the challenge to trust their finances completely to God—many literally not knowing where their next meal was coming from.

Such radical faith is a hallmark of YWAM worldwide. “Our DNA is discipleship,” states Lynn Green, YWAM’s chairman, “making every believer aware of the Holy Spirit within us and obeying everything Jesus taught us.”

Green, a 40-year YWAM veteran, was 22 when he joined the fledgling band of Jesus followers that made up YWAM’s training school in Switzerland in 1970. “I didn’t feel a calling to missions as such,” says Green, a Colorado native. “After years of backsliding in my teens, I made a sincere commitment to the lordship of Jesus. I knew I needed teaching and stability if I was to survive as a Christian.”

All the YWAM students, he recalls, lived together, studied together and ate meals together—a communal arrangement that’s typical at YWAM centers, or “bases,” around the world. “There was very much a sense of ‘we’re all in this together,’ in believing in one another,” Green says, “a sense that God could use us and that we could go wherever He said and do whatever He said.” 

By the age of 25, Green was leading a YWAM training school with more than 100 volunteer staff. He married the Cunninghams’ former secretary and two of their children became full-time YWAMers. The tendency for YWAM to “get in the blood” and go generational prevails, with some of the “oldies” now seeing their grandchildren become third-generation missionaries with YWAM.

Why are so many attracted to YWAM? “God is still in it,” Green says, “and it’s an environment in which people are able to do what God has called them to do—hopefully without interference. We’re aware of the tendency to become a bureaucracy, and we fight it. Our goal has always been to let young people have a go, warts and all. Even when we make mistakes, we don’t want to start laying down rules.”

YWAM’s rebellious streak is another trademark—one that has been paradoxically both a strength and a weakness. “Our strength is in being decentralized and nonhierarchical … and our weakness is in being decentralized and nonhierarchical,” Green says. “‘Chaos’ and ‘anarchy’ are two words that have been used to describe YWAM, and I don’t deny it. We have no aspirations to be a well-oiled machine.”

As such, YWAM does not have an international headquarters like most global organizations. YWAM’s former president Jim Stier summed it up, pointing at his laptop computer and stating: “This is our HQ.”

Yet this “disorganization” is exactly what has drawn so many people to YWAM. “I suppose there will always be a sort of spiritual anarchy in YWAM,” says missiologist Patrick Johnstone, co-author of Operation World. “It hooked a cautious, wounded generation of believers into wholeness in Jesus and into long-term missions.”

In the early days, the inexperienced troupes of longhaired, youthful YWAMers on evangelistic outreaches were frowned on by the missions establishment. But gradually YWAMers won respect for going places and doing things others couldn’t or wouldn’t. “The Jesus movement is long forgotten by most,” says missions researcher Michael Jaffarian, “but YWAM is a continuing expression of that work of God.”

One of the most prominent YWAMers during the Jesus movement era was Floyd McClung, a young American who joined the hippie trail in Afghanistan, sharing Jesus with travelers on the road to Kathmandu. In the early 1970s, McClung and his wife, Sally, moved to Amsterdam to run The Ark—two houseboats aboard which YWAMers befriended runaways, drug addicts and disillusioned wanderers.

The McClungs started a ministry to prostitutes in Amsterdam’s notorious red-light district. YWAMers handed out roses to the prostitutes and offered them the message that Jesus loved them. The ministry, a window into YWAM’s heart for social outcasts, continues today.

McClung now leads a separate church-planting initiative based in South Africa. He and Sally were among the first to join the Cunninghams when they were working out of a small office in Pasadena, Calif., in the 1960s. In those days, YWAM was “a band of dreamers and visionaries who dared to believe God could use us to change the world,” McClung told Charisma. 

The Cunninghams, McClung says, were “years ahead of their time. … [They] saw that missions was for all nations to all nations, and not just the West going to the rest. They believed in women in leadership, empowering the poor, holistic transformation and discipling the nations.”

An Eye on the Future

As YWAM’s influence spread, waves of enthusiastic young missionaries swept over the continents—exactly as Loren Cunningham’s prophetic vision had foretold. Soon, it wasn’t just Western missionaries carrying the torch—non-Westerners were leading the charge. “When we started, a missionary was a white man going to a non-white man,” Cunningham says. “YWAM turned that upside down.”

Like Cunningham, YWAMers dream big—and God works miracles in response to their faith. Bursting with enthusiasm but hardly flush with cash, YWAM acquired several impressive properties for use as training centers—properties that materialized after its leaders prayed, fasted and trusted God. These include a manor house and a former orphanage in England, a castle in Germany and a hotel turned college campus—now YWAM’s University of the Nations—in Hawaii.

Every year, thousands of young people graduate from YWAM training schools and go on missions trips, often to challenging locations. Short-term missionaries—those who serve for a few weeks to a year—also pay their own way to special events such as the FIFA World Cup and the Olympic Games. At the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, Canada, YWAMers held placards on street corners offering “free prayer.”

By morphing creatively into the culture, YWAM hasn’t grown stale. Through the years, YWAMers have come up with innovative ways to share the gospel with those most unlikely to go to church. In Hawaii, YWAM’s Solid Rock surf café welcomed surfers and beach bums; in Minneapolis, the Hard Core Bible Study met in a former funeral home, connecting with teenage “death metal” music fans, several of whom surrendered their lives to Christ in the dark embalming room.

Cunningham—who lives in Kona, Hawaii, when he’s not globe-trotting—is still dreaming big, and he believes the Holy Spirit wants to unleash a new wave of creative dreams and visions on others. “God has a dream for every person,” he says, “and when we truly submit to the lordship of Jesus, the Holy Spirit leads us into our gifts and calling. My calling is to open up opportunities. I am a door opener in the house of the Lord, to help others find their place in fulfilling the Great Commission.”

This “door opener” is now one of the most respected pioneers and visionaries of modern evangelical missions. He names Billy Graham and Brother Andrew among his friends and mentors, and reminisces that the late Corrie ten Boom taught in a YWAM Discipleship Training School—the YWAMer’s rite of passage. 

Listening to God’s voice and obeying Him, Cunningham says, is the key to YWAM’s phenomenal impact. Last year, 26 young YWAMers in Nigeria were praying and felt God telling them to witness to a group of vicious militants known for murder, rape and occult practices. Thinking they might have the wrong idea, the young missionaries returned to prayer, listening intently for God’s voice. The word came back loud and clear: Go! 

So the YWAMers, most in their late teens, moved into the militants’ camp and started serving them, doing menial chores and telling them about Jesus. In the past year, hundreds have surrendered their weapons and come to Christ. “They’re broken … they’re crying out to God,” Cunningham says, “all because 26 young people listened to God’s voice and obeyed.”

One of YWAM’s major thrusts is ministering to broken people—especially the poor, the oppressed and victims of conflict and disasters. “Mercy ministries have been an inseparable part of YWAM from the beginning,” says Steve Goode, a long-time YWAMer who heads the organization’s compassion arm. “Even though back in 1960 we didn’t know what YWAM’s three overarching themes—evangelism, training and mercy ministries—would look like, loving your neighbor and the Great Commandment were there at the onset.”

YWAM’s mercy programs—including disaster relief, AIDS care and support for human trafficking victims—merge with evangelism and church planting, Goode explains, who led YWAM’s refugee ministry in the 1980s, assisting Cambodians who had fled genocide. “It’s the absolutely poor who will need to see the gospel before they hear its message. What does ‘good news’ look like to the poor? As we become more like Jesus, it will look like self-sacrificing love.”

Compassion ministries developed by YWAMers in places where people haven’t heard about Jesus help pave the way for church-planting teams. YWAM responded to the catastrophic earthquakes in Haiti and Chile this year. Mercy Ships, a hospital ship ministry launched by YWAM in 1978 and now independent, provides medical care.

“We really have no idea how many people we’ve served over the past 50 years,” Goode says, “but it is not the numbers that drive us. It is loving and obeying God … and asking, ‘Have we loved our neighbor as ourselves?’ Many still need to taste and see that the Lord is good.”

Cunningham’s world-changing vision is affirmed by each new generation of YWAMers—covenanting to proclaim Jesus until the earth is “filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea” (Hab. 2:14, NKJV).

“I’m surrounded by heroes,” says John Dawson, YWAM’s current president, “dedicated, courageous people who pour out their lives in difficult and dangerous places. They make their own plans, pay their own way and lay down their rights.”

Cunningham’s vision of crashing waves still summons Christians to a life of radical faith. “This year, we glance back with gratitude,” Dawson says, “but the eyes of the youth are always on the future.” 

Julian Lukins is a writer in Sequim, Wash., and a former newspaper reporter.



Underground Church Growing in Muslim-Dominated Indonesia

Pentecostals on the tsunami-ravaged coast of Indonesia are experiencing a wave of conversions and healings.

In the strongly Muslim Aceh province of northern Sumatra—where 167,000 people died in the 2004 tsunami—the underground church movement is growing, with Pentecostal congregations thriving.

Indonesia has an official policy of religious tolerance, but in Muslim-dominated areas Christians face open hostility and persecution. In Aceh province, churches must register with the authorities and are not permitted to evangelize. Many Christians choose to meet in unregistered—or underground—churches.

Sumatra is one of the least evangelized places on earth, according to Operation World. But since the tsunami—which wiped out 15 percent of the population of Aceh’s provincial capital Banda Aceh—numerous underground churches have put down roots.

Pastor Nico (full name withheld for security reasons) started an underground Pentecostal church four years ago with only six members. Today 90 people from the neighborhood make up the Spirit-filled congregation. They endure persecution for their faith. One church family had rocks thrown through the windows of their home, and another family was forced to relocate because of threats.

“It’s very difficult for the Muslims to accept us here,” the 34-year-old pastor told Charisma. “If the authorities knew where we meet, they would close us down.”
Despite the risks, the congregation is mission minded. “We’d like to go to the homes in this area, to the marketplace, to share about Jesus and start another church,” Pastor Nico explained. “We love God, but we also have to love people—even those who don’t love us.”

One of the church members, Novi (full name withheld), grew up in a Buddhist home, burning offerings of money and incense at her family shrine. Two years ago, a traumatic experience set the 24-year-old Novi on a spiritual quest that led to healing and faith in Christ.

Whenever Novi was close to her husband, she felt a peculiar sensation, which she described as worms wriggling under her skin. “You could actually see something moving under the skin,” recalled her husband Fumin.

Deeply distressed, the couple sought help from various sources, including witchdoctors, traditional healers and their Buddhist idols. But Novi’s condition worsened, leaving her on the verge of a breakdown. “I thought: ‘I’m going to go crazy and die,”‘ she recalled. “I couldn’t sleep. … I felt an overwhelming sense of fear.”

Novi became convinced the affliction was a spiritual attack. A relative suggested the couple cross the sea in order to “leave the evil behind.” In desperation, they flew to another island, but the attacks intensified.

At her wit’s end, Novi listened to her sister who had become a Christian. “My sister told me that I should go to the Highest Power for healing—that is, Jesus,” Novi told Charisma. “I thought: If Jesus can heal me, I will follow Him forever.”

As they prayed together in Jesus’ name, Novi felt a “cleansing surge” through her body. A few days later, she felt another attack and cried out to Jesus. Since then, she has never suffered a recurrence. Now her husband is a leader in the church, and their testimony has drawn others to Christ, including his parents, brother and sister-in-law.

The new converts in Aceh’s growing underground church include former Muslims like Ernawati (full name withheld). As a little girl growing up in a devoutly Muslim home, Ernawati visited the mosque with her parents and knelt to pray five times a day.

However, she often asked herself: Who is God? Does He really hear my prayers? Her curiosity grew when she saw the crucifixion scene on The Jesus Film, an evangelistic movie produced by Campus Crusade for Christ. “I wanted to know more about this Jesus,” she said.

Shortly before Christmas 2004, 30-year-old Ernawati was at home when a man wearing a white robe appeared and said to her: “Do not be afraid.”
“Naturally, I was very afraid,” Ernawati recalled. “I didn’t know who he was … and then he disappeared.”

Just days later, the tsunami struck. Submerged by the wave, Ernawati cried out: “Jesus … save me!” Although she could not swim, she suddenly found herself above water and scrambled to safety.

Thousands drowned that day but she was one of the miraculous survivors. Ernawati gave her life to Jesus and joined the underground church. “Now I know the Truth, and the Truth has set me free,” she testifies. –Julian Lukins in Sumatra, Indonesia

 



The Faith of Sarah Palin

She was vilified by the media, hated by pro-abortion activists and adored by many evangelical Christians. Her 2008 candidacy energized conservatives, broke tradition and made history.

Sarah Palin was a little girl holding on to her mom’s hand when she first attended Wasilla Assembly of God (AG) Church in her hometown of Wasilla, Alaska. The church’s founding pastor, Paul Riley, remembers the pigtailed second-grader—then Sarah Heath—coming with her mom, Sally. They established a pattern of faithful attendance that continued through Sarah’s childhood and teenage years.

Every week, Riley recalls, Sarah attended Missionettes, the church’s program for girls. During those formative years, Sarah learned about the Pentecostal tradition, the baptism of the Holy Spirit, divine healing and the importance of living out her faith in the world.

By the age of 12, Sarah showed depth in her personal faith, Riley told Charisma. “She began to have a strong desire for the Lord,” he says.

One summer’s day in 1976, 12-year-old Sarah waded into the chilly waters of Beaver Lake, a popular location for church camps. She had committed her life to Jesus and wanted to be baptized along with her mom and sister. Riley immersed Sarah in the lake, baptizing her in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. “I wish I could remember more about that moment,” reminisces the retired pastor, now 78. “I know that she loved the Lord with all her heart.”

At that moment, though, no one, including Riley, had any inkling of what the future held for the small-town Alaskan girl.

After her baptism, Sarah continued to attend Wasilla AG, growing in her faith and singing in the choir, Riley recalls. “I know that she did receive an experience of the Holy Spirit,” he told Charisma, “and that she received a calling on her life.” That spiritual turning point came when Sarah’s youth pastor told her: “You are called by God for a purpose.” Years later, Palin confided that the pastor’s words were etched on her mind.

Last June, Palin spoke fondly of her years growing up in Wasilla AG when she appeared at a ceremony for graduating ministry students. “It was so cool growing up in this church and getting saved here, getting baptized by Pastor Riley … my whole family getting baptized,” she told the congregation, just two months before her vice presidential nomination.

Speaking to the ministry graduates, 44-year-old Palin said: “Just be amazed … the umbrella of this church here, where God is going to send you from this church. Believe me, I know what I am saying, where God has sent me from underneath the umbrella of this church.”

As she continued, Palin spoke of a “spirit of prophecy … a spirit of revelation” that would “bubble over.” Then, she told the ministry students: “Thank you so much for dedicating your lives to Jesus Christ.”

Pentecostal Underpinnings

Within hours of Palin’s nomination as the Republican vice presidential candidate, the video of her 10-minute address at Wasilla AG was doing the rounds on the Internet. News reporters immediately picked up on Palin’s plea to pray for those serving in the military: “Our national leaders are sending them out on a task that is from God,” Palin told the congregation. “That’s what we have to make sure we are praying for, that there is a plan, and that plan is God’s plan.”

Suddenly, in the media frenzy that followed her nomination, every church Palin had attended came under scrutiny. Eager to unearth controversy, reporters probed into the Charismatic practices at Wasilla AG, especially the experience of speaking in tongues, which commentators often presented as bizarre.

“I don’t know if [Palin] has ever spoken in tongues,” Riley told Charisma. “I know she is a very strong Christian.”

In the video, Palin quips about the Charismatic-style worship she experienced at Wasilla AG. She tells the congregation that she jokingly reassured the pastor of another church: “I grew up at Wasilla Assembly of God. … Nothing freaks me out about [your] worship service!”

Following the vice-presidential nod, though, the McCain campaign seemed perplexed by the media attention directed at Palin’s Pentecostal roots. Campaign staff told reporters that Palin—who stopped attending Wasilla AG in 2002—did not consider herself to be a Pentecostal.

In fact, since 2002, Palin has attended several different churches—nondenominational evangelical and Charismatic—in Wasilla and in Juneau, her base as Alaska governor. Most recently, when at home, she has attended Wasilla Bible Church, a nondenominational evangelical congregation with an emphasis on the Word, prayer and—according to the church Web site—fostering a close relationship with God.

How deep do Palin’s Pentecostal convictions go?

“I think it’s important to recognize how [Palin] herself answers questions like this,” says Michael Leahy, author of What Does Sarah Palin Believe? (Harpeth River Press). “She is pretty clear in stating that she does not belong to any particular denomination but is a Bible-believing Christian. I don’t think there is any evidence that she places the same emphasis on the Charismatic gifts of the Holy Spirit that some members of the Pentecostal tradition do. On these matters, [Palin] is very private in her thoughts.”

Former pastor Riley has no doubt about the authenticity of her spiritual walk. Asked if he feels God’s hand is upon Palin’s life, Riley responds: “Yes, I very definitely do.”

Other church leaders in Alaska who know Palin or have known her in the past attest to the genuineness of her faith.

Ted Boatsman was a youth pastor at Wasilla AG 31 years ago and remembers Palin as a young teenager in the church. “It was a very active youth group, and she was with the junior high,” he recalls. “I remember this very nice, impressive young lady … one you just enjoyed being around. She had a grounded sense of God.”

That “grounded” faith continues today, Boatsman says, as is evidenced by her words and actions. Boatsman, who went on to become district superintendent for the Assemblies of God in Alaska, told Charisma that last April Gov. Palin attended the denominational banquet.

“She shared a little bit about her faith and some of the issues she was going through,” he recalls. “We were thrilled to be able to pray with her. She seemed very comfortable with that and she said, ‘I could always use your prayers.’ I asked the Lord to protect her and keep His hand upon her.”

Boatsman says Palin’s faith is real. “Her faith is very consistent, and she does not go off on tangents,” he says. “She has taken her honesty and lack of arrogance and turned them into real strengths. She’s the same person now as when she was Wasilla’s mayor. She treats people just the same … and she is completely comfortable around prayer.”

David Pepper, pastor of the 1,500-member Church on the Rock in Wasilla, told Charisma that Palin was a regular attendee at the Charismatic church in 2005, before she ran for the position of Alaska’s governor.

“My take is that she is a Spirit-filled believer,” 41-year-old Pepper says. “She was very comfortable in the environment of our church.” That environment, Pepper explains, sometimes involves dancing before the Lord and other Charismatic expressions of worship. “She still comes here occasionally,” he added.

Pepper grew up in Wasilla and remembers Palin as a senior in high school when he was a freshman. “I’d say she is very genuine, very authentic, and her values resonate with so many of us,” he says.

Pepper told Charisma that although Palin did not teach a Sunday School class or lead a Bible study, he believed she was involved in ministry “beyond being just an attender,” although he did not elaborate.

“I believe there is definitely a sense of destiny over her life,” Pepper says of Palin. Taking a line from the biblical story of Esther, Pepper adds: “There’s a sense that she is here for such a time as this.”

A Modern-Day Esther?

Palin’s sudden appearance on the national stage during the campaign excited many evangelicals who viewed her as a present-day Esther—hand-picked by God for “such a time as this.” The comparison between Palin and Esther—the Old Testament queen chosen by God to save the Jews from genocide—was made by several church leaders interviewed by Charisma.

Prophetic minister Barbara Yoder, senior pastor of Shekinah Christian Church in Ann Arbor, Michigan, says: “I believe this is a time of incredible breakthrough for women. I am simple enough to believe that we don’t know everything about the way God moves and that [Palin] just might be an Esther.”

Mark Arnold, a Charismatic pastor in Hamilton, Ohio, would have to agree. In fact, he felt the Holy Spirit had given him a message for Palin about being an Esther, but he had no idea how he would deliver it. His opportunity came at a McCain-Palin campaign stop in Ohio last September. Incredibly, Arnold found himself just feet away from Palin and McCain at the podium after being asked to escort a group of Boy Scouts to the front—even though he was not a Boy Scout leader.

What happened next was remarkable. “[Palin] was on her knees, hugging a lady who had lost her son in Iraq,” Arnold told Charisma. “She spun around, looking right at me, and I told her: ‘God wants me to tell you that you are a present-day Esther.’ She began to cry and shake my hand in an affirming way. She said, ‘Yes, I receive that. … Please keep praying for me,'” says 47-year-old Arnold.

Barbara Wentroble, founder of International Breakthrough Ministries, describes Palin as “a picture of what God is doing with Christian women” as He calls them to positions of influence. “We need Christian women to make a bold stand for righteousness,” she says.

Others point to Palin as a woman of prayer.

Mary Glazier heads an Alaska-based prayer ministry called Windwalkers International. Charisma caught up with her on her way to a prayer meeting in Anchorage, the purpose of which was to pray specifically for Palin. This is nothing new, according to Glazier. “We actually began to pray for [Palin] before she became mayor of Wasilla,” Glazier says. “We felt then that she was the one God had selected.”

For several years, Glazier and other members of Windwalkers have prayed for Palin regularly—first when she was the mayor, then when she was the governor of Alaska, and when she was a vice presidential candidate. Last spring, Palin called Glazier and asked her to pray with her over the phone, and they met at the governor’s prayer breakfast.

“She asked me to pray with her for wisdom and direction,” Glazier recalls. “I sensed a real heart of surrender to the will of God in her. God often chooses the least likely people to be at the forefront, and I do believe that God has equipped [Palin] for this hour.”

Glazier told Charisma that members of Windwalkers had received words of knowledge about Palin being “called to impact the nation.” At that point, they had no idea she would be running for the office of vice president of the United States.

Palin’s public prayer life in the Pentecostal arena caused a stir when a video surfaced that showed her being prayed over by a Kenyan bishop. In the video, Bishop Thomas Muthee is seen laying hands on Palin in 2004 and asking God to protect her from “every form of witchcraft.” Liberal commentators and bloggers described the video as “terrifying” and claimed it made Jeremiah Wright, Barack Obama’s controversial ex-pastor, appear “pretty mainstream” in comparison.

The episode reinforced the fact that Palin’s faith, and Pentecostalism especially, is at best misunderstood and at worst deliberately ridiculed by a large segment of the media.

A Bright Future

Palin certainly needed prayer warriors during the grueling months leading up to Election Day. She was vilified by angry abortion activists (one blogger wrote that Palin’s son Trig probably wished he had been aborted), and voters criticized her for using GOP funds to buy a $150,000 campaign wardrobe.

She was also torpedoed by journalists. The New York Times admitted after the election that a report of Palin’s alleged ignorance of African geography was traced to a policy adviser who does not exist.

Many voters turned against Palin because of her pro-life stance, her eagerness to drill for Alaskan oil or her embarrassing interview in September with Katie Couric of CBS. Some evangelical leaders also opposed her, including theologian John Piper—who chastised Palin because he believed she neglected her domestic role.

The question in the minds of millions today is obvious: Where is Palin’s political career headed? For now she will remain Alaska’s governor, but her name has been floated as a possible GOP nominee for president in 2012. She had considered running in a special election to replace U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens of Alaska—who was convicted of ethics violations—but he was defeated by his Democratic opponent.

Biographer Joe Hilley says Palin’s faith is intertwined with every aspect of her life—so her faith will determine her future.

“[Palin’s] commitment to Christ forms the core of what I refer to as her moral center,” says Hilley, author of Sarah Palin: A New Kind of Leader (Zondervan). “Around that core are three basic beliefs: the authority of Scripture, a clear sense of justice and an unavoidable ethic of personal responsibility.”

Hilley told Charisma that Palin’s relationship with Jesus is an integral part of who she is. “One could not adequately define her commitment to Christ without including family and politics, nor could one define her political life without including her relationship to God,” he says.

Moreover, some black and Hispanic Charismatic leaders say Palin’s passionate faith appeals to minorities in the Pentecostal and Charismatic movements.

“It’s huge,” says Bishop Harry Jackson, pastor of the 3,000-member Hope Christian Church near Washington, D.C. “[Palin’s rise] marks the fact that Charismatics have become mainstream.” And even though McCain lost the election, Palin’s candidacy was “a watershed moment for our movement,” Jackson adds.

California-based Sam Rodriguez, president of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference, told Charisma: “Hispanic Pentecostals are excited about Palin. … She resonates with us. She understands what it is to have a Charismatic experience.”

Describing Palin as a “kindred spirit,” Rodriguez says many Hispanics identified with the news that Palin’s 17-year-old unmarried daughter was pregnant. “We understood her journey,” Rodriguez says. “We identify with what she’s going through.”

Palin herself told journalists after the election that she’s looking for divine direction. In an interview with Larry King on CNN in November, she said her life is in God’s hands.

“If He’s got open doors for me that I believe are in our state’s best interest, the nation’s best interest, I’m going to go through those doors.”

Certainly, those who know Palin best believe she has the resolve—and the faith—to go as far as God ordains.

 

Julian Lukins is a writer based in Sequim, Washington, and a former daily newspaper reporter in the U.K.

 

ONLINE EXCLUSIVE:To read an excerpt from the biography Sarah Palin: A New Kind of Leader click here.

 

The Unborn Still Cry Out for Justice

How should pro-life Christians view the 2008 election? By Lou Engle

Many people in America, including some of my best friends, would probably not agree with what I say here. Most have been conciliatory regarding the results of the recent presidential election and have counseled unity and peace. But I stand by the words of Dutch politician, journalist and theologian Abraham Kuyper: “When principles that run against your deepest convictions begin to win the day, then battle is your calling, and peace has become sin; you must, at the price of dearest peace, lay your convictions bare before friend and enemy, with all the fire of your faith.”

I have not been afforded the option of debating politics and reason around election results. Five years ago while I was reading the biography of British statesman William Wilberforce, God supernaturally apprehended me and called me to raise up a prayer movement for the ending of abortion, and I am under divine restraint to obey that commission.

I understand my friends’ conciliatory responses, but when I consider that 50 million babies have been killed since the ruling handed down in Roe v. Wade that legalized abortion and that the incoming president plans to ensure the ongoing legality of this march of death, I cannot live in peace. It is easy to counsel peace when you are not the object of the abortionist’s forceps and scalpel. But for me, peace with the legal killing of unborn children becomes sin, and battle is my calling.

So how do we wage the war against abortion in our nation?

We must follow the pattern of revolution of the prophet Elijah. First, carrying a spirit of love, not hate, we must be exceedingly zealous for the Lord. We must allow the crisis to drive us to desperation for God and His purposes. We must shake off materialistic slumber. The future of our children and our society is at stake.

Second, we must think generationally. It became obvious to me during this election that we have lost the next generation to moral relativity.

It took Elijah’s revolution two generations to overthrow the reign of Baal-worshipers Ahab and Jezebel. We must actively train a new generation of leadership and not entrust the discipleship of our sons and daughters to the morally relativistic professors in our Christian universities. We must raise them in the furnaces of prayer and fasting. We must anoint a generation of Elishas.

Third, we must let this election be a call to prayer and fasting such as we have never seen. Abortion is a spiritual battle. The blood of babies is not another socio-political issue. Blood fuels the demonic realm, and before heaven it demands a day of reckoning. We must have a spiritual awakening to turn the hearts of this nation—and I believe we will have it if we pray.

As my friend Allen Hood prophesied, “Let it be said that in the days of the rule of President Obama, stadiums were filled with prayer and fasting.” We must raise up a grass roots prayer and activism movement among the young. Bound4LIFE is a movement we launched 4 years ago that is spreading across the country carrying this youth mantle for the ending of abortion.

We must pray for President-elect Barack Obama. He is not our enemy. My heart has been going out to him in prayer because racism is raising its ugly head, and he has received many death threats.

Pray for his protection. Pray that God would give him wisdom. If God could change Nebuchadnezzar by haunting him with dreams, He can change Obama. Our mandate is not to curse but to pray for those in authority (see 1 Tim. 2).

Fourth, we must return to the basic commandments of the laws of God for society to flourish. Our pulpits must preach them and train a generation to vote according to them. God’s remedy to the social decline in Malachi’s time was first of all remembering the law of Moses.

Fifth, men must stretch themselves out in fasting and prayer over their “dead children” and raise them from the dead. The book of Malachi declares that Elijah will come and turn the hearts of the fathers to the children. The church must arise with an explosion of adoptions.

Today, homosexual couples are adopting thousands of children. This is their time and their moment, they believe. Who wants the babies more in America? The pro-life movement must take this on as their main mandate. Every church must adopt a Crisis Pregnancy Center. We must fuel the compassion movement with our finances by raising up pregnant mothers’ homes.

Finally, we must speak out for righteousness. We must preach it, pray it, prophesy it, praise it and print it until the forces of hell cannot hold back the Word of life.

Of his God-given mandates Wilberforce declared, “God has set before me two great objectives, the abolition of the slave trade and the reformation of morals.”

God has set before me two great objectives as well: “God, end abortion, and send revival to America.” Let this be the battle cry of the Pro-Life Movement in America today.

 

Lou Engle is founder of The Cause USA and co-founder of TheCall, an international prayer movement. To read a longer version of this column online, click here.



Getting Creative For God

The scarred intersection on Chicago’s north side was the battleground for a dozen rival street gangs. At the corner of Sheridan Road and Sunnyside Avenue, memorials marked the spot where slain gang members had fallen.

But in the space of a few weeks, the violence subsided and the trade from the drug houses disappeared.

What brought about this startling transformation? Incredibly, a piece of art-a vivid mural depicting creation’s beauty, sin’s destructive power and Jesus’ love for all races.

Artist Greg King invited neighborhood teenagers and graffiti artists to join in. The result was a striking image that won the respect of all the gang leaders. They ordered their members not to deface it.

The shootings stopped, according to Brian Bakke, a former staff member at a nearby church. “It became hallowed ground,” he told Charisma.

The mural, Bakke suggests, is evidence of something much bigger.

Across America and around the world, Holy Spirit-inspired art is piercing the darkness, bringing God’s healing touch to troubled souls and His breath of life to the spiritually dead. Christian artists are using their God-given talents to minister in the ghettos, on the beaches, in shopping malls and in prisons-everywhere people need Jesus.

“For too long, the church has neglected the imagination and the wonder of art,” comments Colin Harbinson, a leader of the growing art-in-mission movement. “This is a new day for art and the language of imagination. God is about to do something that we have only dreamt of.”

Mural painter King agrees.

“This street was the garbage can,” says the 36-year-old artist, who lives in Brooklyn, New York. “But we created a piece of beauty … an outpouring of God’s love. I think the gang members felt it.”

Bakke, former community director at Uptown Baptist just two blocks from the mural, recalls the gang leaders’ initial response to the idea. “They said: ‘If you’re gonna paint nice pictures with positive thoughts, forget it.’ We explained the mural would portray the destructive power of sin and the unity of all people in Jesus. ‘Go ahead,’ they told us. ‘Jesus is OK.'”

The intense imagery spoke to the gang members—the beauty of God’s creation wrecked by sin, symbolized by a mace shattering the world; the words “hatred,” “lust,” “racism” and “envy” springing forth; shards flying into the adjoining image of Jesus embracing all peoples.

“Most evangelical Christians are beholden to the spoken Word,” says 44-year-old Bakke, a Chicago native. “But visual art is powerful, and the Holy Spirit uses our creativity.”

Messages in the Sand

Beach sculptor Randy Hofman lives for the sun, the surf and the lure of sand art. During the last 30 years, his fantastic sand sculptures have captivated hundreds of thousands of beach visitors, vacationers and partying college students.

As a kid, Hofman made sand castles like other boys. Now he spends hours crafting elaborate sand portraits of Jesus, with titles such as “God Loves You” and “Wise Men Seek Him” etched in the sand.

The images are intricate, but the message is simple. “Jesus on the cross-people get it,” says the 56-year-old from Ocean City, Maryland.

The beach is Hofman’s mission field. In the summer, 10,000 people a day view his sand sculptures along the Ocean City boardwalk. Hofman hands out gospel tracts and discusses the images with onlookers.

During spring break, Hofman joins Beach Reach, a student mission ministering to the college-age party crowd. Students swilling beer stop to admire his sculptures on South Padre Island, a party mecca off the Texas coast.

Students hit the beach late morning, often nursing hangovers. “By midafternoon, many of them are drunk again,” Hofman says.

But his sand images are a talking point for Christian students who come to mix with the revelers and converse about Jesus. In March, 70 spring breakers were led to Christ and 21 were baptized in the ocean.

“It revs me up,” Hofman told Charisma. “My job is simply to communicate God’s love to them through sand. It’s like people walking past a newspaper stand-they scan the headlines and move on. With my sculptures, people see Jesus and ‘God Loves You’ and walk on. Yet it speaks the good news that God wants us in His family.”

Art is a thread woven through the Christian experience, according to Harbinson, a recognized authority on how art fits into God’s big picture. “God is calling artists to be culture transformers,” says the 61-year-old college professor, formerly a dean at Youth With A Mission’s (YWAM’s) University of the Nations.

Many in America’s Christian mainstream misunderstand art, viewing it as a “sideshow” and failing to see artistic expression as God sees it, Harbinson says.

“Throughout the Scriptures, we see clearly that God is an artist,” he says. “Right back in Genesis 1, God created. In Exodus 31, God commissioned the first school of the arts. He chose Bezalel to make artistic designs in gold, silver, bronze and wood, including all the furnishings for the tabernacle.”

In the biblical account, God tells Moses: “I have filled [Bezalel] with the Spirit of God, in wisdom, in understanding, in knowledge, and in all manner of workmanship, to design artistic works … to work in all manner of workmanship” (Ex. 31:3-5, NKJV).

God also commissioned art to bring healing to His people, Harbinson continues, citing the story of the bronze snake in Numbers 21:4-9. In this passage, God sent venomous snakes to afflict the grumbling Israelites. Then, He commanded Moses: “‘Make a fiery serpent, and set it on a pole; and it shall be that everyone who is bitten, when he looks at it, shall live.'” Moses obeyed by crafting a snake out of bronze.

“God knows that art speaks of Him in ways that words alone cannot,” Harbinson told Charisma. “God’s very creation is nonverbal, and it speaks of Him.”

The Bible is strewn with examples of creativity and imagination, Harbinson points out, yet evangelicals in America still wrestle with “nonverbal” proclamation of the gospel and demote art’s place in God’s world.

“We are locked into thinking that it has to be ‘the spoken word’,” he observes. “We do not trust the Holy Spirit to use the image to do His work. We feel the necessity to interpret images with words. Well, Jesus is the Word, but He is also the image of God.”

Harbinson, who grew up in a strict Brethren church in England and watched his first movie at age 19, believes the tide is changing. “This generation finds it extremely difficult to sit in church and listen to a 45-minute sermon,” he says. “To put it bluntly, we are losing this generation, and we must recapture the imagination and the arts if we are to be relevant.”

Based in Jackson, Mississippi, Harbinson heads a ministry called StoneWorks that aims to break down barriers to art within the church and challenge Christian artists to engage their world.

Standing on Holy Ground

That’s what British artist Paul Hobbs is doing in England.

His Holy Ground shoe-art display is causing a stir in churches, schools, shopping malls and even at Oxford University where a chapel minister reported: “Many students and others have found it to be incredibly moving. We had 50 people praying around it this morning.” Not bad for a bunch of old shoes.

Hobbs spent two years tracking down Christians around the world whose shoes tell the stories of their inspiring journeys of faith. The 30 pairs include a former prostitute’s high-heeled stilettos, an itinerant evangelist’s worn-out sandals and the shoes of a former Muslim woman in Asia who came to faith in Christ through a vision of Jesus.

Hobbs, 44, who lives in southern England, came up with the idea after receiving a vision from the Holy Spirit while in prayer. He pictured shoes of all types, along with bare feet, and sensed Moses’ encounter with God, when Moses removed his sandals because he was on “holy ground.”

Hobbs sets up the art display in a circle on the floor, so that people can walk around it, looking at the shoes and reading the stories that accompany them. Hobbs’ favorite pair is the unique sandals of an African evangelist who treks miles on foot and is often persecuted and beaten for the gospel’s sake. The sandals-made out of old rubber tires-still have mud on the soles.

Perhaps the most emotive “shoe story” is told by Rosemarie’s shoes. Rosemarie’s father was Adolf Hitler’s bodyguard for the 1936 Olympic Games, and Hitler was her godfather. Her dad-a Christian-risked his life to help persecuted Jews escape Nazi Germany before World War II. In 1938, he was forced to swallow a cyanide pill.

Many people slip off their own shoes as a sign of respect as they circle Holy Ground. In one shopping center, hundreds of people stopped to look-including Muslims who appreciated the custom of going barefoot.

“I often wonder what Muslims make of it,” Hobbs admits.

For many, Holy Ground is an emotional experience. “I’ve seen people in tears … some sobbing,” Hobbs says. Sometimes, people are convicted about their own lukewarm walk with Christ and their need to run a strong race of faith.

One little girl, Hobbs recalls, came to view the display every day of the exhibition and asked her parents to read her a different story each time. Examples like this, Hobbs says, demonstrate that the Holy Spirit uses art He has inspired to probe the hearts and minds of young and old alike, crossing generational, cultural and racial lines.

Healing Through Art

Marge Malwitz, a Connecticut-based quilter, found this to be true when, through the ministry of World Relief, she took her artwork to a group of genocide survivors in Rwanda. The women-mostly widows who lost their husbands in the ethnic bloodshed of 1994-were skeptical when they heard an American artist was coming to share with them about pain, reconciliation and healing.

What does she know about the pain of genocide? wondered Rose Busingye, one of the women. Yet as Malwitz showed the women her quilt designs and discussed the imagery of darkness, bitterness and despair giving way to light and hope in Christ, Busingye and others softened.

“I was proved wrong,” Busingye admits. “This down-to-earth lady began to talk about her journey of pain, depression and hopelessness. She explained how God transformed and restored her life. ‘God wastes nothing,’ she told us. The Holy Spirit was using her art to bring healing to us.”

Malwitz, a 60-year-old grandmother, used her quilt art to share her own story about how God rescued her from a “dark pit.” Slowly, the Rwandan women began to talk for the first time about their web of hidden heartaches spun by the horrors of the genocide.

“It was as if a veil lifted,” Busingye recalls.

The women wept as they confessed their grudges and asked one another’s forgiveness. The quilt art, Busingye says, was the key to opening the floodgates of healing and restoration. “The Spirit of God was at work,” she says. “He tore down the walls.”

Malwitz’s philosophy is simple. “I give God my art, He provides the venue and the Holy Spirit does His work,” she told Charisma. “I don’t preach. The quilts tell the story.”

Says Malwitz: “People are looking at a piece of art and talking about something that is removed from them, yet they are really talking about their own situation. They are pointing at the quilt, but they are really pointing at themselves.”

Malwitz is not alone in using art to communicate God’s love and healing across continents and cultures. A growing number of Christian agencies, including World Relief, Operation Mobilization (OM) and YWAM, embrace the use of Holy Spirit-inspired art. Through OM’s ArtsLink and other cutting-edge missions, a new breed of “art missionary” is emerging-artists who are not afraid to take their visual message to the darkest, most oppressive corners of the earth.

Paula enters prisons to share Christ’s love with violent offenders and rapists through her artwork. “My heart is for those in prison, refugees and the displaced,” explains the 48-year-old YWAM missionary-artist. Based out of Hawaii and Virginia, Dubill travels the world, often ministering in war zones and hostile areas.

“My heroes were Brother Andrew and Corrie ten Boom,” she says. “At first, no one seemed to want an art missionary.”

YWAM opened the door.

In a prison in South Africa, Paula staged art classes for violent criminals. Patrick came to class with the words “Son of Satan” tattooed on his forehead. As Paula sketched his portrait, Patrick told her he had AIDS, syphilis and tuberculosis. When it was the inmates’ turn to create, Patrick made a clay tombstone inscribed with “.”

“All I could think when I saw it was that there was a spirit of death over him,” Paula recalls.

Another missionary-once a member of a satanic church-counseled Patrick that only the Holy Spirit could transform his image of death into a glorious image of new life. A few days later, Patrick bowed to his Creator and became a son of God.

Patrick’s story is a mosaic of brokenness and marvelous restoration. A portrait of God’s amazing grace. A tapestry of the Holy Spirit’s gentle wooing. It is proof that our Creator is a God of art.

Julian Lukins is a writer based in Sequim, Wash. 



The Church of the Undignified

The bizarre-looking cross at the front of the church is made up of McDonald’s cartons, beer cans and drug vials. At first glance, it might appear sacrilegious. But this is Church of the Undignified, where the “rules” of conventional church do not apply.

Fashioned out of chicken wire, the three-dimensional cross forms a cage in which people literally drop their addictions and their burdens—cigarette packets, fast-food wrappers, confession notes, even dollar bills.

“The beauty of the cross [of Jesus] to us is that it takes away all our junk,” explains the church’s 32-year-old pastor, Benji Rodes. “Addictions and destructive habits are left at the cross.”

Visual acts of obedience and worship are important to those who are part of Seattle’s Church of the Undignified—an eclectic band of spiritual seekers, many of whom have been dragged through the filthiest mire of life.

Located in a former trapeze gymnasium that adjoins a yoga studio, the church meets in the Capitol Hill district of Seattle—a downtown neighborhood renowned for its artistic bent, extreme liberalism, prostitution, gay clubs and drug culture.

“Anything goes in this neighborhood,” Rodes says. “The other day I saw a guy in leather shorts wearing a leash. I mean, this is not the Bible Belt.”

The Church of the Undignified actually fits well in this rebellious environment. The hallmark of the church is freedom of expression, and their “undignified approach” draws those who would otherwise be unlikely to set foot inside a church.

As word has gotten out, even self-professed atheists have been coming regularly to check it out. Others come to place their burdens in the garbage-eating cross—and then slip out the back door.

The church takes its name from 2 Samuel 6:14-22, which records that King David leaped and twirled, dressed only in a thin cloth, as he danced before the Lord. The unstately public display caused his wife Michal to despise him.

In response, David said: “I will celebrate before the Lord. I will become even more undignified than this, and I will be humiliated in my own eyes” (vv. 21-22, NIV).

“We believe that God wants us to worship Him in total freedom, that we should not worry about appearing foolish in the eyes of others,” Rodes explains.

He adds: “This is not about trying to act cool. It’s about not being afraid to be whatever God wants you to be, no matter how silly you might appear.”

The ‘Undignifieds’

Worship services are characterized by freedom to express oneself before God through dance, African drums, poetry, watercolors—by any manner in which the Holy Spirit leads. The experience is something to behold.

As a former witchcraft practitioner beats an African drum in rhythm to the worship, an insurance actuary—an occupation normally associated with the most reserved and dignified of people—stomps in a most undignified jig, arms held high before the cross.

“Some people would probably say it’s a bit chaotic, especially if they have an image in their mind of what church is,” Rodes admits. “To me, our services seem quite normal.”

The “Undignifieds,” as they call themselves, do not want people to judge their church on its style of worship, unusual cross, unorthodox venue or peculiar mix of people. “Look at the fruit,” they say, speaking of the lives transformed by the Holy Spirit’s power.

From its origins three years ago, the Church of the Undignified has focused on humble service to the poor, addicts, social dropouts and other inner-city “undesirables.”

“We’ve always felt that the poor are the chosen,” explains 29-year-old Abbi Rodes, Benji’s wife. “They were the ones that Jesus was near to, and it’s a privilege to be with the poor.”

Several of the church’s young professionals choose to rent in shabby apartment complexes so they can live among the poor and give more money to missions. The Rodeses do not receive a pastoral salary but support themselves through their own photography studio. The missionary mind-set permeates the church.

“Why is this church here?” asks Greg Jones, a 28-year-old Canadian who says his connection with God has been electrified. “We’re not just here to wait for Jesus to come back, but to hasten His return. We’ve got to go.” This year, Jones plans to move to Turkey to be a tentmaker missionary among Muslims.

Other Undignifieds, such as Hannah Chung-Cornman, 26, say they feel God’s call to full-time ministry. Her own story is a remarkable testimony of the Holy Spirit’s restorative power.

A pastor’s kid raised in a Southern Baptist church, Chung-Cornman rebelled against her strict evangelical upbringing and the pressure she felt to conform. “Being a pastor’s kid, I felt everyone in the church was always watching me [and wondering]: What’s she wearing? What’s she doing?” she recalls. “I saw hypocrisy in the church, and it made me feel sick.”

While in her early 20s, Chung-Cornman moved to Capitol Hill, where she dabbled in drugs, alcohol and witchcraft. She became a drug dealer linked with a mafia-style group.

She hit rock-bottom while having a relationship with a married man who supported her financially in return for being his mistress. Living “like a prostitute,” she says, drove her to attempt suicide on several occasions.

“I was looking for love, but in all the wrong places,” she says, adding that all she wanted was “just to be loved and accepted.”

In desperation, Chung-Cornman entered the Church of the Undignified. Overcome by the sense of love and acceptance, she says the Holy Spirit whispered to her: “You are OK now. You are Mine.”

Two years later, Chung-Cornman radiates the joy of the Lord, is newly married to a fellow Undignified, and plans to attend seminary in Seattle and become a chaplain. The Church of the Undignified, she says, continues to draw people like her because its love and acceptance is real.

“Recently, a man came soaked in urine,” she says. “Immediately, people went to talk to him and invite him in for coffee. This is what Jesus wants. He wants us to be undignified for Him!”

The faith of her husband, Aaron, has also taken on a dynamic new dimension since he met the Holy Spirit at the church. Strolling home from work in Seattle’s business district, Aaron came across a homeless woman. Instead of ignoring her like everyone else was doing, he invited her to dinner at a restaurant where he talked to her about Jesus.

Meanwhile, gang member Chauncy Moylan had been dropping into the church on and off for months. At Thanksgiving last year he was in a vehicle with other gang members when a high-caliber gun was discharged by accident. Moylan was struck in the side of the head at point-blank range.

The bullet entered through his ear and passed out through his nose. Moylan was rushed to the hospital, where doctors were astonished that he not only had survived but also had suffered relatively minor injuries. The bullet caused loss of hearing in one ear and partial paralysis in his face but, amazingly, no life-threatening damage.

“It should have blown my face off,” he says. Answering the prayers of the church, God restored Moylan’s hearing. The ex-gangster has done a U-turn, and God has removed his thirst for violence. “He’s totally exuberant for God,” Benji Rodes says.

A House of Hope

Stepping out in faith, the Undignifieds took out a mortgage on a $510,000, three-story fixer-upper in Capitol Hill for use as a “healing house.” Through sacrificial giving, the small congregation came up with $100,000 for the down payment. “Some sold their stuff and gave the money; others gave their savings; and others [gave] the little they could,” Rodes says.

A neighboring church donated another $20,000, and volunteers from Rodes’ denomination, the Church of the Nazarene, renovated the basement. The house provides a home for Undignifieds in transition who have been sober and off drugs for at least a year—recovering addicts such as 43-year-old Tim Jeffs.

Rebelling against his experiences as a youth in the Methodist denomination, Jeffs plunged into a downward spiral. His life culminated in chronic alcoholism and drugs.

“I had no friends,” he recalls. “I lived on beer, cocaine and frozen pizzas. Every day I would wake up ridiculously hung over and in a lot of pain. I was such a wreck that I didn’t even want to leave the house. I would just sneak out to buy beer and then come home to drink.”

Sometimes Jeffs would think about the things he learned in church years before. “In my mind, it was like I was in a prison,” he says. “I didn’t have the strength to overcome what the enemy was telling me. I just wanted to hit ‘pause’ so it would stop.”

In dire straits, Jeffs stumbled into the Church of the Undignified because someone at the church was giving free haircuts. Drawn by the church’s hospitality and openness, Jeffs returned.

Battling overwhelming anxiety, the alcoholic poured out his heartache before God. “All the anxiety suddenly left me,” he says. “I knew that Jesus had paid this huge price for me, yet I was choosing to wallow in the filth. I realized I needed to value myself as Jesus values me.”

A year later, Jeffs welcomes others to the church. He’s another testimony of the Holy Spirit’s cleansing, healing stream.

Formerly, Jeffs and other Undignifieds looked for new ways to get “wasted.” Now, during the church’s “Waste a Night on God,” they spend the night in celebration and worship before the Lord—“losing ourselves in Him,” as Rodes puts it.

“King David’s energy was totally sapped as he wasted himself before God,” Rodes says. “When we choose to ‘rejoice crazy’ like David, we’re just joining in the dance.”

The Undignifieds have seen God unleash His healing, life-transforming power, and they won’t settle for anything less. Their confidence in the Holy Spirit is reflected by one word on a worshiper’s T-shirt: “Himpossible.”

Says Rodes: “Jesus has given us an escape, and the Holy Spirit is looking to make us like Him. We really can be little ‘Hims.’”

Seeking to “be Jesus” to those caught in the web of sin around them, Rodes likens the Undignifieds to “sheep among the wolves.”

“We’re totally vulnerable,” he says. “But feeling weak, feeling overwhelmed, we are in a position to receive power over the enemy. It is God’s privilege and joy to spill out His power upon those who are desperate for Him.”

That power flows from the cross, symbolized at the Church of the Undignified by a chicken-wire cage stuffed with the junk of life. Next to the cross, a simple sign reads:

“Think of it. All mistakes paid for; the slate wiped clean; that old arrest warrant cancelled and nailed to Christ’s cross. He stripped all the spiritual tyrants in the universe of their sham authority at the cross and marched them naked through the streets.”

There’s nothing dignified about that. Only awesome power; and—for all those who come to the cross—true Christ-given dignity.

Julian Lukins is a writer and journalist based in Sequim, Wash.



On the Winning Team

NFL superstar Napoleon Kaufman traded in his Oakland Raiders jersey in 2001 and became a pastor. And he has never looked back.
No one, it seemed, could outrun Napoleon Kaufman.


There was a time just a few years ago when the former Oakland Raiders running back outpaced the NFL’s finest. But there was One who chased the young football star until he could run no more. Jesus led the charge that transformed Kaufman’s life.


Today, 33-year-old Kaufman pastors a growing church in the San Francisco Bay Area. “I wouldn’t trade this for anything,” the ex-Raiders star turned preacher told Charisma.


“Pastoring this church is the most gratifying thing I’ve ever done.”


As a boy, he knew nothing about the Bible or church. Kaufman grew up with his mother and grandparents after his parents split when he was an infant. He had his dad’s unusual name—Napoleon—but did not know the presence of his father. His mother found it hard to make ends meet.


Growing up in Lompoc, near Santa Barbara, California, Kaufman had a flair for sports. Playing football, he says, became a way to flush frustration out of his system. His speed and skill on the field soon became obvious. It was a talent that would earn him a full scholarship to the University of Washington.


During the early 1990s, Kaufman played in two Rose Bowls with the Washington Huskies and is still talked about as one of the university’s all-time greats. After turning pro, he had several memorable seasons wearing the Raiders’ famed silver and black. He holds Oakland’s single-game rushing record of 227 yards and is fourth on the Raiders’ all-time rushing list with 4,792 yards on 978 carries.


Kaufman was at the top of his game. Then suddenly, at age 28, he quit.
Few people have heard the remarkable story behind his decision—how God grabbed hold of a young man at the peak of his privileged career and used his life.


Heaven’s Draft Pick


Kaufman’s spiritual awakening began during his college football days. He had acquired fame, money and hero status—”living every young guy’s dream,” he says—yet still there was a hollow ring to life.


“I remember sitting at my house in Seattle and thinking: Is this it? Is this everything I’ve been striving for?” he recalls. “I don’t know quite how to put it into words, but I felt very strongly that God was pursuing me.”


It took several years, though, for Kaufman to respond to the tug of God.


Rushing forward to 1996, Kaufman had just completed his first season with the Raiders. Then 23 years old, he was driving to a training session when he felt overwhelmed by God’s presence. Shaken, he pulled over and tears began to flow. When he arrived at the training field, Kaufman tried to shrug off the experience.


“I was doing my usual thing, acting crazy and cussing. Then, one of my teammates turned to me and said: ‘You know, Napoleon, you don’t look like the type of guy who’d be cussing like that. … Don’t you know God can use your life?'”


Says Kaufman: “When I was alone later, all I could hear were those words, ‘Don’t you know God can use your life?’ I knelt down and gave my life to Jesus.


“From that moment, it was like I was overtaken by the presence of God. I had this overwhelming sense that God was after me and there was something He wanted me to do.”


God had brought one of the NFL’s swiftest running backs to his knees. And Kaufman changed radically overnight. The NFL became an arena to share his newfound faith.


“I was very vocal. … I talked about Jesus all the time in the locker room,” he recalls. “If a guy came in cussing and bragging about how many women he’d slept with, I would challenge him and confront him with it.


“Sometimes they’d see my light and try to put it out. Other times they would listen. Sometimes it seemed like they weren’t paying any attention to what I had to say, but later some of the guys would come up to me and say, ‘Napoleon, I’ve given my life to the Lord.'”


As time went on, the conviction welled within Kaufman that God had a special assignment for him. He prayed earnestly for God’s leading and in 2001 informed the Raiders he was hanging up his No. 26 jersey for good to focus on his teaching ministry, Crucified With Christ. For the next year, he traveled around the country, sharing his testimony and exhorting church leaders to be sold out for Jesus.


That was just the beginning. Soon afterward, God gave Kaufman a vision for a church that would be a “well” of His love, a church that would welcome the Holy Spirit and be grounded in the Word, a church that would embrace people of all races and walks of life.


Playing in a New League


The Well Christian Community was launched in 2003 in Dublin, California, by only 15 founding members. At the first service, more than 120 people showed up and there weren’t enough seats. In three years, The Well grew to 600 regular attendees, with an emphasis on Spirit-led worship, sound biblical teaching and multicultural expression.


Some people are drawn to the church by his celebrity status, Kaufman acknowledges. “But if they’re not serious about meeting with God, they don’t stay long,” he told Charisma. “This church is not about me. It’s about Jesus … about being broken at the altar before Him. To everyone here, I am Pastor Napoleon—not Napoleon the football star.”


Other professional athletes, including several ex-Raiders, attend The Well, but Kaufman says that “credentials are checked in at the door.”


“To be honest, there are people in our church who don’t know I used to play pro football,” he continues. “They don’t know and probably don’t care. They just know Jesus is here.”


The father of four—married to Nicole, his wife of 10 years, who co-pastors The Well alongside him—ponders on what he describes as an “apostolic anointing” from God.


“I always knew I was not ‘an athlete who just happened to be a Christian’ but that I was ‘a Christian who just happened to be an athlete,'” he says. “My pro football days are not my ministry platform. God has placed a word in my mouth and a calling on me to preach His Word, not just go around sharing my testimony.


“I’m not building my ministry on football. That’s not what it’s all about. This is about Jesus.”


The Well is a feeding ground for hungry souls across the socioeconomic spectrum, from CEOs to those on welfare. The congregation is a mix of blacks, whites, Asian Americans and other ethnicities—reflecting the leadership’s vision of “a multicultural expression and a house of prayer.”


Kaufman says he feels God’s presence closer than ever.


“When I made the decision to retire from the Raiders, it’s as if He met me right there and said, ‘Let’s go!'”


The growing church and its pastor are attracting plenty of attention in the Bay Area, broadcasting weekly TV programs The Hope of Glory and Times of Refreshing. The shows are taped at the church facility located in a Dublin business park—an unspectacular building that at first glance from the outside could be mistaken for an insurance office.


When the church outgrew the original facility, the solution was to knock through a wall so The Well could spill into the adjoining building—now the sanctuary. As its pastor did on the football field, The Well makes the most of every yard of space. One Sunday the church welcomed 39 new members and announced an offshoot church plant in Reno, Nevada.


“Our church is not perfect,” Kaufman says. “But one thing I guarantee—we are people who are hungry for God and everything we do centers on Jesus.”


Building a Winning Team


The Well aims to create an atmosphere in which the Holy Spirit can work in people’s lives, deliver people from addictions and patterns of sin, and fill them with love for others.


Says Kaufman: “There are churches that are wide [growing numerically] but not deep [spiritually mature], and churches that are deep but not wide. We want depth and width—personal intimacy with God and strong relationships with one another.”


He has a word of caution for those who have dropped out of church and think they can go it alone.


“Jesus is building something that has structure,” he says. “Christ likens His church to a house and to a body, so there is a structural element to Christianity that cannot be denied. The Word gives us the blueprint.


“I think both corporate church and home groups are necessary, but there’s something about meeting together in church that cannot be compensated for. One of the major weapons of the devil is to isolate us and foster disillusionment.”


The Well does not practice a theatrical version of Christianity—and Kaufman does not see himself as a showman.


“I consider myself a facilitator whose job is to create the right atmosphere for God to show up and show off,” Kaufman says. “So, if anyone is going to put on a show, it’s not going to be me.”


“There needs to be order and decency in church,” he continues. “When people are throwing themselves on the floor and all over the place, that is not order; that’s confusion. We don’t want to be legalistic, but we don’t want to be lawless, either. We believe the Holy Spirit comes with order.


“I know people who’ve been in crazy services that have left a bad taste in their mouths. People need to feel safe in church, not exposed to craziness. In some cases, people say, ‘God is moving,’ but it’s not God at all. … It is lawlessness.”


The former crowd-pleaser says he has learned as a pastor he must resist pressure to be a compromising people-pleaser.


“One of the major errors we are making in the church in America today is that too much is being done to gain the approval of man,” he says. “We are making a major mistake if we continue to focus on man’s satisfaction and fulfilling man’s desires. It should be about getting God’s applause and His approval.


“The church at large has become more man-centered than Christ-centered. We have a ‘democratic mind-set’ in many of our churches—that is, ‘I count and my opinion matters.’ That kind of mind-set robs Christ of His place.”


Pandering to people, Kaufman says, risks extinguishing the flame of the Spirit.
“A lot of church leaders are afraid of upsetting people,” he observes. “It is the fear of man, and it must be overcome.”


He is also convinced that America’s churches need to reverse the trend toward bigger programs and elaborate facilities.


“The church in the U.S. generally tends to think it’s in better condition than it really is,” he says. “People think if they’ve got a nice building, nice facilities, then they’re set. So often, we glory in what we have instead of Who we have.”


The Well is so intent on pursuing God that its leaders fast each week, believing that to deny oneself expresses dependence on God. As a result, Kaufman says, they are seeing broken marriages restored and people released from sexual immorality and delivered from demonic influences.


They believe in exercising the gifts of the Spirit but not at the expense of helping Christians mature in the Word of God. It’s a pattern Kaufman calls “balance of Word and Spirit.” His church, he says, does not shrink from confronting spiritual forces, such as those that drive San Francisco’s homosexual activity.


“For so long, the Bay Area has been considered a spiritual graveyard, overcome by the powers of darkness,” Kaufman says. “It’s true there’s a lot of demonic activity here, and it’s a stronghold of immorality and perversion. But I want the world to know there are churches here contending for the kingdom of God and we need your prayers.”


Kaufman believes breakthroughs will come as Christians model humility and servanthood.


“While I was playing for the Raiders, God told me: ‘You’ve learned how to be first. … Now I am going to teach you how to be second,'” Kaufman recalls. Weeks later, Tyrone Wheatley took over his starting position on the team.


“I learned that it wasn’t about me,” Kaufman says, “that I could cheer on Tyrone from the sidelines. God taught me the importance of preferring others above myself … to celebrate when someone else scores a touchdown, or when someone else is leading worship.”


Now he’s more comfortable with a Bible in his hands than a football—more at home before his congregation than in front of a crowded stadium.


Napoleon Kaufman, the NFL running back who wowed the crowds, is running the race of faith—cheered on by a different crowd, a cloud of heavenly witnesses.

Julian Lukins is a native of England now living in Sequim, Washington. A frequent contributor to Charisma, he believes cricket, not American football, will heaven’s sport.