Don’t Let Super-Spiritual People Hurt Your Church, J Lee Grady, Charisma Magazine

A few years ago a prominent charismatic evangelist gained a wide following when he said an angel was visiting him regularly during his televised revival meetings. The angel was supposedly dispatched to unleash the next great healing revival in the United States. One big problem: The revival didn't happen.

Yet month after month, the tales of this evangelist's wild spiritual adventures grew more and more incredible. At one point he wrote that he visited heaven and met the Apostle Paul—and then said Paul admitted he was the author of the Book of Hebrews. A 2,000-year-old theological mystery was solved!

Looking back on these events now, it's hard to believe so many charismatics fell for these wild claims. Anyone with the most basic level of discernment knows God does not allow us to talk to dead people to get spiritual information. So why are we so gullible? I call this the "oooh, ahhh" factor.  read more

 

Britain's most unpopular flight costs YOU £86 per passenger to subsidise, Daily Express

The public pay £1.2m a year to subsidise the unpopular air service from Cardiff Airport to Anglesey in North Wales.

The Labour-run Welsh Government insisted on heavily subsidising the cost of running the route, with tickets starting at just £29.95.

But the flight has been a huge flop with around 100 people using it every week - costing the public £86 for each passenger.

Transport chiefs today called for a "comprehensive marketing programme" to boost passenger numbers.

Darren Millar AM, chair of the National Assembly's Public Accounts Committee, said: "We remain concerned that this service is underperforming when it comes to providing value for money for the Welsh taxpayer.

Going, going, gone! A small town loses THREE banks in a year as branches continue to close all over Britain, Daily Mail.

One year ago there were four banks on the High Street in the north Essex town of Brightlingsea. By this autumn only one will remain.

First Nationwide shut, then NatWest said it would leave, and now Barclays has followed suit. The closures are threatening to bring this thriving community to its knees. 

Susie Bowes has only been running Vintique antique shop on the High Street for two months and the Barclays branch is six doors down. She knew NatWest - further down the road - was going to close when she was looking to open a business bank account. She chose Barclays. It never said it was going to go, too.

Read more here

Romanian family of 17 who lied to get a house live in a three-bedroom London semi.

A Romanian migrant family of 17 who lied to get a three bedroom house but take home £55,000 a year in benefits say they put up with the overcrowding because life is better in Britain.

The Toma family arrived in Britain in 2012, but after struggling to find a letting agency prepared to house all 15 of their children they told a landlord there were just six of them to get a home.

Although electrician father Mihai Toma, 47, earns £1,800 a month which covers the rent at the house in Harrow, north-west London, because of the number of children the family get £55,000 a year in tax credits and benefits.

  Toma family arrived in Britain from Romania in 2012 'for a better life'

  Family of 17 struggled to find letting agents who would accept them

  They then lied to a landlord, saying there were only six family members

  Father Mihai earns £1,800 a month as an electrician

  They say they get £4,600 in monthly benefits due to the number of children

  Tomas want a bigger house, but councils says they are not eligible

Read more here

The Flaming Herald, by Bert Farias, Charisma Magazine. The Raw, Naked Truth About Homosexuality

Gay rights and gay marriage have become one of the major issues of our culture today. In such times, Christians cannot afford to lose their moral compass or compromise the scriptures.

Here is a reminder that will strengthen our moral bearings:

The devil hates it when someone brings the truth out into the open. He likes to keep all light and truth hidden in the darkness. He hates it when someone speaks plainly and clearly about sin. On the other hand, he loves to promote all that is abominable and evil. "Off with his head," has always been the cry against those who confront sin and preach repentance.

So here is the raw, naked truth on homosexuality that we must never forget:

The Bible says that homosexuality is unnatural. Men in gay relationships have given up the natural use of the woman and women the natural use of the man.  

Read more here

Further Reading

A Call for Humility and Repentance in the Gay Community,  Flaming Herald.

How Obama's LGBT Executive Order Endangers Religious Liberty, Todd Starnes, Charisma Magazine

President Obama signed an executive order Monday barring federal contractors from discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity—ignoring the pleas of Christian and other faith leaders to include an exemption for religious organizations.

"Thanks to your passion and advocacy and the irrefutable rightness of your cause, our government—the government of the people, by the people and for the people—will become just a little bit fairer," the president told a gathering in the White House.

The executive order would prevent Christian and other religious organizations with federal contracts from requiring workers to adhere to the tenets of their religious beliefs. Christianity Today reports the order could impact religious non-profits such as World Vision, World Relief and Catholic Charities.  To read more please click here

President Obama, You Have Crossed a Dangerous, Unprecedented Line, Michael Brown, Charisma Magazine

Dear Mr. President, I write to you today as a concerned citizen of our great nation, standing as a witness against your historic actions on the morning of July 21, 2014, actions which I hope you will one day repudiate with deep remorse and regret.

I am referring, of course, to your signing an executive order Monday banning "discrimination" by federal contractors against LGBT people, allowing for no religious exemptions of any kind.

This was an outrageous act of discrimination against religion in the name of anti-discrimination—an act of bullying people of faith in the name of the prevention of bullying.

How can you, as a man who professes to be a person of faith and a follower of Jesus, throw religious Americans—in particular Christians—under the bus?

How can you attempt to force Christians, Jews, Muslims and others to violate fundamental aspects of their moral codes in order to appease a small but powerful special interest group, one that is not, in fact, suffering daily economic hardship by being fired from their jobs because of their sexual orientation or expression?

Have you forgotten entirely that our nation was founded on the concept of religious freedom?,  please read more here President Obama

T

Curb EU benefit tourism, Whitehall told

: Report finds growing concern among Britons about access to the welfare state by migrants.

Daily Mail Story

A  major overhaul is needed to curb  migrants’ access to British benefits, a Government review has concluded.

The report finds growing concern among Britons about access to the welfare state by the hundreds of thousands of arrivals from Europe taking advantage of EU free movement rules.    

If the system is not urgently reformed it could ‘significantly undermine’ public support for freedom of movement, it concludes.

Please read the full story here

Persecution of Mosul Christians 'Unprecedented in Modern Times'

Persecution of Mosul Christians 'Unprecedented in Modern Times

David Curry, president/CEO of Open Doors USA, has condemned the latest action of Islamic State militants who ordered all Christians in the Iraqi city of Mosul to leave the city over the weekend or face execution.

"The persecution and treatment of Christians in Mosul is unprecedented in modern times," he says. "This latest forced exodus of Christians further shows why Western governments and the people in the West need to cry out in support for religious freedom in the Middle East and elsewhere. If this does not move us concerning the near extinction of Christianity in the Middle East, it's likely nothing else can."

Rabbi Yitzchok Adlerstein, director of Interfaith Affairs at the Simon Wiesenthal Center, adds: "Too many of us thought that forced conversions and expulsions of entire religious communities were part of a distant, medieval past. There was little that we could do to stop this horrible episode.

"It is not too late to realize that many others—Christians today, but certainly Jews, Baha'i, Hindus, Muslims and others—are mortally endangered by a potent religious fanaticism that threatens tens of millions, and which still can be resisted."

According to Open Doors, the Islamic State gave Christians an ultimatum over the weekend: 1) Stay and convert to Islam; 2) Pay Islamic tax (which is too much for most families to pay); 3) Leave Mosul taking nothing but their clothes. Christians who stayed would be executed.

Most Christians have left Mosul now. At the checkpoints of ISIS, Christians had to leave everything behind (cars, gold, money, mobile phones). The only possessions they could keep were their clothes. They had to walk to safer places, mostly in northern Iraq, while traveling in blistering heat.

ISIS burns 1,800-year-old church in Mosul - Al Arabiya News

ISIS burns 1,800-year-old church in Mosul - Al Arabiya News

A video posted on YouTube July 9 shows a tomb being destroyed with a sledgehammer which government officials said was “almost certainly” the tomb of Biblical prophet Jonah.

Earlier, Mosul’s Christians fled the city en masse before a Saturday deadline issued by the al-Qaeda-inspired Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) for them to either convert to Islam, pay tax, leave or be killed.

Al Arabiya correspondent in Iraq Majid Hamid said the deadline set by the jihadist group was 12 p.m. Iraqi time (10 a.m. GMT). Hamid reported that many Christians fled the city on Friday. It is not clear if any remained after the deadline.

Disabled Peer: Assisted suicide Bill ‘frightens’ me

Disabled Peer: Assisted suicide Bill ‘frightens’ me







A Peer who has spinal muscular atrophy has told the House of Lords that legalising assisted suicide “frightens” her because she could be tempted to ask for it in the future.

Baroness Campbell of Surbiton made the comments on Friday during a debate on Lord Falconer’s Bill, which would allow patients thought to have six months or less to live to obtain lethal drugs to kill themselves.

The Bill passed its Second Reading without a vote after 126 Peers spoke on the issue.

Rick Warren Uncertain if Homosexual Behavior is Sinful, Says ‘Gays’ Go to Heaven

Rick Warren Uncertain if Homosexual Behavior is Sinful, Says ‘Gays’ Go to Heaven

Controversy is stirring over recent comments made by Rick Warren, author of the best-selling book The Purpose-Driven Life and megachurch leader of Saddleback Church in California, who stated that homosexual behavior “might be” sinful, and that he believes homosexuals go to Heaven.

During an interview this week with the Huffington Post, Warren was asked by Marc Lamont Hill if having romantic feelings for a member of the same sex is a sin. Leading up to the question, Warren was explaining that he does not hate homosexuals, and that people should disagree politely on the subject of homosexuality.

“I have many, many gay friends, and have worked around the world with them in gay organizations to try to stop AIDS,” he said. “We’re doing ‘World AIDS Day’ this weekend at Saddleback Church. My wife and I have given millions of dollars to help people with HIV/AIDS and have worked with gay organizations on that.”

“What about the love part, though? I hear about the AIDS part,” asked Hill. “It’s not illegal to love somebody,” Warren replied.  

“But you think it’s a sin,” Hill asserted. “No, it’s not a sin to love somebody,” Warren said.

Christian bakery: We are staying true to our beliefs

Christian bakery: We are staying true to our beliefs

The Christian bakery facing court because of their traditional marriage stance have spoken out in the national media, saying, “we are staying true to our beliefs”.

Daniel McArthur has been at the centre of a religious liberty debate after the bakery he manages – Ashers Baking Company – declined to decorate a cake with the slogan “Support Gay Marriage”.

Now he has explained how the company came to its decision, and commented: “I am sorry for any distress we have caused but we are staying true to our beliefs.”

It's time for Action, Part 1

Recently,  I have found that I have a lot of free time,  due to circumstances,  although I have been spending time with some amazing and special friends both locally here in Southport and when I have been travelling over the other  side of the Pennies.

Due to the amount of free time, I have been reading some significant Christian books by Tim Chester, Michael Frost and Neil Cole,  I have developed a system of time management which does to a certain degree works out well.   I decided to spend some time seeking God’s face, will and direction for my life and have spent some time reading and praying.

I haven’t spent much time writing my blog recently, although I have re-posted some old blog posts,  I haven’t spent much time  on things like Facebook because of a new relationship.   I have tried to write some new posts and nothing has seemed to flow, you could call writer’s block but I’m unsure what was the cause of the lack of the progress in writing.

I read with interest today on the Daily Mail website, of a Gentleman who has decided for some reason to convert his house back to what it would have looked like in the 1940’s and he has chosen to live his life in that period of time see  the 1940's house.  Some time ago I visited the  St Fagan’s National History Museum near Cardiff and I saw the Ironworker's Terrace Houses, where the houses were converted to what they would have looked like at various times in History.  Last night I watched an episode of the British World War 2 Detective series, Foyle’s War. I enjoyed watching Foyle’s War last night,  but it showed a story from a historical point of view.  It’s very easy of us to have a sense of nostalgia for days that have past, or even feel a sense of  safety in those days that have passed,  I felt a sense of  sadness for the gentleman living in the 1940’s house,  none  of us, I hope would choose to live our lives in a 1940’s house, but we can see something in the past, and rather taking that something into our present or future,  we can see the ideal of that truth and leave it in the past.

One of my favourite Television shows is Homes Under the Hammer,  where people buy houses that have seen better days at auction, and by investing  a lot of money and time, transform these houses  either to sell on/rent out  or to live in.

I have been a Christian,  a number of years now,  and was  converted in a Children’s Meeting, Easter 1981 although I was raised in a Christian Family,  I have developed a love of Scripture , the Church and the Kingdom of God, and for my fellow believers, and those not yet Christians ,  and I have wondered like many of us,  where we fit in in the grand scheme of things, and what part I do play or I’m called to play.  I have had struggles, disappointments and many times have felt disillusionment .   I have felt for some time,  that one season or chapter is ending, and I’m about to enter a new season or chapter.

“ A  great deal more failure is the result of an excess of caution that bold experimentation with new ideas.  The frontiers of  the Kingdom of God were never advanced by men and women of caution.”  Oswald Chambers

“ Don’t ask yourself  what the world needs.  Ask yourself what makes you alive , and then go and do that , because what the world needs is people who are alive.”  Howard Thurman

It’s easier to read our Bibles and Christian books, and to pray and to seek God’s face and will for our lives,  however it becomes a life of day dreams and virtual reality Christianity. Like the Apostle Peter says,  it’s time for action,  we have spent years in preparation, and no preparation is wasted,   but now is the time for action.

Called to Be Holy 1 Peter 1:13-14 Esv

13 Therefore, preparing your minds for action,[a] and being sober-minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. 14 As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance,

John 4:35-38

35 Do you not say, ‘There are yet four months, and then comes the harvest’? Behold, I say to you, lift up your eyes and look on the fields, that they are white for harvest. 36 Already he who reaps is receiving wages and is gathering fruit for life eternal; so that he who sows and he who reaps may rejoice together. 37 For in this case the saying is true, ‘One sows and another reaps.’ 38 I sent you to reap that for which you have not laboured; others have laboured and you have entered into their labour.”

C T Studd

Too long have we been waiting for one another to begin! The time of waiting is past! The hour of God has struck! War is declared! In God's Holy Name let us arise and build! 'The God of Heaven, He will fight for us', as we for Him. We will not build on the sand, but on the bedrock of the sayings of Christ, and the gates and minions of hell shall not prevail against us. Should such men as we fear? Before the world, aye, before the sleepy, lukewarm, faithless, namby-pamby Christian world, we will dare to trust our God, we will venture our all for Him, we will live and we will die for Him, and we will do it with His joy unspeakable singing aloud in our hearts. We will a thousand times sooner die trusting only our God, than live trusting in man. And when we come to this position the battle is already won, and the end of the glorious campaign in sight. We will have the real Holiness of God, not the sickly stuff of talk and dainty words and pretty thoughts; we will have a Masculine Holiness, one of daring faith and works for Jesus Christ.

Matthew 9:35-38 New American Standard Bible.

35 Jesus was going through all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every kind of disease and every kind of sickness  36 Seeing the people, He felt compassion for them, because they were distressed and dispirited like sheep without a shepherd. 37 Then He *said to His disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. 38 Therefore beseech the Lord of the harvest to send out workers into His harvest.”

To be continued 

Jesus Culture - Oh Happy Day

Christian Ministry and Leadership, Some thoughts

Ephesians 4v11-16

1 And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds[b] and teachers,[c] 12 to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, 13 until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood,[d] to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, 14 so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes. 15 Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, 16 from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.

Oswald Chambers

Suppose God tells you to do something that is an enormous test of your common sense, totally going against it. What will you do? Will you hold back? If you get into the habit of doing something physically, you will do it every time you are tested until you break the habit through sheer determination. And the same is true spiritually. Again and again you will come right up to what Jesus wants, but every time you will turn back at the true point of testing, until you are determined to abandon yourself to God in total surrender. Yet we tend to say, “Yes, but— suppose I do obey God in this matter, what about . . . ?” Or we say, “Yes, I will obey God if what He asks of me doesn’t go against my common sense, but don’t ask me to take a step in the dark.”

Jesus Christ demands the same unrestrained, adventurous spirit in those who have placed their trust in Him that the natural man exhibits. If a person is ever going to do anything worthwhile, there will be times when he must risk everything by his leap in the dark. In the spiritual realm, Jesus Christ demands that you risk everything you hold on to or believe through common sense, and leap by faith into what He says. Once you obey, you will immediately find that what He says is as solidly consistent as common sense.

 By the test of common sense, Jesus Christ’s statements may seem mad, but when you test them by the trial of faith, your findings will fill your spirit with the awesome fact that they are the very words of God. Trust completely in God, and when He brings you to a new opportunity of adventure, offering it to you, see that you take it. We act like pagans in a crisis— only one out of an entire crowd is daring enough to invest his faith in the character of God.

Pope John Paul II

It is Jesus that you seek when you dream of happiness; He is waiting for you when nothing else you find satisfies you; He is the beauty to which you are so attracted; it is He who provoked you with that thirst for fullness that will not let you settle for compromise; it is He who urges you to shed the masks of a false life; it is He who reads in your heart your most genuine choices, the choices that others try to stifle. It is Jesus who stirs in you the desire to do something great with your lives, the will to follow an ideal, the refusal to allow yourselves to be ground down by mediocrity, the courage to commit yourselves humbly and patiently to improving yourselves and society, making the world more human and more fraternal.”

C T Studd

Too long have we been waiting for one another to begin! The time of waiting is past! The hour of God has struck! War is declared! In God's Holy Name let us arise and build! 'The God of Heaven, He will fight for us', as we for Him. We will not build on the sand, but on the bedrock of the sayings of Christ, and the gates and minions of hell shall not prevail against us. Should such men as we fear? Before the world, aye, before the sleepy, lukewarm, faithless, namby-pamby Christian world, we will dare to trust our God, we will venture our all for Him, we will live and we will die for Him, and we will do it with His joy unspeakable singing aloud in our hearts. We will a thousand times sooner die trusting only our God, than live trusting in man. And when we come to this position the battle is already won, and the end of the glorious campaign in sight. We will have the real Holiness of God, not the sickly stuff of talk and dainty words and pretty thoughts; we will have a Masculine Holiness, one of daring faith and works for Jesus Christ.

Yours by His Grace

Blair Humphreys

Southport,  Merseyside

20th July 2014.

Billy Graham's grandson: 'Evangelicals hurt by their association with religious right' | Christian News on Christian Today

Billy Graham's grandson: 'Evangelicals hurt by their association with religious right' | Christian News on Christian Today

Florida megachurch pastor Tullian Tchividjian has said that the increasing association between evangelical Christianity and the religious right has had a negative effect.

In an interview published Friday, Tchividjian warned against bonding political views with religion.

George Jeffreys -- message

Five reasons to put your phone down for a while | Christian News on Christian Today

Five reasons to put your phone down for a while | Christian News on Christian Today



It's a familiar and vaguely depressing sight. We are a culture glued, stuck firmly to our smartphones. Wander through any airport, sit on any train, and you'll see hundreds of slaves: people ignoring people, transfixed instead by the small screen that they clutch in their hands. Obviously technology can be a wonderful tool, including the internet generally and the smart phone specifically, but it shouldn't take over our lives - whoever thought that our gods would be small, handheld devices before which we kneel, figuratively speaking, in humble homage? So do yourself a favour: dethrone that god, give your phone a rest, and for good reasons.



Published 16 July 2014  |   Jeff Lucas

Were You 'Sent' or Just 'Went' Into Ministry? 6:00AM EDT 7/17/2014 JOSEPH MATTERA

 

Today there are many people in the independent evangelical and Pentecostal movements who start churches merely because they feel led to do so.

If there were a way to statistically track the outcomes of these self-ordained pastors, my educated guess, based on years of experience, is that most of these churches and/or ministries fail to last more than a few years.

In our  American culture we glorify independence and self-determination. These values are great when it comes to our entrepreneurial spirit, which is why our nation will probably always take the lead in creativity and wealth creation and our economy will continue to rebound in spite of what the federal government does to us. But when it comes to functioning properly in the body of Christ these values can be harmful.

Unfortunately, the way many of our brothers and sisters have "called themselves" to start churches or launch ministries mimics Hollywood movies more than biblical protocol! I am thinking of movies that depict independent fundamentalist evangelicals like The Apostle (staring Robert Duvall) and Elmer Gantry (staring Burt Lancaster). The former highlights a man who baptizes himself and calls himself an apostle, while the latter features a man who conducts tent crusades without any ministerial training or affiliation to a church, association or denomination.

A telling scene in Elmer Gantry involves a group of pastors and a newspaper reporter asking evangelist Elmer Gantry and a lady evangelist a simple question: Who trained and ordained you? Their response: "God" did.

These movies demonstrate that even secularists understand there is something wrong with this way of doing ministry. It is as ridiculous as sending yourself to Afghanistan to fight Islamic terrorists without the covering, protection, training or the strategy of the U.S. military. I have had experiences in my own church in which a person left the church without proper training, communication or protocol with plans to start a church in their home. My primary question to people such as these is "Who sent you?"

I tell our church members that when they meet a minister or pastor for the first time, the number one question they should ask is "Who sent you?" or "Who do you submit to?" If the minister or pastor says "God" then run from them as fast as you can! Many have started local churches for the same reason some entrepreneurs start their own small businesses instead of working for a larger company: they simply don't want to submit to anyone else or have someone over them telling them what to do!

One of the greatest chapters in the Bible is the priestly prayer of Jesus in John 17 in which Jesus is praying to the Father before His crucifixion. In this prayer Jesus constantly refers to the fact that He was "sent" or "given" things to Him by His Father to do the work He gave Him to do. This shows He never called Himself to minister; Jesus needed to be sent or given ministry by someone higher than Himself for His ministry to be legitimate, even though He is God the Son (John 17:2-4, 6-9, 11-12, 18, 21, 23-25).

If the Son of God didn't call Himself into ministry then others who feel called ought to pattern themselves after His protocol for confirming the timing of a genuine call into ministry. Furthermore, the Bible tells us in Hebrews 5:1, 3-6 that Jesus didn't call Himself into the priesthood; he waited until the Father called Him. This was patterned after the Old Covenant in which a person could only serve as a priest if his physical father was a priest of the tribe of Levi from the priestly line of Aaron (Exodus 28:1). Thus, if we don't have a father who ordained us into the ministry (in the New Covenant this includes spiritual fathers) then we have a "bastard" ministry and have no biblical legitimacy to fulfill our calling.

The early church also functioned with this concept of sending as a methodological background. For example, even though Saul and Barnabas had already felt called by God into ministry they didn't dare send themselves until the leaders of the church in Antioch also received a confirming word from the Lord to send them. (Read Acts 13:1-2, in which the tense of the original Greek wording shows that God had already called Saul into the ministry before the leaders of the church received the confirming word.)

In another instance, Paul the apostle submitted the gospel of grace he was preaching (to the Gentiles) to the leading apostles of the Jerusalem Church (Peter and John) for fear his work was in vain (Galatians 2:2, 9). This shows even Paul, the great apostle, needed the right hand of apostolic blessing to be considered legitimate.

Paul also shows it was part of the protocol of the early church that a person wouldn't preach or minister unless they were officially sent and, by implication, sanctioned by the church. (Read Romans 10:15 which says "How shall they preach unless they are sent?")

In spite of this biblical precedent, many ministers I meet have started their churches from no more than a subjective "leading of the Lord" without the training, blessing or sending of a local church body. If a person cannot go through the grid of submitting to a process of biblical training, character development, and theological and ministerial training in the context of a local church, then how can they be properly prepared to shepherd a flock under God? Most of the time when someone has no personal submission to spiritual authority it illustrates a deeper issue within them of rebellion against God! Jesus said that if we receive the one He sent then we receive Him. Conversely, by rejecting the spiritual authority He sent then we reject Him (Matthew 10:40)!

I have experienced everything I have written in this article the hard way! For example, when I first received a calling from the Lord to enter full-time ministry (in October 1980) the first thing I did was submit my revelation to my pastor, Benjamin Crandall. Even though I felt called to start a church I submitted to his counsel which included sitting under his tutelage for several years until he licensed me for ministry. It was four whole years of preaching in my community before he finally came to me and told me it was time to start a church, which I did in 1984. I believe that, because I submitted to his spiritual authority as my spiritual father, our church has been blessed with having no church splits in 26 years and unity amongst all of our elders and pastors. Also, I sense a special anointing and grace upon me to teach on spiritual authority and church government. Conversely, some I know who started churches about the same time as me have experienced multiple church splits because they didn't submit to the biblical process involved in a ministerial calling. This includes training, ordination and submission to spiritual authority in the context of a local church or ministry.

Furthermore, when some bishops in my city approached me in 2005 about consecrating me as a bishop, the first thing I did before allowing such a consecration was to have them call several local and national bishops who knew me well to obtain feedback before we continued. If those leaders didn't agree that I was already functioning as a bishop then I didn't want to proceed! (They received confirmation from several bishops which then began a one-year process in which I submitted to a rigorous grid in which they interviewed apostolic leaders, my elders and my family to verify the legitimacy of my calling as a bishop.)

In spite of the above, I believe there are exceptions to these protocols especially in certain places in the world where there are no local churches or apostolic leaders, or where there are no spiritual fathers willing to process and release younger ministers into the ministry. But, in this nation it is very easy to find someone willing to mentor, train and release a person into the ministry.

The first place to look is in your own local church. Most times there is a biblical process that is either structured or informal that a person can go through to be sent out into full-time church ministry. However, if you want to start a church, you should first prove yourself by either running a successful home group that rapidly multiplies or oversee a ministry in your local church that successfully nurtures and trains leaders. If you cannot prove your pastoral calling with the blessing of a senior pastor in your local church then that is a good sign you will not be successful as the founding pastor of a new local church.

Joseph Mattera has been in full-time church ministry since 1980 and is currently the Presiding Bishop of Christ Covenant Coalition and Overseeing Bishop of Resurrection Church in New York. He is also serving as the United States Ambassador for the International Coalition of Apostles, and as one of the founding presiding bishops of the International Communion of Evangelical Churches.

Charisma News,  17/07/2014