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Micael Grenholm, a Swedish charismactivist, apologist and author.
God Bless John Wimber!
John Wimber, 1934-1997
John Wimber, the founder of the Vineyard movement who went home to the Lord in 1997, is one of my heroes in faith. As a man dedicated to combine signs and wonders with evangelism and social justice, he is of great inspiration to me. The text below is taken from an article by Jon Panner which can be found here.
“Remember your leaders who spoke the word of God to you. Consider the outcome of their way of life and imitate their faith. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever” (Hebrews 13:7-8).
A president of an evangelical seminary once introduced John Wimber with these words: “John Wimber is the greatest theologian of the 20th century.” I nearly burst with laughter. John looked at me, winked, stood up, shuffled slowly to the microphone and opened with, “Really, I’m just a fat saxophone player trying to get to heaven.”
[…]
At moments like these, he seemed like our collective grampa. His Santa Claus demeanor reassured us, “Kids, I’ve read the end of the book. Guess what? We win!” (more…)
A Yankee Imperialist Pig Filled with the Spirit
Bob Ekblad
Bob Ekblad has for 30 years been a Christian activist, eagerly working for peace and justice – especially among poor immigrants, prisoners and Guatemalan and Honduran farmers. In the clip above, he shares that eight years ago, he realized that something was missing in his ministry for the poor and oppressed. Somehow nationalism and egoism seemed to be stronger than the Gospel he preached.
At this time, Bob’s younger brother got saved in the Charismatic movement, and simply told him: “You do miss something, you miss the power of the Holy Spirit!” Bob was very sceptical since republican agendas dominated among Charismatics, but eventually he went to the Catch the Fire Toronto Church to be filled with the Spirit.
And filled he was! A prophetic man said to him that he saw a vision of him sitting with men in red uniforms on blue plastic chairs. He said “I believe it’s in a prison, and that the Father says ‘I love how you love my prisoners’.” Bob was stunned. That was exactly how his prison ministry looked like! Then the man prayed for a healing anointing to be released in Bob’s life. (more…)
Crippled by Rebels, Healed by Jesus
This missions report from Christ for all Nations just dropped down in my mail box. Praise the Lord!
Greetings from Gulu, Northern Uganda. Right now, we are in the middle of the territory where the infamous Joseph Kony inflicted his long and bloody reign of terror. The people of Gulu endured 20 years of war and experienced some of the worst atrocities known to man. Mass graves, child soldiers, mutilations, rape, murder and genocide are words that come to mind when one thinks of this place. But Gulu has just entered into a new season – one of salvation, blessing and miracles. The Spirit of the Lord is upon us because he has anointed us to preach the Gospel to the poor, He has sent us to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord. (Luke 4:18) It is a new day for Gulu!
Menacing clouds darkened the sky for most of the day threatening to wash out our open-air meeting with an East African monsoon, but we went forward to the campaign ground in faith. When we arrived many thousands had already gathered. As I preached a crystal clear Gospel message, the rain began to drizzle, but nobody budged. The message landed in the hearts of the people and was received with great joy. Thousands received Jesus Christ as Savior and then I began to pray for the sick… (more…)
Shell vs Polar Bears
Photo: Chrstian Åslund/Greenpeace Sweden
Yesterday, this lovely picture appeared in my Facebook feed. Around the world, polar bears occupy Shell’s gas stations in a desperate attempt to save their home. Not only is Shell melting the Arctic through their fueling of climate change, now they want to go there to dig for more oil, although the ecosystem is extremely vulnerable in the area and Shell’s rutines to avoid oil spills are insufficient.
Photo: Christian Åslund/Greenpeace Sweden
Of course, polar bears aren’t allowed to occupy gas stations, so they got a bit of trouble with the police force (no polar bear who participated in the occupation depicted above got arrested though). I wrote a month ago about how Greenpeace stated at the Rio+20 fiasco that “we have to intensify civil disobedience” since the legal process to stop climate change s going far to slow. What does climate civil disobediance look like, you may have wondered. Polar bear occupation of gas stations is one example. Human occupation of oil ships is another:
Miracles and Poverty Reduction in Mozambique
I am extremely inspired by Iris Ministries, which is why the background image of this blog comes from them. It is a ministry led by saints like Heidi Baker and Surprise Sithole, which is a ministry that have planted thousands of churches, taken care of thousands of abandoned children and experienced thousands of miracles, including raising of the dead. This is happening all over eastern and southern Africa, but especially in Mozambique, where the ministry is based. While the Western church is experiencing lack of Kingdom and abundance of money, the Mozambiqian revival experiences the opposite, and the thing I love with Iris Ministries is that they combine miracles with poverty reduction. The following text is taken from a newsletter sent last year by Rolland and Heidi Baker, founders of Iris Ministries:
In the last few years we have seen more than two thousand churches planted in this one province of Cabo Delgado. More spring up every week and we cannot keep count. Our “technique” is simple: all that counts is faith working through love (Gal. 5:6).
Every week we send truckloads of leaders, students and our own children to three villages. So many have opened up to the Lord that we are now often welcomed excitedly as we come back to love and encourage the people further. It is glorious to see the Kingdom spreading through the isolated and forgotten countryside of this land as village by village the power and love of our King is becoming known.
No carpets and air-conditioned sanctuaries here. We meet outside in the dirt and in the dark with hundreds and even thousands of villagers. In wind, dust, heat and rain they stand in their rags for hours, absorbing all they can. There is almost no resistance to the Gospel in this environment. Everyone wants Jesus when they feel His love through us all and see what only He can do. Of course they will need much more teaching, and more sanctification by the Spirit. But it is thrilling to see great crowds jumping and shouting “Yes!” to Jesus and His gifts. Every time our teams spread out and pray for everyone possible, resulting in tremendous testimonies. And in the morning we serve food for everyone, make friends, honor the chiefs, visit houses and families, pray for the sick, disciple the elders, preach and teach in simple mud churches, and just keep pouring out all we have. (more…)
Healing the Sick and Feeding the Hungry
A few weeks ago I attended a New Wine Conference in Vänersborg, Sweden. It was the best conference I’ve ever been to, for two reasons: I got radically filled with the Holy Spirit in a way I had not experienced before, and a reoccuring theme on the different seminars (although not the official theme of the conference) was the combination of signs and wonders with peace and justice. Exactly what this blog is about!
Bruce Collins seminar was an example of this. As can be seen in the video above, he shared multiple testimonies of amazing healings that have occured in Maseno, Kenya. The blind see and the crippled walk – normal Kingdom business. But then in the midst of breakthrough, Collins and his friends also saw a lot of hunger and suffering. Many in Maseno only got one meal a day, going to bed hungry every night.
“This is a Kingdom issue as well!”, Collins stated. “We are to pray ‘Your Kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth as it is in Heaven.’ There’s neither sickness nor hunger in Heaven.”
Thus, they started a farming project to increase the maize crops in Maseno – which went very well. Starvation dramatically decreased in the area – and people were still getting healed. That’s how His Kingdom works.
A Totally Miraculous Conversion
A few days ago I wrote about preaching the Gospel in the power of signs and wonders. The fantastic movie Father of Lights contains one of the most beautiful examples of this that I’ve ever seen.
Ravi is an Indian Christian with an amazing prophetic gift. Every morning, he says, he hears the audible voice of God that gives him direction for the day. One day his mission is to find “a man with white beard, orange roab and a turban” at a specific temple. He does find a maharishi – a guru of gurus – that perfectly fits that description.
Amazingly, the maharishi says that he has seen a god he didn’t recognize in a dream that told him to go to this temple at this day to find Ravi! Ravi then easily leads this guru of gurus to the Lord, and he becomes a passionate Christian.
The film also documents how Ravi easily leads a headmaster of a big Hindu feast to Christ, and how a witchdoctor gets terrified as Ravi and the film team approaches him as he suddenly feels totally powerless.
I highly recommend you to see Father of Lights when it comes in october 2012!
For more information on Ravi’s ministry, go to kingdomfoundations.org. It turns out that not only is he experiencing truly Biblical miracles, he also has a passionate heart for the poor and oppressed:
Ravi Kandal was born in Southern India and at the age of 17 gave his life to Jesus. From that time his heart has been stirred with the message that Jesus spoke to the disciples, to seek and save the lost. He is challanged with God’s heart for the poor and the untouchables of India, widows, orphans, lepers, and any who are forgotten.
No wonder that the Lord blesses him with such fantastic miracles. Signs and wonders are to be combined with poverty reduction. That’s how the Kingdom of God works.
Preaching the Gospel in the Power of Signs and Wonders
Iris Ministries in Mozambique has a lot of experience in combining the preaching of the Word with the confirmation of miracles.
We are to preach the Gospel not just with words, but also with power. Paul wrote: “our gospel came to you not simply with words but also with power, with the Holy Spirit and deep conviction.” (1 Th 1:5). God’s message is not dependent on the rhetoric skills of men, He empowers it with His Spirit.
And what does that power mean? It means signs and wonders:
“I will not venture to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished through me in leading the Gentiles to obey God by what I have said and done— by the power of signs and wonders, through the power of the Spirit of God. So fromJerusalemall the way around toIllyricum, I have fully proclaimed the gospel of Christ.” (Rom 15:18-19)
The evangelistic strategy of Paul thus is to lead people to Christ through 1) what he says; 2) what he does; 3) the miraculous power of the Holy Spirit.
All three aspects of evangelism are needed. We need to preach the Gospel clearly with our tongues, we need to express the love of God in good deeds, and we need to let God confirm His Word through signs and wonders. (more…)
“The most hardened sceptic is learning to say, ‘Lord, I believe'”
These stunning testimonies of prophetic miracles are taken from The Voice of Healing Magazine, October 1951.
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Break the Law to Save the Climate!
The current global conference on sustainable development, Rio+20, is a fiasco. The draft text that’s being negotiated is extremely weak and lame, and at some points it’s even worse than the agreement at the first Rio conference on sustainable development 20 years ago. The NGOs represented at the conference say that ”the text as it stands is completely out of touch with reality”.
Boy, we’ve heard this story before, haven’t we? Many like to blame the UN at this point, but personally I think they do their job quite well – the leaders of Western countries, on the other hand, are out of control in their sinning behaviour. They cause the mess, and the poor countries will have to pay for it:
Acts of God
Once we start praying and working for a better world, there is a risk of struggling in our own strength and power. And since everyone are sinners (Romans 3:10-18), the human way lined with failures, accidents, discouragement and fatigue. The Bible says that through the power of God, we are able to more than in our own force (Philippians 4:13). And that can sometimes be a little bit more dramatic than getting some extra energy as by an invisible vitamin kick. Sometimes, it means walking on water or raising the dead.
Our biggest problem when we work for peace and justice is that we aren’t able to do the impossible. It is this which forms the border of our activism for a better world. But Jesus said: “With God all things are possible.” (Mark 10:27). In what context did He said that? Well, concerning that the rich are going to sell everything and give the money to the poor. (more…)
Activist Animations on YouTube
I’ve been putting together a playlist on YouTube called Activist Animations. Using visual communication is very effective in mobilizing action for a better world, and so a well-performed animation can get a lot of impact. Please spread them on! Here are some of my favourites:
Sam Lee: A Pentecostalism Promoting Social Justice
Although I don’t agree with everything Samuel Lee writes in his book “A New Kind of Pentecostalism”, I think this part of a review by the author himself is pretty awesome:
As a Pentecostal pastor, I have been in this movement long enough to say with assurance that I have seen many Pentecostals who pray in tongues and who experience and perform miracles and manifestations and yet are full of arrogance, racism, ethnocentrism, or denomi-centrism.[1] They exclude others; they are overflowing with prejudices, yet they claim they are “filled” with the Holy Spirit. I wonder to which Holy Spirit they are referring.
The Pentecostalism that I promote is about humility and is not a commercialized, Hollywood-esque Christianity, where the hairstyle of the preacher and his/her wealth attracts the attention or where leadership becomes a pyramid system in which the superstar preachers become the new living icons and idols of the Pentecostal believers. I would love to see a Pentecostalism in which people learn to depend on God and on each other through love. I desire to see a Pentecostalism in which the leaders are servants and preachers of humility and grace. (more…)
Charismactivism 