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The author
Micael Grenholm, a Swedish charismactivist, apologist and author.
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.
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…)
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…)
Don Murphy: “Full Gospel” Includes Both Miracles and Sharing Material Goods
The Pentecostal Hutterite Don Murphy writes in his pamphlet The Church and the Narrow Path, to which I agree completely:
The Book of Acts chapter 2 records the birth of the Church of Jesus Christ and it describes what that Church was like. In the first part of Acts 2, we see the Church born in the power of the Holy Spirit, just as Jesus said (Acts 1:8). Then in the last part of Acts 2, we see the lifestyle of the early church, they were together daily, sharing their lives together, giving up private possessions as Jesus commanded (Luke 14:33), having all material possessions in common.
Using Acts 2 as a guide, we see that there are four types of churches today.
- Churches that bear little resemblance to the description of the Church in Acts 2 since they do not expect to have the power of the Holy Spirit in them as was in the early church and they do not follow the holy lifestyle of the early church as shown in the last part of Acts 2.
- Churches that meet the description of the early church in the first part of Acts 2. They do proclaim the power of the Holy Spirit with demonstrated signs and wonders. The Pentecostal churches fit this description. They like to say that they are ‘Full Gospel’ churches but they actually are only ‘Half Gospel’ churches since they do not fit the description of the last part of Acts 2.
- Churches that meet the description of the early church in the last part of Acts 2, meeting together daily and having all material goods in common. This is a very rare church indeed! However, they tend to not expect the power of the Holy Spirit in their lives as did the early church.
- Churches that meet the description of the entire chapter of Acts 2, a true ‘Full Gospel’ church. They not only proclaim the power of the Holy Spirit with demonstrated signs, wonders and holy living but also meet together daily and share all material goods in common as did the early church. Where does this church exist today?
When we use Acts chapter 2 as a guide we find that the way to the Kingdom of God is narrow indeed!
“Struggle to enter the Kingdom through the narrow door. The road to hell is wide with plenty of room and most go that way. But the door is small and the path is hard and narrow that leads to life and only a few find it.” (Mt 7:13-14, Luke 13:23-24).
Imagine Benny Hinn shouting: “Woe to you who are rich!”
Luke 6 is one of my favourite chapters in the Bible. A “great number of people” from all over Israel gather around Jesus, for two reasons: to hear Him preach, and to get healed from their diseases. And healed they are, all of them. Demons are cast out. Power is flowing out from Jesus. In other words, there’s full-scale revival. Then He starts to preach:
“Blessed are you who are poor,
for yours is the kingdom of God!”
In this Charismatic revival scenario, Jesus starts to talk about the poor. He goes on with blessing the hungry, the weeping and the hated. They are blessed. They are loved. The needy, broken and oppressed are healed phycially and spiritually by the compassionate Saviour.
But then the faith healer gets angry.
“But woe to you who are rich,
for you have already received your comfort!”
Jesus warns and critizises the rich, the wel-fed and the comfortable. They have to repent. God wants economic equality (2 Cor 8:14), His love basically cannot remain in people keeping their money for themselves instead of giving them to the needy (1 Jn 3:17).
Now, what I love with this passage is the obvious and natural combination of miracles with a divine call for economic justice. It’s a typical example of Holy Spirit activism. How come that we’ve managed to separate healing revivals from global justice? How come that healing revivalist Benny Hinn rather preaches a “blessed are you who are rich” message? How come that Christian activist Jim Wallis isn’t conducting any miracle crusades? It’s quite obvious that Jesus did both things in Luke 6. And we should do what Jesus did (1 Jn 2:6).
Community of Goods at the Jesus Army
Is it really possible to share everything, like the apostles did on Pentecost (Acts 2:44-45), today? Many Christians in the Western world seem to think that the community of goods is an unrealistic utopia, and thus, they don’t even try to live like the apostles. But the Jesus Army in the UK proves that it indeed is possible to live a New Testament life. Many of their church members live in the New Creation Christian Community, where they share everything, just like in the book of Acts. They write:
CHRISTIAN COMMUNITY
Practising a radical ‘New Creation’ lifestyle in the Jesus Fellowship
You don’t have to live in Christian community to belong to the Jesus Fellowship! But many of us do! Around 700 of us share our possessions and pool our income and wealth (if we have any!) to live like the early Christians. They had “all things in common”[Acts 2:44] and “no-one said that any of the things which he possessed was his own”.[Acts 4:32]
That was the result of the power of the Holy Spirit coming on the church at Pentecost. And our community life, too, is the result of the Holy Spirit’s presence. We have power to love! Power to serve! Power to share!
We’re able to break the mould. To escape from the rut. The question we ask is “How does God want us to live?” Of course it’s to love. Of course it’s to share. Of course it’s to show that through new life in Jesus He brings into being a new way of living!
Jesus had little to call His own.[Matt 8:20] He shared a pooled fund with His disciples.[Mark 10:28] He warned of the love of money.[Mark 10:21,22] Small wonder then that Peter led the new converts at the day of Pentecost into Christian community.
All of Pentecost
Pentecost is a forgotten holiday, when even Pentecostals celebrate Valentine’s day more than they celebrate Pentecost, it is obvious that we have a problem. We have to celebrate Pentecost – not by starting some strange tradition of dressing trees with small tongues of fire and eating dove-formed chocolate – but by intensively praying for an outpouring of the Holy Spirit. Pentecost, as it is described in Acts chapter 2, is repeatable, and that is fantastic news for the sleeping church in the Western world.
When the Holy Spirit was poured out in Acts 2 there was indeed an explosion of the miraculous gifts of the Spirit – tongues, healing, prophecy etc. – but also of the sanctifying fruits of the Spirit – love, joy, peace etc. These fruits are not only nice feelings, they lead to a radical lifestyle. On Pentecost, the first Christians had everything in common; they put economic equalization into practice, while they were performing signs and wonders. The charismatic gifts were combined with poverty reduction.
Charismatic Poverty Reduction
In 2010, a 20 year-old woman named Teresa Jebiwot participated in a revival meeting in Kisumu, southern Kenya. She was born without a cornea, which made her totally blind, not knowing if it was day or night unless someone told her. On the revival meeting however, she got completely healed when the prophet David Owour prayed for her, and she started to see perfectly. This was verified by an eye specialist, Dr. Agnes Maiyo, at the Iten District Hospial. More information about the healing can be found here.
I find this very beautiful; it is not easy to be blind in such a poor country as Kenya, but the wonderworking power of God did what no aid organisation can do. Teresa’s healing is a contemporary parallel to Bartimaeus’ healing in Mark 10:46-52. He was a blind beggar, and when Jesus healed him, three things happened: Firstly, people realized that God exist. Secondly, Bartimaeus could see God’s beautiful creation. Thirdly, he never had to beg again. Jesus used a miracle to set him free from poverty. Signs and wonders was combined with social justice. (more…)
Charismactivism 