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The author
Micael Grenholm, a Swedish charismactivist, apologist and author.
Sweden is Preparing for Revival
Worship at the Heaven Now conference in Stockholm
It’s exciting to see what’s happening in Scandinavia right now. Sweden’s starting point for revival is perfect – we are one of the most secularised countries in the world, xenophobia and racism is spreading, the rich are getting richer and the poor getting poorer – in other words, we’re desperate for something that will turn everything upsidedown. And there are so many disciples that are desperate for this. So many are not only praying for revival, but acting revival, spreading the Kingdom on the streets, in the schools, on the Internet -everywhere! Let me give you some examples of what is going on:
Cessationism is dead in Sweden. I have met one Swedish cessationist in my lifetime, and he wasn’t very young. Among the youth, charismatic theology is almost universal, and more and more are praying for an outpouring of the Holy Spirit. And we’re less focused on people and more on God. This weekend hundreds of people gathered in Stockholm for a Heaven Now conference with students from Bethel School of Supernatural Ministry in California. No big names, just students. And God was there, and people were so hungry, and after they prayed and worshipped they went out on the streets to share the love of God with others.
And we do see a lot on the streets. Me myself is leading street evangelist groups, several others are going out regularly to pray for the sick and preach the Gospel. My friend Durckheim Blessing is seeing a lot, as is evident in the clip above. More and more people start questioning the tradititional, unbibilical way of doing church where the service really isn’t a service but a internal concert followed by a lecture, more and more people wants to go out, take risks, connect with strangers and see daily miracles and conversions.
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The Merging of Neo-Pentecostalism and Roman Catholicism
Francis and Kenneth
Many were surprised a couple of weeks ago when pope Francis sent a message to a Word of Faith conference led by Kenneth Copeland, speaking about unity and asking them to bless and pray for him, as he blesses and prays for them. And Copeland got excited and blessed him back. It’s surprising because Francis and Copeland are very distant theologically – besides the usual differences between Catholicism and Pentecostal Protestantism, Francis is a guy who is well-known for economic simplicity and an emphasis on redistribution to the poor, while Copeland is well-known for his capitalist prosperity preaching. He not only owns a mansion worth 6 million dollars and several private jet planes, but also his own freakin’ airport, Kenneth Copeland Airport, where he stores his private jet planes close to his 6 million dollar-mansion!
However, this surprise doesn’t come close to what Christians in Sweden experienced two days ago when it was revealed that Ulf Ekman, the leader of the Word of Faith movement in Scandinavia, converts to Roman Catholicism. Ulf Ekman is probably the most well-known Swedish Christian living today, his international ministry reaches millions and he is well-known among both Christians and non-Christians, mostly because he manages to be constantly controversial.
He brought the “name it claim it”-teaching from Kenneth Hagin and Oral Roberts to northern Europe, emphasizing health, wealth and success, and gathered prayer warriors wanted charismatic revival in Sweden and political domination for Israel in the middle east. And they despised Catholics, arguing that they represented a dead religion that quenched the Spirit and stood for countless heresies.
Healing the Sick and Raising the Dead in China
Half a year ago my pastor told me that there is a Chinese lady studying at Stockholm School of Theology called Ge Baojuan who has raised dead people back to life. Since this school isn’t exactly charismatic I was cheerfully surprised and went to Stockholm to do an interview. I asked her to share some miracles she had seen, and she didn’t disappoint me. She said that a lot of miracles are happening in China and that this is one of the major reasons why the church is growing so quickly there.
Jenny, Ge and me
She told me about when she raised a child from the dead, when a girl with mental problems was healed, when tumors disappeared from a woman’s womb and when a lady miraculously survived a car accident. The two latter examples were from Sweden, so luckily the power of the Holy Spirit isn’t restricted to China.
I was so impressed by pastor Ge’s humility and faith. She has been a pastor for a long time and has done a huge impact for the Kingdom of God in Wuhan, and now she has come to Sweden to take a master of arts in theology. In my opinion, she should teach the Swedes how to be a Spiritual master.
“An Angel Called me to Sweden”
Edward Thomas, coolest priest on earth. Photo: Rickard Kilström
The United States has given us a lot of crap over the years but one of the best things they’ve handed over is Ed Thomas, priest in the Church of Sweden and a friend of mine. Well, actually the United States is not responsible at all in sending him here, nor any American, but God Himself called Ed to Sweden. And I’m not talking about a vague feeling or a subjective interest that many Christians normally identify “calling” with – Ed was actually ordered to become a Swedish priest by the audible voice of God and an angelic visitation.
Ed shares this experience in the video above. He used to be a chef in the states, cooking food for celebrities like Tom Cruise and started to earn a lot of fame and money. He was a passionate believer and went through some program to know the will of God, praying every morning with some friends for almost a year in trying to figure out what God wanted them to do. Since his chef job was going very well he simply concluded that this is where God wanted him, and he was pleased with that since he was making a lot of cash out of it.
But one night, everything changed as Ed awoke hearing someone say “Edward!” There was no one there. He woke his wife up, who just told him “You’ve eaten too much strong food! It’s just a dream, go to sleep!” Ed fell asleep and a second time the voice woke him up saying “Edward!”
Should a Christian Work for the State?
Image: Ramone Romero
What jobs can Christians have? Many would probably answer “all, because Christians should spread the light everywhere” but that would be an overstatement. Should Christians for example be prostitutes? Even if Jesus never said “Don’t be a prostitute”, we understand from the Biblical ethics that prostitution is not a very suitable Christian workmanship. In the early church, the Apostolic Tradition from 215 AD lists prostitution as a non-Christian job, along with some other very interesting occupations:
If someone is a gladiator, or one who teaches those among the gladiators how to fight, or a hunter who is in the wild beast shows in the arena, or a public official who is concerned with gladiator shows, either he shall cease, or he shall be rejected. If someone is a priest of idols, or an attendant of idols, he shall cease or he shall be rejected. A military man in authority must not execute men. If he is ordered, he must not carry it out. Nor must he take military oath. If he refuses, he shall be rejected. If someone is a military governor, or the ruler of a city who wears the purple, he shall cease or he shall be rejected. The catechumen or faithful who wants to become a soldier is to be rejected, for he has despised God. (Apostolic Tradition 16:7-11)
According to the early church, Christians shouldn’t be gladiators, soldiers or governor. Ron Sider has written more about this in his book The Early Church on Killing. Even “rulers of a city” is ruled out. They kill and hurt people as well, indirectly. The political power is power through violence. The early Anabaptists and the early Pentecostals rejected political power for the same reason as the early Christians: they wanted to change society through love and the Holy Spirit, not by force or swords.
Why Don’t We Serve on Sunday Services?
In this clip, my favourite theologian John Wimber shares how he thought a church service looked like before he, as a newly converted believer, had ever visited one. He thought that people met at church, worshipped, had a good time and then decided who should go where: “You go downtown, I’ll take Anaheim”, etc. Then they would go out, heal some sick, cast out some demons and lead a few people to Christ, and then they would have lunch afterwards.
Unfortunately, John’s church wasn’t like that. After having attending a whole bunch of boring services he once asked his pastor “When are we gonna do the stuff?” “What stuff?” “You know, the stuff Jesus did – healing the sick, raising the dead” “Well, we don’t do that anymore. You just have to believe that it was done once.” John was confused and asked “What do we do then?” “What we did last morning!” John gasped: “For this I gave up drugs?”
I had similar thoughts when I was a new believer. I always thought it was strange that the church meetings were called “services”, since 95% of the people in my church weren’t serving very much. In fact, we hardly did anything except singing a few hymns and walking to the altar to receive communion.
When I later on joined a charismatic church the singing part got a bit more active, but beside that you didn’t do anything in church except receiving – receiving a sermon, receiving prayer or receiving a cute song from the Sunday school group.
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The Sweetness of Revival
God has been speaking to me about the Jesus Movement the last couple of months, and I’m planning to do some deeper research of this renewal when I get the time. For you who aren’t aware of it, it sprang up mainly among saved hippies in the 60’s and 70’s and spread from the US to Europe. The Jesus People, or Jesus Freaks as they gladly called themselves, were passionate charismatics who preached the Gospel in the power of signs and wonders while many of them also were pacifist peacemakers and radical supporters of social justice – many of them practiced community of goods. In other words, it was a Holy Spirit Activism movement!
As I read and watch clips about the Jesus Movement, I get the impression of a theology that is in all ways charismatically evangelical, but expressed in a very attractive and simple way. A review of a book about the movement simply dubbed it “sweetness”. I like that! The Jesus Freaks were radical, zealous and crazy, but above all that also very sweet.
Worship with the team from Iris Global
I encountered this sweetness in another context two days ago in Stockholm, Sweden. My friend had invited me to a prayer meeting that he hosted together with a travelling team from Iris Global. Iris Global is, as those of you who follow this blog should know by now, also a movement that combines signs and wonders with social justice, and these folks were no exception.
Human Rights and Fair Trade in the Power of the Spirit – Simon Adahl
I’ve written about my friend Simon Adahl previously, a Swedish musician who is passionate about Jesus and who has an amazing prophetic gift. Not only is he using this gift to lead people to Christ, but he has also used it to promote human rights and fair trade. Here’s how it happened:
Frank and Simon Adahl on stage at World Prayer Assembly 2012
On August 15, 2011, the Lord woke Simon up and told him to write a song about the reunification of North and South Korea. “Never!” Simon replied, “Do I look like a Korean to you?” “Write the song” “No, nobody will listen to an unknown Swede anyway.”
Then the Lord started to sing: “The one who walks with God can change nations. The one who walks with God can impact millions.” A song Simon himself had written.
Simon gave up, wrote the song “I’m gonna pray for Korea”, recorded it with his brother Frank and sent it to some South Korean publishing companies. They all said “thank you but no thank you”. It was too controversial.
But then things started to change. A friend of Simon’s said that she got an email from the International Prayer Center requesting prayer for North Korea, since one of their prophets said that Kim Jong Il was about to die (he did die in december 2011). Simon asked them if they wanted to use his song for their prayer meetings, and they said yes.
Shortly after, activist organizations promoting human rights in North Korea, like Stop Genocide in North Korea, wanted to use Simon’s song on events and demonstrations. Suddenly, it was played during a massive global manifestation in New York, London, Berlin, Tokyo and Seoul – at the same time! And finally, a South Korean publishing company published the song.
In 2012, Christians from Indonesia contacted Simon and invited him and Frank to come to World Prayer Assembly 2012 – the biggest prayer meeting in world history – not only to play that song but to write the theme song for the whole event. Simon said yes. And suddenly they were leading worship in front of 200 000 people, as well as millions that watched it through God TV.
And this is where the really cool things began to happen.
The Happy Racists of Scandinavia
A 19th-century propaganda image of Norwegian, Danish and Swedish soldiers joining hands (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
The other day, my American friend Robert Martin tweeted “Hey, @micaelgrenholm… Sweden is 5th happiest country in the world… congrats!” I jokingly responded “5th?? Now I’m definitely not happy!!” and he wrote “Well, at least 4 of the top 10 are Scandinavian… check it out. US is # 17″ Yup, Denmark was in fact number 1, and Norway number 2. All I could think about at that moment was actually racism and xenophobia.
How come? Well, a couple of years ago a Swedish journalist published a book called “The Happiest People in the World“ about racism in Denmark. While citizens enjoy a high standard of living with extensive welfare and social security, it’s very, very hard for non-whites to become such citizens. In fact, Denmark is probably the most xenophobic country in northern Europe. Even though the racist Danish People’s Party has not been part of a government, other parties have used similar rhetoric and even policies in order to prevent more people from joining them. The result is of course that DPP’s ideas of a multiethnic Denmark being a “national disaster” has formed national policies.
How about Norway, then? The day before Martin tweeted his message to me Norway had their parlamentarian election, and as the Conservative Party won they proudly announced that they would govern together with the xenophobic Progress Party. This is the first time a racist party has entered a Scandinavian government.
How do I know that they are racist? Well, for instance, they want to ban Romani people from the country. Furthermore they have all the traditional charesteristics of xenophobia: they are hostile to islam, they want to decrease immigration, they are patriotic and wants to defend “Norwegian values” against multiculturalism, etcetera.
The Amazing Frizon Festival
I’m currently at the Frizon (“Free Zone”) Festival, one of the biggest Christian youth events in Sweden. It’s actually a music festival with concerts and stuff, but it also includes services, Bible studies, seminars and everything else you’ll find at a Christian conference. And what I really love is that it both welcomes charismatic fire and radical activism. For example, you will find:
Daily testimony meetings where the youth share miracles they’ve experienced
Almost completely vegetarian food
Prophetic guidance where prophetic people pray for you
Seminars about migration policy, poverty reduction and the fight against trafficking
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Holy Spirit Explosion in Stockholm, Sweden
One and a half year ago I attended a Healing School conference in Malmo here in Sweden, arranged by Global Awakening and New Wine Sweden. Randy Clark, Bill Johnson, Tom Jones and Will Hart were speaking in 26 different sessions about how to pray for the sick and seeing the Kingdom of Heaven manifest on earth. Many miracles happened during that conference, as can be seen in the video above that I made. For example, a guy named Magnus was damaged in a car accident 21 years earlier and got metal plates to stabilize the body, something that made it impossible for him to bow down entirely. He named and claimed his healing and bam – he could touch the floor.
With this wonderful conference in mind, I was excited when I attended the New Wine leader’s conference in Stockholm this week where Randy was the main speaker. It was the same message – healing does not belong to the church margins but is at the heart of the Kingdom – but he had some new wonderful testimonies that illustrated his points. For example, he showed us this powerful video about a woman getting healed from metal constraints, just like Magnus:
Randy Clark
I like Randy. Even though I think his former mentor John Wimber (someone I keep comparing him with) had a slightly sounder theology at some points, I love his passion for Jesus, the Kingdom, and the spiritual gifts. His ministry, labeled by Wimber as apostolic, has changed the life of millions – including Heidi Baker. And God surely blesses his meetings through marvelous signs and wonders.
At the first night of the leader’s conference, a man started to shout joyfully and clap his hands. It turned out to be Pekka Liljeblom, a passionate Pentecostal evangelist – and a Facebook friend of mine. He got up on stage and explained that about 30 years ago, he got hurt in a boat accident and damaged his left eye. Since that day, he could only see ten centimeters with it. After receiving prayer at the conference however, his vision got restored with 90 %. He could now see to the other end of the room! I spoke with him two days later and his vision continued to improve.
Stunning Prophetic Evangelism in Sweden
Evangelism becomes much more easy when we use the gift of prophecy. Firstly, God can lead us when we aren’t sure of what to say in which situation. Secondly, people tend to exclaim “God is truly with you!” when you reveal the secrets of their hearts prophetically (1 Cor 14:25). When Jesus could tell Nathanael what he had been doing before they met, the latter exclaimed that Jesus truly is the Son of God (Jn 1:48-49). John Wimber taught a lot about this and often shared how he had led a couple to the Lord after sharing some detailed words of knowledge over the man:
Simon Adahl
My friends Simon Adahl and Orjan Armgren also have a lot of experience of prophetic evangelism. I wrote just a couple of days ago about how they led three persons to Christ in a hotel bar in Redding, California, using the gift of prophecy. Of course, they also do this when they are at home here in Sweden, and I want to share three of those events that they have told me about.
Once, Simon and Orjan were at Simon’s place and talked with a woman they knew who had some problems in her life. Suddenly Simon said: “We’re going to pray for you know. You have prayed to God that someone would pray for you, haven’t you?” “How do you know this?” she said.
“I go with God”, Simon answered. “And in fact, right now I see a young girl, running around on a grass field with a kite. And when she sees how the wind is katching the kite high up in the air, she’s so happy. This girl is you, and that is how happy the Lord wants you to be again.”
The woman started to weep. Then Orjan said: “I hear a song. ‘This little light of mine, I’m gonna let it…'” – Suddenly the woman went down on her knees shouting “I want to be saved!” (more…)
Simon Adahl, St Matthew and Prophetic Enemy Love
Simon Adahl
Yesterday I was having dinner with rock musician and revivalist Simon Adahl. He and his close friend Orjan Armgren are two down-to-earth, humble people that experience countless miracles. I literally mean countless. I have attended four of their meetings where they share testimonies non-stop for a couple of hours. Still, Simon had so much to tell that he invited me to his house so that he could share even more.
Here are a few examples of what they have experienced:
– Once, Simon passed by a man he’d never met and suddenly said “The answer is Estonia”. The man was stunned. He explained that minutes earlier, he had prayed to the Lord “Where should my aid relief go, Estonia, Latvia or Lithuania?”
– Another time he called a man and shouted prophetically in the phone “Yes, you are My evangelist!!” Right then, the man had aimed a knife at his artery to kill himself. Now, he ended those plans and returned to God.
– A non-Christian lady came over to Simon and shared some troubles she had. Simon then suddenly said that he saw her as a young girl, running on a grass field with a kite, filled with joy. Orjan, who also was there, said “I hear the song ‘This Little Light of Mine'”. The woman immediately went down on her knees shouting “I want to be saved!” It turned out that they had pointed out her favourite activity and favourite song during the happiest time in her life.
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The External, Audible Voice of God
Yesterday I was visiting the Pancake Church of Kungsbacka in western Sweden. Unlike us in Uppsala who go out on the streets, these people actually had a church to serve pancakes in. Since Kungsbacka isn’t a megacity, a lot of youths knew that the church hands out free pancakes on Fridays, and since the Swedish weather isn’t tropical, many of them came yesterday to eat some pancakes, chat with us and warm themselves.
Kids gathering for worship
After a couple of hours, we had some worship together. All the kids joined us, either because they were curious or because they had nothing else to do. This was the scoring opportunity for every evangelist. Two girls from Gothenburg, Charlotte and Jennie, came to the front to preach. Their message was called “Five popular myths about God”. Myth 1: God is unreachable and far away. Myth 2: Only weak and unintelligent people choose to live with God. Myth 3: It is boring to live with God. Myth 4: God doesn’t speak today. Myth 5: I’ll be better off if I choose God the minute before I die.
It was seriously the best evangelistic sermon I’ve ever heard. Charlotte and Jennie poured out their love for Jesus and shared how exciting and wonderful it was to follow Him. They combined biblical teaching with amazing testimonies. One testimony especially astounded me: when Jennie told us how she has heard the audible voice of God.
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The Pancake Church
The multitudes are gathering. The sign says “Free pancakes”
Two and a half years ago, I feared street evangelism. It felt strange and silly to talk about Jesus to strangers, and I was terrified to meet someone I actually knew! However, I realized that street evangelism obviously was something that Jesus and the apostles frequently did, and instead of trying to argue that we shouldn’t live like Jesus and the apostles (like many others tragically do), I decided to join some friends who were going out on the streets of Uppsala giving pancakes to people and sharing the Gospel.
It basically changed my life.
Tools for evangelism
Today, I’m one of the local leaders of the Pancake Church of Uppsala, and I love to share the Gospel. My former evangeliphobia effectively melted as I discovered how easy and naturally it is to chat with people over a pancake. We try to create a relaxed atmosphere where people can hang around and have a good time. And many of the youths don’t have any problem with discussing religion – on the contrary, they often have strong opinions about it. Some are provocative, yes, but most aren’t. Actually, it’s quite amazing how many are interested in seeking God in this secularized country. (more…)
Charismactivism 