USA

"Last week, we experienced a breakthrough on the UCLA (University of California, Los Angeles) Campus," writes Jaeson Ma, CCN Director. "One of our teams went to establish a beachhead on campus through 'prophetic worship and apostolic preaching'. One of our members reports:

Seeing with spiritual eyes
This past Wednesday at UCLA we experienced a taste of heaven on earth, but it came with a cost. As we walked up onto campus there were thousands of students walking up and down Bruin Walk. Normally, we would sit at the patch of grass where there were not many onlookers (free speech area), but on Wednesday the main steps at the top of Bruin Walk were open - we took it by faith. As we sat on the steps we began to pray. It was difficult to pray, the enemy immediately began to intimidate us with fear and self-consciousness. We could sense the spiritual darkness right there in the middle of campus opposing our prayers. It was almost like we could hear the Devil say, "Come on, what are you going to do? Worship in the middle of campus? With your little guitars and make a fool out of yourself? Don't you know I own this campus?" On the outside these UCLA students all have the status, the image, the self-confidence, the cool look cool. Then I heard the spirit of the Lord shout to my spirit, "Stop looking with your physical eyes. Look with your spiritual eyes! They are all lost, dying and headed towards eternal separation from God!"

Grace instead of routine preaching
Has not God made the wisdom of this world foolishness, and doesn't he use apparently foolish things to confound the wise? So we stood there worshipping God, not so that the students would hear us, but so that God would hear us. It was difficult. We were distracted by all sorts of thoughts, and one of us felt sick. Despite that, we sang for two hours, until we sensed that the time had come to preach. No matter how many times you have preached in front of masses of non-believers, you never get used to it. You can never preach from an inner confidence. It's not a routine Sunday sermon; it's for people who are prepared to lose their own reputation and rely completely on God. I almost wet myself when I looked at the number of students walking past. I would have liked to run away and hide. Instead, I shut my eyes, asked God for his grace, jumped into the middle of the steps and started preaching as loud as I could.

If there is...
My voice threatened to fail me, but I sensed that God was there. More and more students stopped to listen - a group here, a group of Asian students there, another group of African American students who had been listening to music from their boom boxes only moments before. They all listened as I preached the Gospel; at least 120 students, for almost half an hour. It was as though God miraculously amplified my voice. People told me later that they had heard me on the second floor (for US readers, the third floor), even though I was speaking without a microphone. When I called them to repent and turn to God, many prayed with me, and at least half a dozen raised their hands. We spoke one-on-one with the students who had shown interest. One Hindu told me "I am jealous of what you have! I want it, but I don't know how to get it!" One black student was really angry, and shouted at us, "You're just full of sh..!" He said that Christians cannot be trusted, and that he was now a servant of the Devil. I prayed "Holy Spirit, please give me the wisdom to answer this man." When I asked him for forgiveness, for myself and other Christians, he replied "I have no answer for that one," and almost started to cry. His countenance changed, and we prayed for him. Finally, he said "I don't know what's so different about you. I'm the only one in my family who is not a Christian, but if there is one church I'll go to, it's the one you go to!" The stories go on and on, but we know: the battle has just begun. Now we must press on!"

Source: Jaeson Ma and Campus Church Networks

Something very special happened when house church coach John White and Kenny Moore, Southern Baptist Director of Church Planting for the State of Colorado, had breakfast together on October 2, 2002. Both have a passion to see Colorado covered with living expressions of the Body of Christ. While lingering over the last cup of coffee for the morning, their thoughts were turned to the ninth and tenth chapters of Luke. They observed that this was where the Lord was really shifting gears, where the foundation was laid for all that would follow till the end of the age. Up to this point, the Lord was doing the ministry. Now he was sending out the 12 (Luke 9:1-6) and then the 72 others (Luke 10:1). "Now there were 42 two-man teams to establish the presence of Christ — to plant churches — everywhere," writes Jim Montgomery, a respected missionary and publisher of The Great Commission Update. "I would have been ecstatic," says John White, "if I had 42 church-planting teams for the state of Colorado. But what Jesus was saying really astounded us. 'The fields are ripe but these 42 teams are so few.'" The harvest is not the problem. The critical missing component is an adequate number of harvest workers. How do we get enough apostolic church planters? Luke 10:2b says to do one thing: ask the Lord of the harvest for them. John and Kenny covenanted with each other to pray this "10:2b" prayer together every day possible from that moment on. So every day either John would call Kenny or Kenny would call John to pray. If they didn’t connect, they would leave their prayer on voice mail.

800 days later
In the following 30 months, they have followed through on this pledge about 700 or 800 times, saying "God, here we are again, John and Kenny, pleading for more harvest workers for Colorado, just like every day." "Regular prayer, like the poor widow in Luke 18," says White, "can and should become a healthy, regular and hence relentless intercession." Kenny and John started inviting others to do the same, regularly praying the 10:2b prayer in teams. There are now between 200 and 300 people praying 10:2b with a partner virtually every day. The 10:2b virus is spreading!

Amazing results
"And the results have been amazing," says White. "We're to the point where we get a phone call or e-mail almost every day from someone saying something like this: 'It’s in my heart to plant a (house or simple) church. How do I do that? Can you help me?'" Kenny Moore used to get six or eight people over the course of six months who would indicate a desire to start a new church. He now has a steady stream of inquiries, and there have been around 100 Southern Baptist Churches established in Colorado alone from the time he and White began praying 10:2b together.
Tim Pynes had been on the staff of a large, post-modern church in Denver. With so many programs in this mega-facility, Pynes found he had merely turned into a project manager. "This is not what I signed up for," he told White. "I want to invest in the lives of people." He left the megachurch and started meeting White. He now has a growing network of 8 house churches in Denver.
Guy Muse, a Southern Baptist missionary in Ecuador, has been encouraging all of his house church people to pray the10:2b prayer on a daily basis since May of 2004. "In that month of May alone, 30 new congregations were established," he reports.

"Cast out", not "send forth"
The Greek word for "send forth" in Luke 10:2b, ekballein, was a very forceful, almost violent, term. It is the word used when casting out a demon, for example. White and Moore realised that they should not pray for potential labourers who may be interested, but for highly-motivated people who God had taken and, as only he can, placed with gentle force in the harvest. It seems to work...

Source: Jim Montgomery and John White, DenverWH[at]aol.com

(Please note: some of the claims made by reporters and Mayor Nagin during and immediately after Hurricane Katrina and mentioned in this Friday Fax have since been shown to be exaggerated or wrong.)

Following devastating hurricane Katrina, which hit New Orleans and Louisiana on 29 August 2005, a small part of the USA is in a state of shock, and a huge region has been devastated. Thousands are dead, and 25,000 body bags have been delivered to the region. One million people have lost their homes, and armed gangs made New Orleans a lawless jungle. With a backdrop of rape, hate, desperation and powerlessness, old race and class conflicts have reared their head, everyone fighting against everyone else. The victims include almost no rich white people. "This could never have happened in (rich) Orange County, California, or Manhattan, New York," commented one TV reporter. "In England, racial tensions between black and white were reduced by a Christian revival. In the USA, they developed into the Civil War, and we're still fighting today," said Neil Cole, house church planter and author, at the National House Church Conference in Denver in early September 2005.

Almost as soon as the power failed in New Orleans, the thin veneer of law and order broke, and the situation exploded. Ray Nagin, Mayor of New Orleans, completely lost his composure in the face of incomprehensible delays in delivering aid ("You can get water to Baghdad, but it takes more than four days to do that here"). I can still hear him shouting on the radio "Get your asses moving and do something. Hundreds more dead every day - that makes me puke." "The multicultural metropolis New Orleans stood for lust, swing, paddleboats and Mardi Gras. Now it stands for suffering, lawlessness and death," wrote German news magazine Focus.

The majority of Americans, though, are continuing their lives as normal, as though the most devastating natural disaster in American history had never happened. In the breakfast room of my hotel in Minneapolis, everyone is just silently watching the TV screens voyeuristically presenting the suffering. Nobody says anything, everyone avoids looking at each other, "Yes, another cinnamon roll, please." Then business as usual: buying and selling, sit back and enjoy the show.

For years, scientists have been warning about a potential catastrophe in New Orleans, which is around 5 meters under sea level. The Bush administration preferred to save money rather than strengthen the levees protecting the city. In June 2005, the city's flood control budget was cut by US$71 million (44%). Now, they face unknown reparation costs, around US$100 billion in economic damage, and the cost of rebuilding (Bush: "out of this chaos is going to come a fantastic Gulf Coast").

Amos 3:6-7
"When disaster comes to a city, has not the LORD caused it? Surely the Sovereign LORD does nothing without revealing his plan to his servants the prophets."
It was not only scientists who predicted the catastrophe; a number of prophets also saw it coming. Rick Joyner mentions that in 1998, his movement received a prophecy that "New Orleans will look like an estuary." In his commentary about the catastrophe, Joyner writes "Over the next few years a great move of God will spread over that region, and many who have lost all of their possessions will gain something far better - eternal life... There is a lot of witchcraft coming from New Orleans and it wants to cause as much death as possible."

Katrina means 'pure'
On 29th August 2004, one year to the day before the catastrophe, Chuck Pierce (Colorado Springs) prophesied:
"A new demonstration with a new blueprint will be seen. This will be known as a meeting house... The wind and water will rise in the midst of New Orleans. Many from the south will come north for refuge. Prepare. Prepare now for winds and water that will surprise you... Prepare! Shift! Saul will be no more. David will arise from this day forward. The wind from the south will begin to blow. Watch for the effects. This will purify the land and bring great change... Get ready. Don't brace yourself. Throw yourself up. Get ready for the new is coming. Every place I blow on will shake. The wind is coming on Louisiana and it will shake the entire state... The south purifying wind of My holiness will sweep across Louisiana."

Source: Wolfgang Simson

The financial challenges facing traditional Christian churches are often linked to building projects. Many undergo great tensions when considering the massive investments required, which are a burden for the members for many years. But many church building projects are not even necessary, according to a recent study in the USA. "Revolution", George Barna's new book, will be published in September. Barna leads a church research institute, and is currently the most-quoted person in the Christian church in the USA because of his statistical work. To summarize the book's most important conclusions:

• The number of Christians attending local church in the USA is declining rapidly. Today, 70% of Christians attend traditional churches, but this will sink to 30-35% in 20 years;
• The number of followers of Jesus who do not attend a local church will grow from 30% to 70% in the next 20 years;
• Alternative fellowship forms (house church/simple church, post-modern churches etc.), currently home for 5% of USA Christians, will grow to make up 30-35%; another 30-35% will live out their faith in the fields of media, arts and culture; the remaining 5% of Christians attending non-traditional forms of church will have a family-based spiritual life;
• Conclusion: a minority group presently not even noticed by many will become the mainstream of North American Christianity in only two decades.

"This is a revolution, and will change not only the recruiting strategies of seminaries and Bible schools, but also radically question church building projects," says Barna. If only half as many people will be visiting traditional congregational services in 20 years, a smaller building will suffice.

Source: George Barna "Revolution"

Hollywood may not be as godless as many proclaim, concludes a study just published by The Barna Group (TBG). 24,147 adults in the 86 largest cities and 27 most populous States of the USA were interviewed about 28 factors of their faith. One of the results is a shock for many people: Los Angeles, the city which evangelical Christians often criticise for the media produced there, is home to almost a million 'deeply committed Christians', more Evangelicals than New York, Chicago and Boston together. "Los Angeles is huge," says Barna. "Even if the percentage of the population which is Christian is below the national average, the city is so large, with over 10 million inhabitants, that it contains the highest number of Christians." The State with the highest proportion of Evangelicals is California, with 2 million; the State with the least Evangelical adults is Connecticut, where only 26,000 of the 2.5 million inhabitants consider themselves Evangelical. Of the 86 largest cities in the USA, Salt Lake City, Utah, Hartford, Connecticut and Providence, Rhode Island have the smallest and Little Rock, Arkansas (22%), the greatest percentage of Evangelical inhabitants.

Source: TBG

Six years ago, one of the hottest topics in the USA was the advertising campaign "Godspeaks", which consisted of funny and thought-provoking one-liners in white text on a black background. No logo, no address, no telephone number, just signed "God". From very small beginnings on a handful of billboards, the campaign spread to 10,000 billboards across the nation, and also caught the attention of the media. The campaign was backed by an anonymous sponsor who wanted to draw attention to the God of the Bible in a creative, disarming and thought-provoking way. "For years, the campaign has made people talk, think and laugh," says Nancy Fletcher, CEO and President of OAAA, the Outdoor Advertising Association of America, which adopted the campaign in 1999, spreading it across the nation for free; the 10,000 billboards in 200 towns and cities would otherwise have cost around US$ 15 million. Now, there's a new campaign, titled "god speaks - again!" This time, there's also a web site (godspeaks.com) for people who have become curious and want to know more. Here are the one-liners, first from the original campain, then from the new:

1998 campaign

• Let´s meet at my house Sunday before the game.
• C´mon over and bring the kids.
• Which part of „Thou shalt not…“ didn´t you understand?
• We need to talk.
• Keep using my name in vain, I´ll make rush hour longer.
• Loved the wedding, invite me to the marriage.
• That “Lover Thy neighbour” thing… I meant it.
• I love you…I love you… I love you
• Will the road you´re on get you to my place?
• Follow me.
• Need directions?
• You think it´s hot here?
• Tell the kids I love them.
• Need a marriage counsellor? I´m available.
• Have you read my #1 best seller? (There will be a test.)
• Do you have any idea where you´re going?
• Big Bang Theory… you´ve got to be kidding.
• My way is the Highway.

2005 campaign

• I love you… Te amo…
• As my apprentice, you´re never fired.
• One nation under me.
• All I know … is everything.
• If you must curse, use your own name!
• It´s a small world. I know… I made it.
• Life is short. Eternity isn´t.
• The real Supreme Court meets up here.
• Feeling lost? My book is your map.

"A 70-year-old grandmother from Nebraska who took early retirement became a global evangelist, preaching the Gospel in the most dangerours places on Earth," reports Charisma News. Gwen Edland has spoken in over 40 nations and led thousands of people to Christ, including a Voodoo priest in Haiti, who himself subsequently led 25 of his colleagues to Christ. "She constantly encourages others to take the Gospel to the poorest of the poor, and would travel anywhere on Earth to bring some of Jesus' love to the people," says missions pastor Connie Bissen of Omaha's Trinity Church, where Edland is a member. The widowed mother of four has twelve grandchildren. She once prayed that God would send her to places where the people had never heard about Jesus. Her first missionary trip was not to the third world, though, but to Sweden. She was there in 1991, and says that God taught her Swedish miraculously so that she could explain the Gospel to anyone prepared to listen. In 2003, she accompanied a medical team to Recife in Brazil, where she spoke in a prison to inmates sentenced to life for murder or gang violence. 480 came to faith in Christ then, and 850 the following year.

Source: www.charismanow.com