Phil,

I really agree with you in what you said. May I pleasehave your permission
to pass this great article on to other Christians and non-believers?

Blessings,
Pat Ferguson
At 10:23 PM 1/14/05, you wrote:
>This is old but a goodie.  Well, it depends on how you view it.  I wrote it
>so I think it is wonderful.  If you haven't read it, or even if you have and
>now read it again, you may change your mind about how sweet and nice and
>wonderful and handsome, how did that last one get in there, I really am.
>
>American Christian Leadership In Question
>
>                          By Phil Scovell
>
>
>
>
>      What you are about to read is something that came to me on
>the morning of Sunday, September 23, as I sat and considered all
>the things I had been hearing during the week.  Some things are my
>own personal opinions while others are things the Lord has shown
>me about the church in America over the last year.
>
>      I have been greatly concerned in recent days that some of
>our national Christian leaders have been speaking out about the
>terrorist attack on the World Trade Center.  My concern is
>specifically about their negativity, as it relates to the nation,
>and because of whom they blame for this tragedy.  Their messages
>have been largely inflammatory, specifically degrading, and
>purposely accusatory.  The tone of their messages have been one
>which clearly outlines this nation is being judged for its
>sinfulness by sinners whom they painstakingly name as prostitutes,
>pimps, homosexuals, abortionists, criminals, drug dealers,
>addicts, and immoral people in general.  I am not referring to a
>single person's remarks but several of whom I have read or
>personally heard on radio and television.  They all attempt to use
>Scripture as the bases for their claims as well.
>
>      I have spoken with Christians who find these public
>statements by Christians not only confusing and disturbing but
>Biblically conflicting.  If in case you, too, are confused let me
>state it in terms we all can understand.  They believe the reasons
>behind the loss of perhaps 3,000 lives and the destruction of the
>World Trade towers, not to mention the disruption of the stock
>market, is a direct result of this nation, as a whole, not
>repenting and turning to God.  Furthermore, they believe it is a
>sign of God's judgement upon us as a nation for all of our
>wickedness.  Many of them strongly recommend you, at this most
>critical of financial times, pull all of your money out of the
>stock market.  In short, they believe sinners are to blame and
>specifically sinners who are not born again Christians as they
>define it.
>
>      Now, I am going to tell you what I personally think.  Keep in
>mind, I have no large church to promote.  I have no Christian
>magazine for which I will solicit your monthly subscription.
>Furthermore, I have no ministry to support and I have no
>television program for which I must pay.  Nor am I going to hold
>an offering plate under your nose before I finish my sermon.  So
>you can take my words for what they are worth because I have no
>hidden agenda.
>
>      First, I submit these national Christian leaders are self
>appointed.  Are They operating large ministries with worldwide
>ministries due to their mighty power with God or is their power
>mostly electronic in nature?  Ask yourself the question, would
>their comments be spread throughout the known world if they didn't
>have radio and television and internet website networks upon which
>to broadcast their opinions?  How many of their authored books
>would be best sellers if they didn't have their radio and TV
>ministries to promote their own works?  How many miracles, signs
>and wonders, have you seen being manifest in their ministries in
>recent years?  Any?  Some?  A few?  How many of their prophecies
>have been fulfilled to the letter?  All?  Some?  None?  If the
>answer isn't all, then why are we listening to them?  There are,
>at least in my mind, some questions which demand answers before we
>consider the validity of their message.
>
>      First, who appointed them to lead us?  God?  Their huge multi
>million dollar ministries?  Their large radio or television
>ministries?  Their well oiled fund raising and marketing
>techniques employed to advance their ministries?  The size of
>their mailing list?  The bottom line of their monthly and annual
>financial records?  The books they have authored?  Who, for that
>matter, has appointed them as the spokesman for the Body of Christ
>in the United States?  Their denomination, their Bible colleges,
>or their television broadcast network?  Are they well known
>because of the precise fulfilling nature of their prophecies God
>has given them about our nation?  Have we witnessed the power of
>their prayers in behalf of our nation?  Are they seen as national
>Christian leaders because of the compassion and love for the those
>outside of Christ?  Furthermore, what about all these homosexuals,
>criminals, drug dealers, pimps, prostitutes, abortionists, and
>immoral people who have caused this horrible loss of life and
>brought the judgement of God upon us as a nation?  Why haven't
>these ministers been able to reach these poor depraved people with
>the Gospel?  Has God's arm waxed weak that it can no longer save
>through their ministries?  Aren't they spending enough money to
>reach the lost for Christ?  Aren't they broadcasting enough?
>While we are talking about money, how much of their ministry
>offerings has gone to New York in recent days?  How many teams of
>people have been sent from their churches to help our fellow
>citizens in and around Ground Zero?  Have they sacrificed, selling
>off much of their properties, and delivered the money to those
>hurting families in New York?  I ask again:  Why hasn't their
>national and international radio and television broadcast been
>able to reach those they claim are the cause for God's judgement
>upon America?  For that matter, how many hours can they say their
>entire church has logged in praying for our nation over the last
>year?  How much protection have they prayed upon America?  How
>much intercession has been conducted for those who they claim are
>the cause of God's judgement?  By the way, if your message is so
>powerful and your prophets so precise and accurate, and you have
>such intimacy with God through prayer, why weren't you able to
>predict and warn the people of New York in advance as the
>prophets of old did to the nation of Israel?  Did you walk naked
>and barefoot for three years as Isaiah did before the people,
>calling upon them to repent, prior to the falling of God's
>judgement upon his country or were you too preoccupied putting on
>your makeup to look your best before the television cameras on
>your TV show?
>
>      I think they are right about one thing.  What happened in
>New York September 11, 2001 was a wake up call but not to America.
>It was a wake up call to the church.  We have sinned.  We have
>forgotten God and replaced him with a marketing plan.  We have
>commercialized Christ and substituted the Gospel with televised
>interviews, mass choirs, transparent pulpits, padded pews, and
>preachers with 300 dollar shoes, 1,000 dollar suits, 20,000 dollar
>Rolex watches, and 150,000 dollar limousines to take them to their
>1.3 million dollar homes in the suburbs following their record
>breaking church service or television shows.  Furthermore, we have
>elevated coaches to national Christian leadership positions,
>complete with their own multi million dollar parachurch
>ministries, simply because they have won football championships.
>We have allowed professional athletes to become the crowns of
>spirituality, inviting them to speak in our pulpits and on
>Christian television programs, all because they pull down millions
>of dollars each year and say a short prayer just before trotting
>out on to the baseball or football field or the basketball court.
>Of course, we have to ask them to speak during off season times
>because they are busy playing professional sports on Sundays
>during regulation season times and aren't available.  We have
>taken the words of Hollywood stars, claiming to be Christian, and
>found them to be more fascinating than the preaching of God's
>Word.  We have succumb to promotion over doctrine, marketing over
>theology, and sales of Christian products over the cross of Jesus
>Christ.  We have flaunted converted criminals in front of the
>world, claiming they are now born again Christians, instead of
>focusing on the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ.  We have
>taken are Christian cameras into the prisons and video taped
>violent murderers and asked for their opinions of how we should
>live the Christian life and then turned around and sold copies of
>the tapes on our daily broadcasts to eager Christians willing and
>ready to use their credit cards to call toll free ministry numbers
>to purchase that tape.  Of course, anything you give above the
>cost of the tape goes to support our ministry.  We spend hundreds
>of hours preparing for guest speakers and Christian entertainers
>and five minutes before the green light flashes the show is to go
>on the air, we pray and ask God's blessing.  Furthermore, we even
>pay these amazing and incredible guests to be on our shows and to
>be interviewed.  This is supposed to challenge us to live Godly
>lives?  moreover, we have shifted the Gospel to radio and
>television ministries rather than local New Testament churches
>meeting in storefronts and canvassing the neighborhoods to reach
>the lost with the Gospel of Jesus Christ on a one-on-one bases.
>We have depersonalized the Gospel by Christian entertainers who
>couldn't make it on the public circuit but found their niche in
>the Christian world.  We have weakened the church by creating
>thousands of parachurch ministries which siphon local monies away
>from legitimate New Testament churches by the millions every week.
>then, if one of those parachurch ministries experiences financial
>difficulty, they have a wonderful mailing list of churches all
>over America to whom they can mass mail in order to raise millions
>of dollars to keep their parachurch ministries alive and
>productive.  Additionally, we have ignorantly reversed church
>leadership roles so we are now spiritually weak, anemic, deaf and
>blind to the leading of the Holy Spirit.  Worst of all, we have
>turned and blamed it on others rather than taking upon ourselves
>the responsibilities God has given us for our communities in and
>through our churches.
>
>      It is time for our church leaders to repent and turn to God
>and to stop blaming everyone else for their failures.  Then, and
>only then, will they be able to lead.  They may also discover,
>they were never called to be leaders in the first place.  In which
>case, I expect them to resign and step down and let more
>spiritually responsible men and women of God take their places.
>
>      If anyone has failed and brought about the national tragedy
>upon our country, it is the church.  We have not prayed; we have
>not fasted; we have not given; we have not sought God and His
>mercy.  We have let our own people down and now we try and blame
>others.  Repentance begins at the house of the Lord.  When will it
>begin?  Now?  Later?  When I see our national Christian leaders,
>so-called, calling the churches to repentance and confessing their
>sins to the Lord publicly, perhaps revival will come to America.
>
>      What happened in New York at the World Trade Center was
>nothing short of evil attempting to destroy what God has given
>this country.  I will remind you, the devil did not give us
>America and her freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, and
>freedom of religion.  The devil did not bless this country to send
>out and financially support more missionaries to evangelize the
>world than any other nation on the planet.  The devil did not
>provide us with the ability to work and to make a living and to
>provide for our families.  The devil did not give us the freedom
>to vote and to elect our national leaders.  What happened on
>September 11, 2001 was nothing less than a demonic attack on the
>United States of America and we have no one to blame, as
>Christians, but ourselves.
>
>      One month before the attack on America, my youngest son was
>married.  A few days following the attack on America, this 19 year
>old son of mine went right down to the U S Post Office and filled
>out the selective service forms.  Why, you ask, when there is no
>draft and isn't likely ever going to be?  The answer is simple.
>He wanted to show his love and loyalty for his country just in
>case the draft was reinstated.  In short, he wanted to be ready to
>serve if called upon.
>
>      If you are a born again Christian, you are called to serve as
>well.  Part of our service is to stand against evil.  Have we done
>that or did we in fact, as Christians, let the people of New York
>down?  Are you ready now?  Go sign up with God and start praying
>for your country, its leaders, and for its protection.  Learn how
>to pray and keep praying till you learn.  Become an intercessor.
>Before everything else, repent; for yourself, your family, and
>your church and its leadership because we are not right with God
>as a church nationwide.  Don't blame others but seek God.  Stop
>evil before it strikes again.  this is something all Christians
>can do who know God and know how to pray.
>
>      Pastors, start leading.  Shepherds led their flocks and
>protected them from harm.  Are you doing that as a pastor or are
>you spending your time with church duties?  If you aren't praying
>more than your church members, you aren't a shepherd, you aren't
>leading, and you are not protecting your flock from harm.  No one
>can do it for you.  It is time to stop acting the part and,
>instead, becoming a part of the Body of Christ once again.  After
>all, pastors are sheep, too.  Stop being pastoral and be Christ-
>like.  Lead by example.  Don't tell us how to do it; do it
>yourself and we will follow.  Open your ears and heart to other
>called anointed ministers of the church and stop trying to do it
>all yourself.  Stop being afraid of the gifts of the Holy Spirit
>in others.  Minister to those whom God has given you in your
>church.  If you do not, God's power will not come nor will He
>increase your flock.  Stop attempting to build another church on
>top of the Lord's.  The power of God will come when we are ready
>to receive it.  If we don't have His power, we will be devoured by
>the enemy.
>
>
>I Flew Kites With Jesus
>www.SafePlaceFellowship.com