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