Charismatic Leaders Fellowship 2019
The Charismatic Leaders Fellowship (CLF) is the descendent of the Charismatic Concerns Committee (CCC). The CCC was an important group of charismatic and Pentecostal leaders formed in the 1970s to monitor, advise and correct the disparate currents and personalities of the Charismatic Renewal. For instance, the CCC was instrumental in correcting the “Florida Four” and their discipleship extremism before it spread widely within the Renewal. The CLF is not as influential today as the CCC was in the 1970s, but still remains and important group. In recent years Roman Catholic participation have been predominant, as was this year, but not to the exclusion of Pentecostal and Protestant charismatic concerns.
The general theme this year was “Christian Unity,” but other topics were presented. This CLF meeting was one of the most important in years. Its presenters gave information about to new breakthroughs in Christian unity and charismatic growth. The most important item discussed, an impending radical turn of the Catholic Church towards a universal charismatic manifestation, will be discussed below.
The 2019 CLF met in Augusta, hosted by the Alleluia Community of that city. CLF personnel were hosted by members of the community at their homes. I found this aspect of the CLF meetings particularly pleasant, as I had the pleasure of meeting Christian families who were dedicated to living in a community covenant, as in Acts 2. (This would be a separate article by itself).
The meeting began with a fellowship dinner on Monday night at the Alleluia Community School’s cafeteria, where all the meetings were held. The chow was especially good at this CLF, and one of the participants quipped that “People think we come here to learn about what is happening in the charismatic churches, but we really come for the food.”
The CLF Coordinator, Scott Kelso, led off with an exhortation to not forget the doctrine of the Second Coming and preach it regularly. This was followed by a presentation by Chuck Hornsby, an elder of the Alleluia community, on spiritual warfare. His talk was an appendix to the teachings from last year’s CLF and was an excellent one. He stressed several ways that Christian can come under demonic influence. These include not believing in the demonic realm, or having spiritual habits like unforgiveness and bitterness. Pride is a great entry, and Hornsby suggested an unusual remedy to this: purposely lose an argument or two you have with a Believer.
Session three was dedicated to highlighting books published the previous year by members of the CLF. A representative of Derek Prince Ministries brought a case of a new book by Derek Prince, Pride Versus Humility, which were given out free,[1] This was unexpected as Prince, who had often come to the CCC, has been dead for over a decade (he died in 2003). What happened was that Rev. Prince’s many radio talks, mission talks at CFO’s etc., are now being edited and brought out as new books. Pride Versus Humility was an example of this. Derek Prince really was one to the most outstanding teachers of the Charismatic Renewal, and these new works are excellent resources for adult Bible study groups or any form of Christian adult education.
Category: Ministry, Winter 2019
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