Charismatic Leaders Fellowship 2019
Next up came a presentation on the “New Charismatic Churches.” By the Rev. R. Roberts from England, He studied these churches in reference to their dialogue with the Vatican. Catholic officials were puzzled by these new churches, such as the Vineyard, that were Pentecostal yet did not share traditional theology or ecclesiology with classical Pentecostal churches. Indeed, Roberts showed that these churches cared very little about structured hierarchies, and were more relational centered. But they seemed to be very effective in evangelization and enabling spiritual growth.
Session nine was dedicated to the forthcoming Towards Jerusalem Council II to meet in 2022. This gathering of worldwide Christian and Messianic Jewish leaders intends to put a new face on the first Council of Jerusalem (Acts 15) which allowed for the existence of the Gentile Church while the Jerusalem Church continued as a Jewish/Christian community observing the Mosaic Law. After a hundred years, the Gentile Church grew so rapidly that the Jewish/Christian community was considered strange and eventually cast out of the Church as heretics. Jerusalem II will invite the Messianic Jews who observe the Mosaic Law back into complete fellowship with the Gentile Churches.
The delegation of priests from Brazil.
The last session was given to the expression of ecumenical cooperation in local ministry. Speakers from a multi-denominational network of churches in Columbus, Ohio, talked about how they united to “take the city” for the Lord, describing how they work together. These churches, mostly charismatic and Pentecostal, pray together and evangelize together. They have selected a strategy of picking a single zip code in the Columbus area and focusing their prayers, ministry and evangelization efforts in that area. All activities are coordinated with the police and government officials who have been thrilled to see crime rates come down in the targeted zip code area. This is a model for every city in America.
In the same session, the former major of Augusta, Georgia, described how he began a monthly prayer breakfast for church and civic leaders in his city, and how the prayers, discussions, and fellowship brought the wonderful fruit of inter-racial harmony and less crime. Augusta, in fact, could have been a hot spot of racial divisions and confrontations, but it did not become so.
The most surprising and exciting of all the sessions was session eight. It was presented by Mattei Calisi and Johannas Fichtenbauer, both of whom are important leaders in the European Catholic Charismatic movement and have direct communications with the Pope. They described the formation of a new Papal initiative to gather together the Catholic charismatic groups. All such groups will be under CHARIS, a new agency that reports to the Pope. This was decreed several years ago, but is now going into high gear.[8] The official Vatican documents tell of greater efficiency, etc.
Category: Ministry, Winter 2019
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