Order of St. Luke International 2019: From an Anti-Cessationism past to a Fully Charismatic Future
The 2019 conference was held in Orlando, Florida, July 25-28, at the Hilton Buena Vista, a really great hotel that gave the group very reasonable rates. Being frugal (my friends sometimes use a less kind word) I arranged for a room mate and that saved me half the hotel bill.
The first thing that should be said about the conference is that it could have been easily mistaken by an outsider as some sort of Pentecostal meeting, maybe Assemblies of God. The praise music was Pentecostal like, the audience and constantly raised there hands in prayer, praise, or when participating in a general prayer.
The very fine praise musicians at work.
Well, in truth there was a giveaway that it was not an Assemblies of God meeting. The audience was largely “gray haired”, or like me, of little hair. Actually, the OSL has set recruiting “young’ens” as a high priority. Last year they elected a young pastor to be on the OSL board and give us ideas on attracting the next generation.
The conference began with prayer and the usual administrative announcements, and these included yours truly presenting a pastel picture done by Mrs. Agnes Sanford to the OSL headquarters. She taught often at OSL from the 1950s to the 1970s and much beloved. It was one of three pictures given to me last year by her granddaughter Diane Sanford.
William De Arteaga presenting the Agnes Sanford picture to the Rev. Josh Acton, OSL North American Director.
The keynote speaker was Judith MacNutt, present head of Christian Healing Ministries in Jacksonville, Florida. Her husband, Francis MacNutt was the dean of charismatic healing ministers and writers. His multiple works influenced deeply the Charismatic Renewal.[11] Francis is now retired from active ministry, and Judith now heads the CHM.[12] In Mrs. MacNutt’s first address, she related her coming in into the Charismatic Movement, decades ago in Jerusalem. She was led to it through a gaggle of American Pentecostal tourists. The testimony was moving as was the ministry time after.
The next evening her topic was generational healing. That is, the sins and curses that are attached to our family lines and must be broken by the blood of Jesus. She told the story of one of her early counseling cases. A mother came in because her six year old would repeatedly play “suicide” by putting a toy gun to his head and say “I’m going to shoot myself.” On inquiry, it turned out that for four generation the fathers had killed themselves with the same handgun. The gun was disposed of, and Judith led a deliverance prayer against the afflicting generational spirit of suicide. The mother reported months later that the child never again played that distressing game.
The session did not end with just teaching. A family tree form was passed out which included a check list of repeated generational afflictions and sins, as in recurrent cancers, alcoholism, suicide, broken marriages, etc. We were instructed to invite the Holy Spirit to reveal to us his or her family generational sins or possible curses resulting from such things as participation in the occult.
Category: Church History, Summer 2019
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