DAWN Fridayfax 2000 #13

Indonesia

Throat slit - raised from the dead

"As far as I could see, there were only ashes and the ruins of a burned-out Christian hospital and training center in Jakarta," reports Voice in the City's evangelist Suzette Hattingh. "Over one thousand students waited in the one building which survived the recent attacks. Among them was a young man with a scar running literally from one side of his throat to the other. He had been the victim of an attack by a Muslim group, who viciously slit his throat and left him to die, as they had done with many others. The police found his corpse and loaded it on to a truck. He told us how he had seen his own body lying on the ground, and that an angel came to tell him to return, because his time had not yet come. With that, his spirit returned to his body. If I had not seen the photos with my own eyes, I would not have believed it, but it is true. I am a trained nurse, and I know that nobody who had lost so much blood through such a serious wound could survive. This young man did not survive: he died and returned to life. Today, he his alive and well," says Hattingh.

Evangelistic event broadcast on State radio

"God is doing something special in Indonesia," she continues. "An evangelistic event in Pontianiak, West Kalimantan, was attended by 3,000 people, including VIPs, who sat on the floor with everybody else. That's not all: Republic Radio Indonesia (RRI) decided to broadcast the last two evenings throughout the whole of southern Indonesia. That is astonishing, because Indonesia is still the world's largest Islamic nation. I preached as though it would be the last sermon held on earth..."
Source: Suzette Hattingh, Voice in the City, Tel (+49)-6109 70295; Fax: (+49)-6109 702958; web site www.grasse.de/voice_in_the_city,

USA

Give me my church back

So that I can give it back to the city

The church in Katy has no address. It can be found in various locations in western Houston, where billboards explain that the city church spans from the Assemblies of God to the Southern Baptists. Pastors in the city are part of a growing 'City Church' movement, in which an increasing number of Christian leaders are laying their differences aside and cooperating to influence their cities for God. "We decided to put aside many things which we held dearly, in order to cooperate with brothers and sisters with a common calling: seeking the good of the city," says Charles Wisdom, Senior Pastor of the First Baptist Church and one of the Church of Katy's City Elders. In Katy, the leaders of 25 local churches meet to pray, plan and cooperate beyond the limits of their own churches. "We truly desire that others can grow, and that their church does well. This new spirit of cooperation is replacing the past, which was characterised by competition and territorial thinking," says Wisdom.

Mature relationships, not short-term project-oriented 'unity'

CitiReach International's Dr. Jack Dennison reports that similar projects are starting in 20 other American cities. "Where unity in the past was often based on short-term events and projects, and soon fell apart when the churches attended to their own business, this new movement is based on building lasting relationships. The Bible is very clear in this respect," he says: "It has great spiritual impact when the Body of Christ works together as a healthy body, in all its various aspects and with its rich spiritual inheritance. Isolated churches lose the ability to instigate true societal change. That is like the times of the judges in Israel, when everyone did what was right in his own eyes. In the New Testament, we see that the churches are described as one large church which lives in many fellowships." "Churches which take part in a City Church movement can maximise their resources and avoid duplication, and no longer have to compete for dollars, territory and members," says John Sharpe from Reach Seattle, a similar city-wide strategy. Mission Houston's Jim Herrington says "we believe that God has a strategy for transforming the city, which he will only reveal when there is a true, substantial and relational unity. It's not about unity in one-off projects, but a whole new way of being church!"
Source: CitiReach, PO Box 63120, Colorado Springs, CO 80962-3120, USA; Tel. (+1)-719.528.5770; Fax (+1)-719-548.9619; email: CitiReachi@cs.com; Web - www.citireach.org, ; Mission Houston: email: jhmh@flash.net

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