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Aldersgate focuses on worship and prayer
By Jan Woodard

In a world that teeters on the brink of global war, what will win Islamic nations to Jesus Christ? The same thing that won first century Gentiles and Jews, according to Scott Kelso, author of Ice on Fire and a workshop speaker at the 2006 National Conference on Spirit-Filled Living in the Wesleyan Tradition sponsored by Aldersgate Renewal Ministries (ARM).

Encounters with the supernatural with signs and wonders drew the curious into Christian circles, Kelso asserted in his session, "Ice Can Catch Fire: Encouragement for Ministering to the Frozen Chosen in Your Midst."

"There was enough anointing that Peter's shadow healed people. That's good advertising," he said, adding that the church conquered the Roman Empire with prayers for deliverance through the power of the Holy Spirit and by following in the steps of Jesus.

Kelso, quoting Houses that Changed the World, said curiosity, steadfastness in persecution, exorcism, living "The Way," and the teachings and person of Jesus made non-believers say, "I want that!"

"Prayer for healing should be as common as taking the offering," he said. "All your churches take an offering, don't they?"

Kelso cautioned, however, that "passion elicits critics." When Mary of Bethany lavished Jesus with oil, "people said she went over the top, was unstable, eccentric," but Mary's type of act, combined with the supernatural and a holy lifestyle wins those we're apt to brush aside as un-winnable.

"Give to God without regard to cost," Kelso said. "He wants our passion and love, our worship and our hearts. If we withhold worship, nothing else matters."

Worship that is open to the supernatural move of God's Spirit is the highest priority when United Methodists gather yearly for the Aldersgate conference. Kelso has been involved with ARM since its founding in 1978.

In a day when the denomination faces troublesome issues, ARM organizers state the renewal group's only agenda is to empower United Methodists and their congregations "to be filled, gifted, empowered, and led by the Holy Spirit in ministry to the world."

Over 1,250 people attended this year's conference in Springfield, Illinois. It provided opportunities to drink deeply from the well of God's Spirit at jubilant worship celebrations, as well as through 50 workshops, all tied to the central theme, "Let God Equip You for the Journey."

House of Prayer
ARM lifts up  worship through prayer, expressive movement and song, carried banners, preaching, teaching, and praise. 

Prayer is integral to worship and to ARM's mission. The day-and-a-half-long pre-conference that precedes the larger annual event focuses entirely on prayer, using a Concerts of Prayer model.

ARM's national prayer coordinator, Margie Burger of Goodlettsville, Tennessee, said this model combines seasons of prayer with seasons of worship, one flowing naturally into the other. "You Have Need of Endurance," was the pre-conference theme, and over 350 people attended.

"Be steadfast in prayer until God's word becomes reality," Burger said.

The concept of a "Concert of Prayer" originated in colonial America when Christians of all denominations united fervently in prayer for repentance and revival. The First Great Awakening followed. ARM leaders pray for a revival equaling that one.

Burger prayed that the church returns to its Wesleyan roots, sustained by a spirit of prayer. While many congregations emphasize growth and programming, Burger and others called for devotion to prayer and worship as the top priorities for Christians, offering thanksgiving to a God who graciously, amazingly, calls upon us to be a people who delight to come into His presence.

"My house shall be a house of prayer," said the Rev. Gary Moore, ARM's executive director, noting the scriptural mandate for Christians to pray. He said ARM strives to create an atmosphere where it is safe to experiment with various worship styles, offering freedom to worship.

"It's the freedom to raise your hands or not raise your hands, to kneel or not to kneel, to dance or not to dance. It's the freedom to express yourself in ways most meaningful to you," he explained. "We should be on fire to express our love for God as he leads us. We should leave Springfield as a different place because we've been here."

 The Rev. Candace Lewis, pastor of New Life Community UM Church in Jacksonville, Florida, who preached in a worship celebration, said she wanted to give people permission "to believe God of the supernatural, to be bold in the Holy Spirit, to let the fire spread."

Suzette Caldwell, who has the title of Director of Supernatural Services and Communication at Windsor Village UM Church in Houston, defines prayer as supernatural communication: what happens when those who are in the natural come into the presence of our supernatural God.

"When we say what God says, we'll get what God wants us to have," she said in her workshop, "Learning to Persevere in Prayer." "When we don't say what God says, we get what God doesn't want us to have." 

She pointed to 1 Peter 3:4. "Jesus died for me, so I am healed," she said. "Say God's word until illness goes." 

When Caldwell battled breast cancer, she said she first cried all day, then prayed Isaiah 41:10-14 and prayed it and other Scriptures like a prescription. "I took it daily like medicine," she said.

Putting the passage in her own words, she prayed out loud, so that all the heavenly beings could hear her voice, "I will not be afraid, you are with me! This disease will be confused and humiliated. The Lord my God helps me." 


Vision of unity
The Rev. Rose Booker-Jones, pastor of Trinity UM Church in East St. Louis, Illinois, said the conference was her first encounter with Aldersgate Renewal Ministries. After participating in various expressions of worship and fellowship she said, "ARM is the best kept secret in this denomination!" 

Several members of the church she pastors accompanied her. She hopes to bring more in following years.

Addressing a general worship session, Booker-Jones said, "This is a vision I have seen for a long time.people of God of all colors worshipping together and glorifying God." She said that because of the freedom in worship practiced by ARM, she felt comfortable preaching in the same style she uses with her own congregation, delivering a powerful message on passionate worship.

In the last four years, Booker-Jones has faced the turbulent challenge of taking three small East St. Louis churches and merging them into one. Speaking of the newly formed Trinity UM Church, she said her arrival was met with chagrin. A different atmosphere pervades Trinity, today. "What got us where we are today?  It was worshipping God," she declared.

Moving from Kansas to accept her current appointment, Booker-Jones said God clearly guided her to focus on two fundamentals as the congregations went through the painful process of merger: worshipping him and unconditionally loving the people God placed into her care.

Booker-Jones said she lifted up a sense of inspiration and expectation and discouraged spectatorship. "Some people come to be spectators. One of the congregations had a reputation of being very cold and uncaring. We had to change that perception. When people come, we need to make them feel welcome. Lay people can set the expectation. Strive to create an atmosphere that welcomes God's Holy Spirit," she said.

Moore later said he believes God's Spirit will use people like Booker-Jones, Lewis, and the Rev. Vance Ross, Associate General Secretary of the UM General Board of Discipleship to help ARM bridge generational and racial gaps.


Safety net
Kelso has pastored Trinity United Methodist Church in Pickerington, Ohio, for 34 years. In his just released book, Ice on Fire, Kelso says ARM and similar groups offer a "safety net" for those seeking renewal.

"They provide opportunities for teaching, fellowship, and strategy development, as well as a larger covering of prayer for the ongoing effort of renewal, while slugging it out in the local church environment."

Kelso said a Lay Witness Mission, an effective evangelism tool used in thousands of United Methodist churches, provided the pivotal point in Trinity's history in 1975.

"The rubbings of change had already begun, and some folks were feeling a bit threatened by this new young upstart pastor with his talk about the Holy Spirit. However, following the Lay Witness Ministry, a beautiful atmosphere of commitment and love pervaded the church and provided the seedbed for the real renewal to take hold a few years later."

Although ARM has existed since 1978 as a non-political, non-adversarial General Board of Discipleship affiliate organization, it remains, as both Kelso and Booker-Jones noted, "the best kept secret in the United Methodist Church," to most church members, including those hungry for renewal and for the move of the Holy Spirit in their local congregations. 

In addition to the annual national conference, ARM offers events at its home base in Goodlettsville, Tennessee. These include minister and spouse retreats, an annual conference on worship and worship techniques, and a "Power-Up" equipping conference. ARM also provides these weekend renewal events at churches in the United States and internationally: Life in the Spirit; Lord, Teach Us to Pray; Lay Witness Mission; Worship in Spirit and Truth; and Pathways to a Praying Church.

Jan Woodard is a staff writer and independent church consultant for the Western Pennsylvania Conference, UMC. She can be reached at prayercafe@verizon.net. For more information on Aldersgate, visit their website at aldersgaterenewal.org. Tapes and CDs of speakers are available by contacting ARM at 877-857-9372 or info@aldersgaterenewal.org.

 

Methodists must speak out, says World Methodist leader
By Joan G. LaBarr

The top staff executive of the World Methodist Council challenged delegates from around the world to make followers of Christ, noting that if the church doesn't "disciple the nations, the nations will disciple the church."

In his July 21 address to the World Methodist Conference in Seoul, South Korea, the Rev. George Freeman emphasized the need for Methodists to speak out amid the challenges facing the world.

"With AIDS / HIV, wars and rumors of war, humanity and inhuman-ity, racism, and unprecedented violence that makes a mockery of reconciliation, the voice of Methodism and the Wesleyan family needs to be heard widely and clearly, speaking truth in love.," he said. "If the church does not disciple the nations, the nations will disciple the church."

More than 2,000 Methodists gathered in Seoul July 20-24 for the 19th World Methodist Conference, held every five years.

During his report, Freeman emphasized the conference theme, "God in Christ Reconciling."

"The purpose of the church is to help people be reconciled to God through Jesus Christ. If we are reconciled to God, we can be reconciled with each other. In Christ, God has offered a way for all people to be reconciled to God." 

He declared that reconciliation demands forgiveness, citing Jesus' parable about the unforgiving servant in Matthew 18. He noted that the Bible terms this as the parable of the unmerciful servant. "How terrible. How you would like to be known as someone who is unmerciful?" he asked.


A global family
Freeman, a member of the United Methodist Church's Virginia Annual (regional) Conference, was elected general secretary of the council at the 2001 conference in Brighton, England, in 2001. Freeman called the World Methodist Council and the conference an "incredible fam-ily," and asked the delegates from around the world to turn to one another and say, "You are incredible."

"When [Method-ism's founder] John Wesley said, 'The world is my parish,' he could not have realized that some day it would be in more than 132 countries reaching 75 million persons with good news of Jesus Christ," he said.

Returning to the image of the global Methodist family, Freeman said, "The reality of so many of us today is that we want to be rich-rich in the things of this world. We know from Scripture that things of this world do not last. Why don't we have the same desire to be rich in God-God who is rich in mercy? I would like to see our family become extremely, filthy rich, not in the things of this world, but in the mercy of God."

He cited 2006 World Methodist Peace Award Winner Bishop Lawi Imathiu of Kenya as an example of someone who exemplifies the struggle for mercy, peace, justice and freedom. Freeman described the January 29 award ceremony at Kenya Methodist University in Meru as one of the greatest moments of his tenure, and he told of how about 3,000 people-some of whom had walked for hours -came to celebrate the occasion.


Looking ahead
Freeman affirmed the council's commitment to continued dialogue with international partners. "We will experience this on Sunday [July 23] at the Ecumenical Service, as we make history," he said. Earlier in Seoul, the council had decided to sign the Official Common Affirmation of the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification, previously approved by the Lutheran World Federation and Roman Catholic Church, and to authorize a further round of Methodist-Catholic dialogue with the goal of "full communion in faith, mission and sacramental life."   

"We also need to engage in conversation with persons of other faiths, patiently listening to their story and earning their respect to tell ours," he said.

Looking ahead, he said: "We sing, 'We've a Story to Tell to the Nations.' Through the leadership of World Methodist Council and so many gifted persons involved, the story is told through education, family life, ecumenical relations and dialogue, evangelism, worship and liturgy, theological education, ministry of youth and young adults, and social and international affairs."

He challenged his listeners, however, to make sure the voice of Methodism is heard.

Joan G. LaBarr is director of communications for the United Methodist Church's North Texas Annual Conference. She managed the World Methodist Conference newsroom in Seoul, South Korea. Adapted from United Methodist News Service.

 

David Seamands, evangelical United Methodist leader, dies at 84

Dr. David Seamands, author and leader in evangelical renewal movements within the United Methodist Church, died on July 31. He was 84. Seamands was born in India to Methodist missionary parents and spent much of his boyhood there. He and his wife, Helen, served as United Methodist missionaries in India from 1946 until 1962.

"Sixty-seven years ago, I first met David Seamands," recalled Dr. Dennis Kinlaw, former president of Asbury College in Wilmore, Kentucky. "I wanted to be a Christian because of persons like David Seamands. Dr. Edwin Lewis, one of the seminal minds  of Methodism in that era [1930s], wanted David to go on for Ph.D. work in theology. But David had another call-the obscurity of India. For 16 years his heart and life were given there."  

When Seamands returned to the United States in 1962, he was appointed as pastor of the Wilmore United Methodist Church where he served for 22 years. Tapes of his sermons were sent by the tens of thousands around the world, and free to hundreds of missionaries overseas. Additional tens of thousands of his tapes dealing with the subject of damaged emotions were circulated before his book, Healing for Damaged Emotions (1.1 million sold), was ever published. In all, Seamands' seven books have sold more than two million copies.

Upon his retirement from the local ministry in 1984, he taught pastoral care at Asbury Theological Seminary. In 1990, he was appointed as the Dean of the Chapel at Asbury.

Seamands was also a delegate to six General Conferences, beginning in 1976. At four of those he presented the minority report for the legislative section dealing with issues of human sexuality. He also was responsible for the founding of the Evangelical Missions Council, which after two years became a program arm of Good News until 1983, when The Mission Society for United Methodists was organized.

"David's ministry is a remarkable chronicle of a dynamic and fruitful ministry, which has touched more lives with the gospel than we could ever imagine," said the Rev. Dr. James V. Heidinger II, president of Good News.

-Good News Media Service

 

The meltdown of liberal Christianity
News commentary by Charlotte Allen

The accelerating fragmentation of the strife-torn Episcopal Church USA, in which several parishes and even a few dioceses are opting out of the church, isn't simply about gay bishops, the blessing of same-sex unions, or the election of a woman as presiding bishop. It also is about the meltdown of liberal Christianity.

Embraced by the leadership of all the mainline Protestant denominations, as well as large segments of American Catholicism, liberal Christianity has been hailed by its boosters for 40 years as the future of the Christian church.

Instead, as all but a few die-hards now admit, all the mainline churches and movements within churches that have blurred doctrine and softened moral precepts are demographically declining and, in the case of the Episcopal Church, disintegrating.

It is not entirely coincidental that at about the same time that Episcopalians, at their general convention in Columbus, Ohio, were thumbing their noses at a directive from the worldwide Anglican Communion that they "repent" of confirming the openly gay Bishop V. Gene Robinson of New Hampshire three years ago, the Presbyterian Church USA, at its general assembly in Birmingham, Alabama, was turning itself into the laughingstock of the blogosphere by tacitly approving alternative designations for the supposedly sexist Christian Trinity of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Among the suggested names were "Mother, Child, and Womb" and "Rock, Redeemer, and Friend." Moved by the spirit of the Presbyterian revisionists, Beliefnet blogger Rod Dreher held a "Name That Trinity" contest. Entries included "Rock, Scissors, and Paper" and "Larry, Curly, and Moe."

Following the Episcopalian lead, the Presbyterians also voted to give local congregations the freedom to ordain openly cohabiting gay and lesbian ministers and endorsed the legalization of medical marijuana. (The latter may be a good idea, but it is hard to see how it falls under the theological purview of a Christian denomination.)

The Presbyterian Church USA is famous for its 1993 conference, cosponsored with the United Methodist Church, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and other mainline churches, in which participants "reimagined" God as "Our Maker Sophia" and held a feminist-inspired "milk and honey" ritual designed to replace traditional bread-and-wine Communion.

As if to one-up the Presbyterians in jettisoning age-old elements of Christian belief, the Episcopalians at Columbus overwhelmingly refused even to consider a resolution affirming that Jesus Christ is Lord. When a Christian church cannot bring itself to endorse a bedrock Christian theological statement repeatedly found in the New Testament, it is not a serious Christian church. It's a Church of What's Happening Now, conferring a feel-good imprimatur on whatever the liberal elements of secular society deem permissible or politically correct.

You want to have gay sex? Change God's name to Sophia? Go ahead. The just-elected Episcopal presiding bishop, Katharine Jefferts Schori, is a one-woman combination of all these things, having voted for Robinson, blessed same-sex couples in her Nevada diocese, prayed to a female Jesus at the Columbus convention, and invited former Newark, New Jersey, Bishop John Shelby Spong, famous for denying Christ's divinity, to address her priests.

When a church doesn't take itself seriously, neither do its members. It is hard to believe that as recently as 1960, members of mainline churches-Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Methodists, Lutherans, and the like-accounted for 40 percent of all American Protestants. Today, it's more like twelve percent (17 million out of 135 million). Some of the precipitous decline is due to lower birthrates among the generally blue-state mainliners, but it also is clear that millions of mainline adherents (and especially their children) have simply walked out of the pews never to return.

According to the Hartford Institute for Religious Research, in 1965, there were 3.4 million Episcopalians; now, there are 2.3 million. The number of Presbyterians fell from 4.3 million in 1965 to 2.5 million today. Compare that with 16 million members reported by the Southern Baptists.

When your religion says "whatever" on doctrinal matters, regards Jesus as just another wise teacher, refuses on principle to evangelize, and lets you do pretty much what you want, it's a short step to deciding that one of the things you don't want to do is get up on Sunday morning and go to church.

Sociologist Rodney Stark (The Rise of Christianity) and historian Philip Jenkins (The Next Christendom) contend that the more demands, ethical and doctrinal, that a faith places upon its adherents, the deeper the adherents' commitment to that faith. Evangelical and Pentecostal churches, which preach biblical morality, have no trouble saying that Jesus is Lord. The churches are growing robustly, both in the United States and around the world.

Despite the fact that median Sunday attendance at Episcopal churches is 80 worshipers, the Episcopal Church, as a whole, is financially equipped to carry on for some time, thanks to its inventory of vintage real estate and huge endowments left over from the days (no more!) when it was the Republican Party at prayer. Furthermore, it has offset some of its demographic losses by attracting disaffected liberal Catholics and gays and lesbians. The less endowed Presbyterian Church USA is in deeper trouble. Just before its general assembly in Birmingham, it announced that it would eliminate 75 jobs to meet a $9.15-million budget cut at its headquarters, the third such round of job cuts in four years.

The Episcopalians have smells, bells, needlework cushions, and colorfully garbed, Catholic-looking bishops as draws, but who, under the present circumstances, wants to become a Presbyterian?

Still, it must be galling to Episcopal liberals that many of the parishes and dioceses (including that of San Joaquin, California) that want to pull out of the Episcopal Church USA are growing instead of shrinking, have live people in the pews who pay for the upkeep of their churches and don't have to rely on dead rich people. The 21-year-old Christ Church Episcopal in Plano, Texas, for example, is one of the largest Episcopal churches in the country. Its 2,200 worshipers on any given Sunday are about equal to the number of active Episcopalians in Jefferts Schori's entire Nevada diocese.

It's no surprise that Christ Church, like the other dissident parishes, preaches a very conservative theology. Its break from the national church came after Rowan Williams, archbishop of Canterbury and head of the Anglican Communion, proposed a two-tier membership in which the Episcopal Church USA and other churches that decline to adhere to traditional biblical standards would have "associate" status in the communion. The dissidents hope to retain full communication with Canterbury by establishing oversight by non-U.S. Anglican bishops.

As for the rest of the Episcopalians, the phrase "deck chairs on the Titanic" comes to mind. A number of liberal Episcopal websites are devoted these days to dissing Peter Akinola, outspoken primate of the Anglican diocese of Nigeria, who, like the vast majority of the world's 77 million Anglicans reported by the Anglican Communion, believes that "homosexual practice" is "incompatible with Scripture" (those words are from the communion's 1998 resolution at the Lambeth conference of bishops). Akinola might have the numbers on his side, but he is now the Voldemort-no, make that the Karl Rove-of the U.S. Episcopal world. Other liberals fume over a feeble last-minute resolution in Columbus calling for "restraint" in consecrating bishops whose lifestyle might offend "the wider church"-a resolution immediately ignored when a second openly cohabitating gay man was nominated for bishop of Newark.

So this is the liberal Christianity that was supposed to be the Christianity of the future: disarray, schism, rapidly falling numbers of adherents, a collapse of Christology, and national meetings that rival those of the Modern Language Association for their potential for cheap laughs. And they keep telling the Catholic Church that it had better get with the liberal program-ordain women, bless gay unions, and so forth-or die. Sure.

Charlotte Allen is Catholicism editor for Beliefnet and the author of The Human Christ: The Search for the Historical Jesus. This article originally appeared in The Los Angeles Times.

 

Sounds of southern salvation
By Steve Beard

His lineage is country music royalty. His father was Johnny Cash, whose posthumously released American V: A Hundred Highways was recently #1 on Billboard charts. His mother was June Carter Cash, a member of the legendary Carter Family-pioneers of folk, country, and bluegrass music.

John Carter Cash was the associate producer of all his father's American Recordings albums, produced his mother's final album Wildwood Flower (2003), as well as The Unbroken Circle: The Musical Heritage of the Carter Family (2004). He was also the executive producer of the film, Walk the Line.

His most recent project as a producer is Voice of the Spirit: The Gospel of the South, a stunning compilation of bluegrass, country, and black gospel music. The album features artists such as Mavis Staples, Vince Gill, Earl Scruggs, Mighty Clouds of Joy, Del McCoury, Rodney Crowell, as well as his own father, Johnny Cash. Good News editor Steve Beard had a chance to talk to John Carter Cash about southern gospel, his faith, and his family.

Good News: The blood in your veins is that of musical pioneers and legends. What was it like growing up hearing stories about the Carter Family and then living in the tornado that was the career of your mom and dad?

John Carter Cash: To be very honest, I took it for granted. It was just normal to me. I was surrounded by it all the time. I knew that they were larger-than-life figures and that many people-including my peers and fans and the press-looked up to my family. I had to mature in many ways before it really sunk into my spirit what it was all about. I learned to respect it, but it took awhile. 

When you gained an appreciation of their reach and influence, was it liberating or confining? In other words, did you feel painted into a corner?

Early in my life it was that way. I felt as if I was surrounded by shadows and that I had to live up to a certain expectation. I think it was liberating, finally. When I looked at it in an intellectual sense, the Carter Family's musical legacy is something that I was respectful of and proud of. As a producer, that's where I found my peace. It's looking into the past of music and finding a common thread that leads to the now, and into the future.

What is it about southern singers-perhaps your dad could be looked on as an example-who sang sanctified hymns and yet also seemed to relish in singing about cheating, drinking, and murder? [Laughter] There is something very unique about the southern artist's knowledge and experience of sin and redemption.

Well, to know redemption, you have to know sin. We're all light, we're all dark. We don't walk around redeemed and glowing. What we walk around as, hopefully, is an image of that redemption. If we were in all light, would anybody even notice? We have to go through the fire to gain our strength. That's where that vision of redemption comes from-is through the pain, through the suffering. And that's a commonality, that's around the world with people. And everybody can relate to that. Yes, southern music has a lot of drinkin', prison songs, and murder songs. But there's something to relate to there for the listener. I've struggled through my pains. I've found redemption. And my greatness is because of someone bigger than me that forgives me.

It seems as if the Carter Family, and your father in particular, seemed to relish singing about both the sin and the redemption.

Yeah, that's where my father got it. He got it from the Carter Family, from Jimmy Rodgers, from male black blues singers that would sing about redemption in one song and murder in the next. It's an ancient, common thread, if there is such a thing in American music. My dad got it from others who came before him. It sort of became his stamped trademark.

The Carter Family recorded over 300 songs. One was gospel and the next would be a gallows ballad that the man would sing before he was hung for a murder that he had committed. Songs were written by the Carter Family post-mortem, after the character singin' the song was dead. But that stems back from old English and Irish folk ballads. Redemption, pain, and suffering are common threads in the Carter Family's music as it was in my father's.

Your dad sings "Unclouded Day" on the album. What was that recording session like?

It was four days after my mother's funeral. He wanted to record some from his heart. He kept on making music that day, recording five or six songs. "Unclouded Day" seemed to be perfect for this project.

The song was actually recorded in my father's bedroom. It was therapy for him. To him, it was his way to continue to love my mother-to find a voice.

My father's eyesight was fading and his passion before had come from reading the Bible. He couldn't do that anymore. He could listen to music and he could sing. And so that was his way of continuance. His path to grieving was to continue to sing, to let his spirit express itself, to have something to look forward to, and to have something to plan on.

You've had three years to cope with the loss of your parents. Your father, in particular, was a larger than life King of the Jungle. But to you, he was your dad.

No matter the faith or the strength of the entertainer, we are all human. Under the man, I knew the simple man. The allure had long since past from my view of stardom. I knew the man in his simple form. But the lion I knew wasn't based upon the way the world looked at him, it was based upon his continuance, the strength he had inside. He nearly died many, many times, and had risen back up through interior strength provided by God. And that's who he was. That's the lion. The lion, my father would have said, was not him. The lion was Judah, the lion was God's strength through him.

Steve Beard is the editor of Good News.



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