He will be the keynote speaker at Coming Together 2010, presented by GMAE, on October 29. Learn more about the conference at www.comingtogethertc.org.

Described by some as “a little bit Billy Graham, a little bit Martin Luther King, with a little bit of salsa,” Rodriguez preaches a message of righteousness + justice, John 3:16 + Matthew 25, salvation + transformation, prayers + activism.

Learn more about Rodriguez by viewing the 3 videos below.

Rev. Samuel Rodriguez speaking at Martin Luther King Jr. breakfast.

We are part of the global Church, and the issues facing around world are very much the same issues facing the church in America. From learning how to grasp onto the truth of Christ, to dealing with pluralism and courageously engaging world faiths, and renewing our commitment to partnership, the six core issues being addressed at Cape Town 2010 each have a particular importance to evangelicals in America.

The American Church in the Next Century

The goal of Cape Town 2010 is to gather leaders from around the globe to pray, plan and work together to launch a movement among a new generation of Christian leaders to lead the global church in the next century.

This October 4,000 Christian leaders from 200 countries will gather for 10 days in Cape Town, South Africa, to address  six core issues of paramount importance for the future of the global church. Each of these issues are relevant to the church in America.

The truth of Christ; the erosion of the truth claims of Christ is primarily happening within Western Christianity, not in the rest of the world.

Reconciliation; America is a growing cultural mosaic, and the American church needs a clear vision of the power of Christ to reconcile us to each other, and hope in the peace of Christ to heal our broken and divided society.

World Faiths; religious pluralism is a relatively new phenomena in America that we are still learning to respond to, and radical Islam in particular is a significant threat to our own safety and security.

Priorities; the US church still possesses a majority of resources available to support the growth of the Church, so how we steward our wealth, lead our seminaries, and wield our creativity and religious freedom will greatly affect the future of the church. We must discern carefully the will of Christ as we prioritize our resources.

Integrity; the US church has been easily captivated by culture and consumerism, and sometimes our lack of integrity within the Western church has been the biggest obstacle to the message of Christ, or has caused the most damage within the church. For example the prosperity gospel was conceived in the US, but when transplanted to Latin America and to Africa its errors have spread like a malignant weed.

Partnership; Our self-sufficiency and entrepreneurial spirit have inhibited the church’s ability to partner well in our own cities and communities, and the Church is weaker because of it. Not only must we learn how to partner globally, but the church in America must learn these skills and adopt this value for the sake of our country.

Pastor Jack Hayford will speak and teach at a prayer & fasting retreat, October 4-6 at the Lake Geneva Conference Center, in Alexandria, MN.  He will teach in 6 one-hour sessions between Monday evening and Wednesday morning.

GMAE Members click here to register at reduced rate of $39.

General registration, click here.

Multiple denominations and ministries are partnering together with the MN District Assemblies of God towards this historic prayer and fasting gathering.  GMAE is please to offer pastors and leaders in our member churches the opportunity to attend at the reduced rate of $39. (Participants may choose from a range of lodging choices, including tenting, when they register.  Meals will be served Tuesday evening and Wednesday morning, and beverages will be available during the retreat).

Not sure if your church is a member? Click here and search for your church name.

Although many church methods and strategies can accelerate the effectiveness and growth of Christian ministries, none compares to the effectiveness of the ancient plan laid out by Jesus at the start of His own ministry – prayer and fasting.  This practice of seeking the Lord through extended times of prayer and fasting is the essential ingredient for an effective and faithful life of ministry.

Dr. Hayford served as the President of the International Church of the Foursquare Gospel for many years, leading 38,000 churches in 136 countries with nearly 5 million members.  He was also recently listed as one of the 25 most influential preachers in the past 25 years along with Billy Graham, Rick Warren, Andy Stanley and others.  Along with times of teaching from the Word of God, there will be much time for rest and personal and corporate prayer.  This incredible gathering will be taking place at the beautiful campground facilities of Lake Geneva Christian Center.

Learn more at Accelerate Midwest at www.acceleratemidwest.org

(Learn how to help)

This family  of 8 refugees has lived in the Dadaab Refugee Camp in northern Kenya since 1991. That is 19 year living in flimsy shelters, surrounded by barbed wire and armed guards, surviving on meager food rations provided by the UN and other charities.

Refugees in Dadaab Refugee Camp

The children in this family were born in the refugee camp, and the only existence they know is the dry, forsaken desert surr0nding Dadaab. The 3 camps around Dadaab house over 160,000 refugees.

But now they have a chance for something better. If we help them.

Tonya Cook, World Relief’s refugee program manager, says the family seemed so weak and emaciated she was concerned about how their bodies would respond to eating food. They wore the only clothes they possessed, T-shirts issued by the UNHCR.

The condition of these families was so shocking that two Somali women from Minneapolis who were helping to translate, broke down into sobbing cries as they realized the terrible conditions this family had survived, for 19 years.

World Relief Minnesota has agreed to help up to 100 refugees who are being resettled by the US from this camp. They need your help. Primarily they need ministry teams, small groups, or families that will “adopt” one of these refugee families and help them navigate services, enrolling children in schools, and surviving urban life in America.

World Relief has been helping refugees for a long time, but this group is different. They do not have friends or family here already who can help. They have been stuck in a remote desert in northern Kenya and will find it hard to live in a modern city. Their children have grown up without basic schooling and education.

Read more and learn how to help at www.worldreliefmn.org, an affiliate ministry of GMAE.

In a report presented at the NAE Generation Forum in Minneapolis, a total of 64% of unmarried evangelical young adults have either had sex in the past year, or are in a sexual relationship now. One of the observations made by presenters at the forum is that this report shows that evangelical young adults are unsure and confused about how to understand sex and marriage.

View the report here.

One panelist noted how frequently they heard evangelical young adults talk about the pain of experiencing their parents’ divorce and saying that they would never do that to their children. So their opinion was that it was better to live together first to make sure their relationship could work, and then get married.

Another point was made by several panelists that parents need to speak more freely and openly with their young adult children about the benefits of enjoying sex within marriage. While children may receive sex education at school or at church, an open relationship with parents, even after the children become adult and move out of the home, is important to helping young adults develop a positive image of sex as a good gift from God to be enjoyed most within his design.

In response to the misconstrued ideas that Americans – and including evangelicals – have about sex, the the NAE recently published a Bible-based “Theology of Sex” to give pastors, parents and church leaders a guide for talking about “God’s good gift of sex” and how we can honor that gift.

The Theology of Sex is available online, and GMAE has copies available that can be mailed to you upon request.

]]> http://www.mnevangelicals.org/2010/06/evangelical-young-adults-confused-about-sex/feed/ 0 https://app.e2ma.net/app/view:CampaignPublic/id:7291.8379779453/rid:036847190dec56b3184e1636e4910d57 https://app.e2ma.net/app/view:CampaignPublic/id:7291.8379779453/rid:036847190dec56b3184e1636e4910d57#comments Mon, 07 Jun 2010 19:40:20 +0000 Carl Nelson http://www.mnevangelicals.org/?p=968 https://app.e2ma.net/app/view:CampaignPublic/id:7291.8379779453/rid:036847190dec56b3184e1636e4910d57/feed/ 0 http://www.mnevangelicals.org/2010/06/strengthening-families-protecting-workers/ http://www.mnevangelicals.org/2010/06/strengthening-families-protecting-workers/#comments Fri, 04 Jun 2010 21:09:07 +0000 Carl Nelson http://www.mnevangelicals.org/?p=862

Carl Nelson, GMAE

There are two important reasons why evangelicals should support immigration reform. Our current system is weakening immediate family units and the wide use of undocumented immigrants in certain industries results in their exploitation and unjust economic gains for others.

I know that many evangelicals have not always been sympathetic to these issues and have instead advocated for strong anti-immigrant policies. For many years I was one of them. But as I have studied the Biblical history of migration (forced and voluntary) and scriptural mandates regarding the foreign born and justice for the vulnerable, together with the value of strengthening families and protecting the sanctity and dignity of human life, I have changed my views.

Undocumented workers, the rule of law and economic justice

To be sure, America has a problem of undocumented immigrants – most of them workers. Estimates range from 11 to 12 million undocumented immigrants, and groups like the Pew Research Center report that more than 96% are employed in our economy.

It is widely understood that the major attraction drawing undocumented immigrants to the US is jobs, and that they represent a significant portion of the labor pool in certain low-wage industries: domestic household service (21%), food manufacturing and agricultural production (14% and 13% respectively) furniture manufacturing (13%) and construction and textile production (12% each). (Impact of Undocumented Workers, The Perryman Group, 2008) (link to PDF).

Many Christians claim the Biblical injunction to obey the rule of law and opine that because undocumented immigrants are law-breakers they should be summarily rounded up and deported. It is true that entering the US and obtaining a job illegally is breaking the law, and Christians should not condone unlawful behavior. However, we are placing the blame solely on the immigrant, when we must also hold accountable their employers who often knowingly accept falsified documents or improperly hire undocumented immigrants – and usually make healthy profits from their labors. We must also hold our whole economic system – and nearly all of us individually – accountable as well, because while we may grumble about illegal immigration on one hand we are simultaneously benefiting from low-cost fresh food and other agricultural products, affordable – and ever larger – new housing construction and the furniture to go in it, and for some people the luxury of having domestic servants in their households or vacation spots.

The Bible speaks often, and clearly, about paying a worker his fair wages, not taking advantage of the vulnerable or oppressed, and treating the foreign born fairly. Undocumented workers are often paid less than minimum wage, harassed, and forced to live in the shadows. Meanwhile you and I, and the US economy, benefit greatly from them.

So one of the aims of immigration reform needs to be a workable system to provide an adequate number of worker visas each year to meet US labor demands, and a system that ensures these workers are not taken advantage of unfairly.

Family unity

I place a high priority on healthy families as a basic building block of society. Loving, intact, nuclear families are God’s best design for nurturing and rearing children and passing on strong societies from one generation  to the next.
Throughout America’s history many immigrant families have sacrificed and endured long separation in order to move to this country, or provide an income for their families back home.

Today many immigrant families are faced with two difficult choices; either remain separated from spouses and young children for years waiting “in line” for their immigrant visa, or live in the US as an intact family, but in the shadows, knowing they do so illegally and always worrying that they could be caught and deported.
One of the current debates is what to do with millions of undocumented adult immigrants who now have US Citizen Children. The adults are subject to deportation, but most experts agree that these parents would rather be separated from their children and leave them in the care of someone else and give them hope for a future in American, than to take them back to live in poverty in their home countries.

The long term affects of such a policy would be devastating to American society. It would further weaken the deteriorating family structure in the US. So another parameter of immigration reform needs to be that any solution needs to protect the unity of the immediate family.

I admit that these parameters to do not make for easy solutions. Our economic engine is fueled by millions of immigrant workers. We want to support strong families, but removing millions of undocumented immigrants take away one or both parents from up to 4 million US citizen children. That is the reason why Christians should actively participate in this discussion. We need to openly discuss differing solutions, listen to and understand each others objections, and set aside the political one-ups-man-ship that gets in the way of workable solutions.

Last month a group of 13 prominent conservative evangelical leaders issued a proclamation calling for immigration reform that would among other things:
•    Respect the God-given dignity of every person
•    Protect the unity of the immediate family
•    Respect the rule of law
•    Guarantee secure national borders
•    Ensure fairness to taxpayers
•    Establish a path toward legal status and/or citizenship for those who qualify and who wish to become permanent residents

I would encourage readers to learn more ideas for immigration reform that reflects these Biblical values at www.nae.net and read the National Association of Evangelicals “Resolution on Immigration” adopted in October 2009.

Last week a group of 13 conservative evangelical leaders, representing a large segment of evangelicalism, from the Southern Baptists and Liberty University, to Presidents of the Evangelical Free Church, Christian Reformed, Nazarene and Vineyard denominations, and Bill Hybels, John Perkins, and Michael Gerson joined Leith Anderson, NAE President in calling on Congress to “lead our nation towards a bipartisan solution on immigration”.

These leaders published an ad in Roll Call, a newspaper widely read by politicians and staffers on Capital Hill, calling for an immigration solution that:

• Respects the God-given dignity of every person
• Protects the unity of the immediate family
• Respects the rule of law
• Guarantees secure national borders
• Ensures fairness to taxpayers
• Establishes a path toward legal status and/or citizenship for those who qualify and who wish to become permanent residents

Signers Included:

Leith Anderson President, National Association of Evangelicals
Jerry Dykstra Executive Director, Christian Reformed Church of North America
Michael Gerson Senior Fellow, Hastert Center, Wheaton College
Bill Hamel President, Evangelical Free Church of America
Joel Hunter Senior Pastor, Northland-A Church Distributed
Bill Hybels Senior Pastor, Willow Creek Community Church
Richard Land President, Southern Baptist Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission
Sammy Mah President and CEO, World Relief
John Perkins Chairman Emeritus, Christian Community Development Association
Samuel Rodriguez President, National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference
Mat Staver Founder and Chairman, Liberty Counsel and Dean, Liberty University School of Law
Berten Waggoner National Director, Vineyard USA
David WilsonGeneral Secretary, Church of the Nazarene

Major media outlets took notice and recognized the influence and ability of evangelicals to break the stalemate to urge both Republican and Democratic leaders towards a bipartisan solution.

• “New force for broad immigration reform: Conservative evangelicals” – CNN
• “Schumer tries to raise holy help on immigration overhaul” – Wall Street Journal
• “Immigration reform could revitalize GOP” – Arizona Republic
• “Pentecostals join call for ‘just’ immigration policy” – Charisma Online
• “Land, other conservative evangelicals urge comprehensive immigration fix” – Associated Baptist Press
• “Evangelicals’ full page ad in DC will call for immigration reform” – Yahoo! News
• “Evangelicals find new unity on immigration” – Christianity Today

In 2009 the NAE, which includes more than 40 denominations and 30 million evangelical Christians, adopted a resolution on immigration reform, outlining a Biblical framework for dealing with immigration in modern day America. Since then momentum has been building among evangelical denominations and leaders to push for reform.