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.

• Audio of Erwin McManus at Evangelical Leaders Forum
• Conversation Gathering in Mpls-St. Paul, leading up to Cape Town 2010.
• Do you want to visit the Hindu temple in Maple Grove? The largest in the US.
• Join Carl Nelson at the MN Prayer Breakfast April 28



We are excited to announce the next Evangelical Leaders Forum on April 9 with Erwin McManus, and an update GMAE website.

This eNews includes several other announcements, including Patrick Johnstone of Operation World meeting with mission leaders on March 18, a look at making the case for Truth and the uniqueness of Jesus and other issues to be addressed at Cape Town 2010, and finally a post I wrote questioning whether its possible to pray with followers of other religions by focusing on Jesus.

My greatest hope is in Jesus, and here at GMAE we want to connect followers of His together to share ideas, vision and energy to help expand the Kingdom of God on earth and in heaven.

Thank you for being part of this movement!

Carl Nelson
President, GMAE – the Minnesota Association of Evangelicals

Evangelical Leaders Forum with Erwin McManus on April 9: GMAE and Bethel University are joining together to host Erwin McManus at the Evangelical Leaders Forum. He will share vision and leadership insights about forming disciples of Jesus who are passionate about God’s redemptive mission to humanity, who create and shape culture and help people know God and live life as He intended.

Join Us. Friday, April 9, 12:00 – 2:30 at the Ramada Plaza Minneapolis. Registration Required (Free for staff of Member Churches).

Erwin McManus is the lead pastor of Mosaic – a Los Angeles church known for its diversity and creative witness of Jesus Christ – and his is gifted as an author, speaker, activist, filmmaker and innovator. On Thursday, April 8 Erwin is also leading a preaching seminar at Bethel University.

Can one focus on Jesus and pray with followers of other religions? by Carl Nelson.
I was pleasantly surprised – and then a bit troubled – by the focus on Jesus by followers of different religions as leaders gathered to pray at the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington, D.C. I was privileged to attend with several others from the Twin Cities, and the experience led to some long conversations about the risks – and opportunities – of focusing too exclusively on Jesus. You say, What? The risk of focusing too much on Jesus? Yes, read more to see what I mean.

How do we make the case for Truth and uniqueness of Jesus? In October 4,000 Christian leaders from around the world will gather to deal with with six critical issues that threaten the health and vitality of the Church and impair our witness to the gospel of Jesus. One of these important issues is Truth, and as Os Guiness reports, it’s a bigger issue for American evangelicals than for others around the world. Read more about Cape Town 2010.

Patrick Johnstone, who developed “Operation World” will meet mission leaders March 18: Johnstone developed the book “Operation World” to inform Christians about every country in the world in order to encourage the church to pray for the world and to engage the world in Christian mission. He will share his perspective on global Christianity and missions & evangelism movements at TCAMP’s monthly leadership meeting March 18, 12:30 – 2:00. The public is invited. Click here to learn details and location.

ECFA changes make financial resources more accessible to churches: The ECFA is the nation’s leading resource for financial and governance practices for churches and faith-based organizations. With recent changes to membership requirements it is now easier for many smaller churches and ministries to become members, get access to ECFA’s huge reservoir of technical support for  financial management, and receive their “seal of approval.”

GMAE encourages churches to join ECFA for another reason. The ECFA is constantly in consultation with the IRS, Senate Finance Committee and other government regulators advocating for the concerns of religious organizations, and the ECFA is highly respected by these government officials. As proof, when two national ministries that were being investigated by the Senate Finance Committee joined the ECFA by meeting their standards for governance and financial disclosures, the Senate Finance Committee dropped their investigation.

After 18 months in prison Allen starts new life at Damascus Way: If you looked at Allen Rasmussen* he would probably remind you of yourself. His childhood appeared to be normal; he grew up going to Sunday School, church and Awana, yet how did this young man end up dealing and hooked on drugs and spending 18 months in prison?

Fortunately he has a second chance at life, and at Damascus Way he breaking those childhood patterns that led to his drug use and criminal activity. (Read more) Damascus Way Reentry Center is an Affiliate Ministry supported and led by GMAE.

There are both signs of health and signs of decay.

One indicator of declining health is a recent report shows that 15% of Americans claim no religion at all (up from 8% in 1990). Another insight is to look at church-attendance patterns; The American Church Report showed that in 2005 only 17% of the population attended church on any particular weekend – down from 20% in 1990. (In Minnesota attendance was 22% in 2005, down from 26% in 1990).

I believe society can also be seen as a reflection of the health of the church. When the church is constructively engaged in society and spreading the redeeming message of Jesus, then the values, behaviors and morals of the society will increasingly reflect those of God. We seem to be failing this test on a number of scales today.

But there are positive signs of growth and health as well – particularly for Evangelical churches. While attendance at churches is declining overall, it has actually increased in many evangelical churches; in Minnesota 1/3 of church-goers attend an evangelical congregation, a trend that has been growing in recent years. In education 90% of new seminaries in the past 30 years have been evangelical ones. Three of our last six presidents have been self-identified evangelicals.

For more than a year the organization I work for has been wrestling with the question of what the Church must do to be more healthy and affective in expanding the Kingdom of God. Through focus groups with pastors and informal surveys we’ve identified four areas that evangelical leaders say the church must focus on:

1) Community Engagement – congregations have to be connected into the fabric of the community surrounding them, and active and present enough in order play a meaningful role in meeting needs, making the life of a Christ-follower visible and appealing. Some pastors responded rather frankly and acknowledged that their congregations really did not know how to connect to their neighbors.

2) Multicultural Ministry – every metropolitan area, including the Twin Cities, is becoming increasingly multi cultural and multi racial. That is partly due to immigration, but is really driven by the fact that the next generation has grown up in diverse, integrated social settings but churches don’t reflect that reality well. A growing number of church leaders nation wide are recognizing the seriousness and importance of reconciling around the issues of race, culture and socio-economic class; the church has a great opportunity to improve its own health – and that of our society – by addressing this issue.

3) Accelerate Church planting – the Twin Cities needed 231 new churches just to keep up with population growth from 2000 – 2005. How many did we have? A net increase of only 10 (accounting for churches that closed. In other words we are falling way behind. We are mistakenly measuring success based on the continued survival of our own congregation and not keeping track of how many new churches are needed for all the new people in our cities and towns. A healthy church is a reproducing, multiplying one and we need to stay focused on this biological process.

4) Reach the next generation – the reports vary, but the fact remains that many Christian young adults exit the church during their 20′s and 30′s (some say as many as 50% ). This generation is coming of age in a rapidly changing technological era, and they are seeking community, authenticity and real solutions to big problems and if they are going to be part of organized church they are expecting to find these answers in Jesus, the Bible and Christian community.

The Church has many strengths, and our opportunities are great, but we need to recognize the serious conditions that affect us and work to overcome them. In the end the Church of Jesus Christ will prevail, the question is, Will we do our part?