CHRISTIANITY EXPLODING WORLDWIDE; 3RD WORLD SENDING MISSIONARIES [V ENCOURAGING DOC]

ANDREW STROM VIA MERI BURLINGAME EMAIL LIST ^ | 28 APR 2005 | WORLD NET DAILY

[Quix]

"CHRISTIANITY EXPLODING Worldwide"

"THIRD WORLD sending MISSIONARIES"

[from 'WorldNetDaily'- http://www.worldnetdaily.com ]

Christianity taking over planet?

New book makes case it's fastest growing faith on Earth.

[-April 28, 2005 © 2005 WorldNetDaily.com ]

What is the fastest-growing religion on Earth?

Most news reports suggest it is Islam.

But a new book makes a compelling case it is a new, or, perhaps, old form of biblically inspired evangelical Christianity that is sweeping through places like China, Africa, India and Southeast Asia.

In "Megashift," author Jim Rutz coins a new phrase to define this fast-growing segment of the population. He calls them "core apostolics" - or "the new saints who are at the heart of the mushrooming kingdom of God."

Rutz makes the point that Christianity is overlooked as the fastest-growing faith in the world because most surveys look at the traditional Protestant denominations and the Roman Catholic Church while ignoring Christian believers who have no part of either.

He says there are 707 million "switched-on disciples" who fit into this new category and that this "church" is exploding in growth.

"The growing core of Christianity crosses theological lines and includes 707 million born-again people who are increasing by 8 percent a year," he says.

So fast is this group growing that, under current trends, according to Rutz, the entire world will be composed of such believers by the year 2032.

"There will be pockets of resistance and unforeseen breakthroughs," writes Rutz. "Still, at the rate we're growing now, to be comically precise, there would be more Christians than people by the autumn of 2032, about 8.2 billion."

According to the author, until 1960, Western evangelicals out-numbered non-Western evangelicals - mostly Latinos, blacks and Asians - by two to one. As of 2000, non-Western evangelicals outnumbered Westerners by four to one. He says by 2010, the ratio will be seven to one.

"There are now more missionaries sent from non-Western nations than Western nations," he writes.

This trend, says Rutz, has been missed by Westerners because the explosive growth is elsewhere.

Hundreds of millions of these Christians are simply not associated with the institutional churches at all. They meet in homes. They meet underground. They meet in caves. They meet, he says, in secret.

And what is driving this movement?

Miracles, he says.

"Megashift" attempts to document myriad healings and other powerful answers to the sincere prayers of this new category of believer, including, believe it or not, hundreds of dramatic cases of resurrections - not near-death experiences, but real resurrections of actual corpses.

"When I was a kid in Sunday school, I was really impressed that 3,000 people were saved on the Day of Pentecost," he writes. "I thought, 'Wow, that'll never happen again!"

But, Rutz says, it now happens around the globe every 25 minutes.

"By tomorrow, there will be 175,000 more Christians than there are today," he writes.

The essence of Rutz's book is about how Western Christians can tap into what he sees as a mighty work of God on Earth.

"Very few people realize the nature of life on Earth is going through a major change," he writes. "We are seeing a megashift in the basic direction of human history. Until our time, the ancient war between good and evil was hardly better than a stalemate. Now all has changed. The Creator whose epic story flows through the pages of Scripture has begun to dissolve the strongholds of evil. This new drama is being played out every hour around the globe, accompanied sometimes by mind-bending miracles."

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

© 2005 WorldNetDaily.com - http://www.worldnetdaily.com

-- To subscribe, send a "subscribe" email to-

prophetic@revivalschool.com

OR send *ANY* email to- anzac-subscribe@welovegod.org

To unsubscribe, send ANY message to: anzac-

unsubscribe@welovegod.org

To send material for consideration for publication, send to-

prophetic@revivalschool.com

VISIT OUR SITES ON THE NET:

REVIVAL SUPERSITE - http://www.revivalschool.com

PROPHETIC SUPERSITE -

http://homepages.ihug.co.nz/~revival/index2.html

MODERATOR: Andrew Strom, PO Box 9852, Kansas City, MO 64134, USA.

[wideawake]

Would like to see his historical claims for that. Sounds far fetched to me. You may know him better than I.

Don't know him that well, but that one book of his put me very much on my guard.

But I've seen enough overseas to believe the bulk of what he says. The Chinese church is very much as he describes it. Including with the resurrections.

I don't doubt that the Father is working still.

But I don't think it's time to lie back confident that the Word is spreading as fast as it should just because Mr. Rutz says it is.

There are one billion Muslims in the world and they need Christ badly.

[Ff--150]

Jimminy, Quix, write you as another freakin' hypocrit playin' church--then you come up with something damn good!!

- not near-death experiences, but real resurrections of actual corpses.

Know what the problem of being a resurrection corpse is?? Your body is messed up; it was dead! Nerves are no good. Hearing improves??? Taste, smell, feeling, and vision is less than half, 3/4.

Memory dumps as does personality--so you get born again :-).

Miracles maybe aren't so great when they happen to you...

[wideawake]

Gal 2:9.

[freebilly]

I generally avoid those who bring a spirit of contentiousness into the Church.

See ya....

[mike182d]

Galatians 2:9

[wideawake]

I generally avoid those who bring a spirit of contentiousness into the Church.

You made a contentious comment.

It should be pretty clear from Acts and the letters to Timothy that the Church had a defined institutional structure very early on, with centralized finances, counsels, defined roles within the Church for different Christians, etc.

[mike182d]

You mean as Martin Luther did?

[freebilly]

It should be pretty clear from Acts and the letters to Timothy that the Church had a defined institutional structure very early on, with centralized finances, counsels, defined roles within the Church for different Christians, etc. Matthew 18:20--

20"For where two or three have gathered together in My name, I am there in their midst."

[polymuser]

In what sense, then, are they legitimately "Christian?"

In that they say they are, and they believe in and follow Christ Jesus. Whether they truly are, we're unable to judge. It's kind of like Republicans: some truly are, and some are actually RINOs; but, if there's a big R after their title and they're registered in the party, they are Republican.

[freebilly]

Let me know when you nail your theses to the Vatican door....

[Bosco]

Thanks for the citation. So what's your point?

[wideawake]

For where two or three have gathered together in My name, I am there in their midst

When Christians gather Christ is in their midst, of course.

This does not mean that when 10,000 Christians gather they are an amorphous mass - are you denying that Paul clearly gave Timothy instructions on how to run a Christian church and how to vet pastors?

Or that Paul described the Church as a body with various members with different tasks and responsibilities?

Are you denying that Christians in the NT period exercised discipline over their members, held councils, gave decrees, etc.?

Are you basically saying that witness of the Apostles and the NT is useless?

[wideawake]

Let me know when you nail your theses to the Vatican door....

What does this comment have to do with the price of tea in China?

[wideawake]

I think the original poster's point was that in its earliest days the Church had figures of authority and that Mr. Rutz's favorite notion - the "open Church" - has nothing to do with Christianity as it has been practiced from Scripture days until now.

[Quix]

IMhO,

Yes and no.

I suspect that the early church was tons more like the underground church in China than any of the institutional stuff you want to point to.

Hazards aplenty in that. And the growing institution dealt with some of those hazards

AND IMPLEMENTED IN THEIR STEAD THOSE WHICH CHRIST MOST CONDEMNED in the religious INSTITUTION and the RELIGIOUS leaders of His dusty pathed days.

I say again . . . any congregation older than about a year and a half is already seeding it's own death and uselessness to The Kingdom by the slow to fast build-up of customs of men; doctrines of men; traditions of men vs the leading of Holy Spirit.

I'll take the rough and ready street Christianity of the underground Chinese church any day over that. And, I have a persistent and recurring impression that God feels rather similarly.

Who do you think Scripture speaks of true believers being CALLED OUT FROM; CALLED OUT OF--TO LEAVE--AS IN LEAVING AN EVIL THING???

[Quix]

I don't recall anyone in the article or hereon suggesting laziness, apathy or negligence was the least bit in order.

[freebilly]

Sorry, that was a response to mike182d's comment about Luther.

[Quix]

Perhaps you are lovingly teasing and tweaking me.

If not . . .

Do you really think that Christ's body and that of Lazarus were as you characterized?

God tends to do ALL THINGS WELL.

Particularly Resurrections.

I'd suspect it's with at least the improvements of a general overhaul.

[freebilly]

Are you basically saying that witness of the Apostles and the NT is useless?

I'm basically saying that you would have made a wonderful Pharisee....

[Quix]

Are you aware at all

of the Biblical and other extensive evidence that

God the Father . . .

is KEENLY interested MUCH MORE in

RELATIONSHIP vs RELIGION

SUBSTANCE vs form

WALKING THE TALK vs having committee meetings about possibilities of conveying the extensively robust yet complex and multi-faceted aspects of the ground of our being upon the existential substrate of our emotionally, psychologically and sociologically fractured cultural mileu and national gestalt?