Welcome to Women on the Frontlines VisionCast:

Lee Grady Shares Impact of Heidi Baker's

Message at Women on the Frontlines 2006

Featuring Lee Grady
VisionCast July 2006
1-877-200-1604 | www.michalanngoll.com

Welcome to our Women on the Frontlines Devotional E-mail. For those of you new to our E-mail, our previous devotionals are available for further study and meditation through our web site in the archive file at www.MichalAnnGoll.com.

While I will be sending a summary of what God spoke to us at our recent 9th annual Women on the Frontlines Conference 2006: Gathering the War Generals on August 3rd-5th in Cincinnati, this devotional features an article by Lee Grady, who was a speaker at the conference. Lee wrote this for Charisma News on 08/18/2006. I wanted to share his thoughts on what stirred and moved him during this powerful weekend as Heidi Baker ministered to us.

Many Blessings!

Michal Ann Goll

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J. Lee Grady is editor of Charisma, an internationally distributed Christian magazine with more than 250,000 subscribers. An ordained minister and conference speaker, he challenges the church to break free from tradition in order to be effective in ministry.

He often addresses churches and leadership conferences on the issue of gender prejudice, and he calls Christians to dismantle the religious barriers that keep women out of ministry. He is the author of three books including 10 Lies the Church Tells Women, which has been translated into several languages since it was published in 2000.

Heidi Baker's Uncomfortable Message to America
- J. Lee Grady
Aug 13, 2006
 
Heidi Baker is challenging the American church to reject superstar Christianity and return to the simplicity of the gospel.

American missionary Heidi Baker is not a normal preacher. When she spoke at a conference last week in Ohio, she delivered half of her sermon while lying on the floor. She was clutching the microphone while her forehead was resting on the carpet.

"I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord," she said, quoting Philippians 3:8. She interrupted her message several times with the high-pitched giggling that has become her trademark.

This was not your average, seeker-sensitive sermon.

A petite, 46-year-old blonde, Baker told the crowd at the Encounters Network conference in Cincinnati that those who want to be used by God in powerful ways must learn to relinquish power. She said: "God told me once, 'I want you to come up to the lowest place.'"

Baker easily could have positioned herself as a Christian superstar. Fluent in several languages, she is a gifted communicator with advanced educational degrees. She also has seen astounding miracles during her 30 years of ministry, especially in Mozambique, where she and her husband, Rolland, have planted more than 7,000 "bush churches," five Bible schools and four children's feeding centers since 1990.

Just days before she arrived in Cincinnati, Baker prayed for two blind beggars who wandered into her tent meeting at her base in Pemba, Mozambique. Both men instantly received their sight after Baker wet her fingers with saliva and touched their eyes.

Such astounding miracles are common to Heidi and Rolland. They have seen God supernaturally multiply rice and chili to feed hungry orphans. Heidi has watched paralytics walk for the first time after they received prayer. And indigenous pastors the Bakers trained in Mozambique have raised 53 people from the dead so far.

But Heidi Baker does not carry herself like a celebrity evangelist. She does not wear designer clothes or arrive at conferences in limousines. She does not wave her hand over audiences, throw her coat on people or mail slick magazines with photographs of her standing in front of crowds of Africans.

When it is time to minister to the sick, she often calls her trained team to do most of the praying. Sometimes she asks children to pray for the crippled and dying.

She knows that ministry is not about her!

"It is a privilege beyond price to see the joy and affection of the Holy Spirit poured out like a waterfall on people who have known so much severe hardship, disappointment and bitter loneliness in their lives," Baker wrote recently in her online ministry report.

"From the freezing cold gypsy huts of eastern Bulgaria to the 115 degree heat of Sudanese refugee camps, from the isolated native Inuits of arctic Canada to the dirt-poor subsistence farmers along the Zambezi River, we see ravenous desire for God among the poor and lowly. Jesus knows their suffering, and He will make it up to them. He will be their God, and they will be His people. He will use them to shame the wise and make the world jealous of their wealth toward Him."

At the Cincinnati conference, which was sponsored by charismatic ministers James and Michal Ann Goll, Baker rebuked the American church in her sweet and disarming way. Because she lives "in the dirt" among the poorest people in Africa, she says, God has taught her principles from the Bible that sophisticated Western Christians struggle to understand.

"God wants to tweak some things" in the Western church, she said, noting that we place too much importance on position, intellect and human ability.

She then demonstrated the solution to our dilemma by kneeling on the floor again. "God wants laid-down love," Baker said. Hundreds of people-myself included-put our faces in the carpet and asked for the humble heart of Jesus to wreck our pride.

Being with Heidi Baker last weekend helped me reorder my priorities. I was reminded that ministry is not about visibility; it is about serving in secret. Ministry is not about giving people a slick, culturally relevant presentation; it is about offending the mind to reach the heart. Ministry is not about making rich Christians feel good about themselves; it is about seeing the face of Jesus in the face of a starving, AIDS-infected child.

Baker's message made me uncomfortable, but the squirming was all worth it. I've decided I want to go lower-into a place of humility where the presence and power of God can be known.

I hope all of us will take that plunge.

by Lee Grady

J. Lee Grady, editor of Charisma magazine, wrote a book on this subject, Ten Lies the Church Tells Women, published in 2000 by Charisma House.

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From the Desk of James W. Goll

Please remember that we still need to raise funds to cover our entire ministry operational budget for the next few months as well an additional $25,000 to cover the cost of the Oasis Hospital.

To assist us financially, support should be given directly to Encounters Network and mailed to P. O. Box 1653, Franklin, TN 37065, or donations may be given online by clicking here. If you would like to give specifically to the Oasis program and my medical expenses, please select "Mercy Assistance Fund" from the drop down menu. All "General Donations" will go toward the ongoing operational expenses of Encounters Network.

Thank you once again for caring, loving, giving and praying. Together we shall conquer this in Christ Jesus. This enemy shall bow its knee at the name of Jesus and a great testimony shall be heard around the globe! Blessings to each of you!

Blessings to you and your family.

James W. Goll