Vol. 44, No. 27 August 28, 2017

I have always believed that, when Jesus was crucified, He delivered a right cross to Satan when He said “Forgive them, Father. They know not what they do.” I believe this because up until that time Satan probably thought that Jesus was going to con-demn us all to hell for what we did to Him.

Now, what does this have to do with spiritual warfare in the home? Well, Satan is always searching for a path to attack us. He looks at our fleshly weaknesses and thinks to

Spiritual Warfare In Our Homes

himself something like “George hates for supper to be late, so I’ll make sure that Gladys knocks over the soup that she was preparing, thus delaying sup-per so George will be upset.

Thus starts the beginning of our spiritual warfare, FORGIVENESS. George needs to put aside his feelings and put his arm around Gladys and say, “I love you, Honey. Let’s work to-gether to see what else we can have for supper.” Can you imagine one of Satan’s lackeys running back to his boss and telling him that it didn’t work? Forgiveness must be the start of spiritual warfare in the family. The family must be united as one, making sure that their spirits are joined in a unity of love.

The next step is prayer. In my fam-ily, Kaece and I go through the house praying against anything evil in the name of Jesus. We sprinkle holy wa-ter into every room (Kaece loves this part) and command the evil spirits to leave in the name and by the author-ity of Jesus Christ. I often say “God the Father commands you. God the Son commands you, and God the Holy Spirit commands you to be gone.” We

pray over everyone in the house, even the dogs. We know that the devil is a pro at the game Red Rover. That is, he is always searching for the weakest link in our family and homes.

When Kaece goes to bed at night, I lay hands on her and pray against anything not of God, including bad dreams. If we are going to take a trip, I pray over the car and invite angels to travel with us. When I start a house-hold job, I pray that Jesus will bless it and keep the devil away.

As Christians, we must ever be mindful that the devil is always trying to get us to sin, whether it be some-thing as simple as cussing because we spilled something or lashing out at someone in the family. We state in our covenant that “Jesus is our Lord.” Let’s strive to cast out of our lives, our families and our homes anything that tries to falsify that statement. Let’s pray over our homes and families on a regular basis. Jesus is our Lord and when we call upon Him, He will be quick to drive the evil away.

By Larry Stenger, Elder

Shoo, Devil! Shoo!

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My wife, Nancy, and I drove into Pittsburgh on Thursday, July 20th for the 50th Anniversary of the Catho-lic Charismatic Renewal. As you may know, Pittsburgh is a magnificent city built on three rivers with countless bridges — a great example of God’s creation and man’s work merged to-gether; but it is no easy place to get into or navigate through. We missed having the native son, Frank Dens-more, to be our living GPS. We were there as vendors and set up in their awesome conference center overlook-ing the river and the city, and checked into the truly grand, 100-year-old Wil-liam Penn Omni Hotel, our luxurious home base for three days; our first time to even be inside a grand hotel! However, we spent little waking time there.

The conference commemorated the Duquesne experience, where a group of college students in 1967 asked and waited upon the Lord for a personal Pentecost – the empowering of the Holy Spirit over them. The Lord answered their prayers and began an outpouring of the Holy Spirit that quickly spread globally and changed the Catholic and Protestant world for-

Remembering – and Pressing On

ever. This happened about 20 miles north of Pittsburgh in a three-story house now called The Ark and the Dove. It is set on a serene, wooded lot, and you definitely feel His peace and His spirit there.

At this celebration, many of the “old guard” were attending and/or speaking. Some of them have been faithfully at it for a half century and are still “pressing on for the prize”— some still full tilt, some with compro-mised bodies, or lessened dynamic faculties, nonetheless pressing on with all their zeal. We remember them from conferences in the ‘70s and ‘80s or from their books or tapes that were, for many of us, “lifelines” to higher ground. We trusted what they said and believed we could do it also; for millions who put themselves “all in,” it really worked! Over the years, many passionate and dynamic firebrands have been added as well, meeting the changing times. Some of the big hitters who have visited Alleluia were there – some from the liaison conference, some community leaders, several from last year’s inter-national Kairos conference on unity held in our newly chilled-out gym.

Wow! That’s something to remember – before and after! Thanks again, Bob Harmon and helpers.

Charismatic leaders and faithful community members from all over hold Alleluia Community in a place of high respect and regard – even deep love. Many savor memories of their visits here, both recently and many years ago. Their faces lit up as they approached our exhibit tables and their Alleluia friends. It is good to see Bob Garrett, Dan Almeter and Chuck Hornsby elevated to international sta-tus and placed on the main platforms in Pittsburgh, Rome or wherever, to help further the renewal. We know when they are called higher, they go representing the community as if each of us (all 800+) were on the plat-form with them.

Forty years ago, through visits to a charismatic prayer group, our own Garner family was blessed with an awakening from despair, depres-sion and darkness into the marvel-ous light. This Holy Spirit awakening quickly led to a 180 degree turn from the pitfalls of the world toward the glory of the Lord. Many of us in Al-leluia have had similar radical experi-ences of God’s redemptive power and changed lives. Others are less dramat-ic, but may well be more thorough and complete. We see this all across the community in all ages. Glory!

As I recalled the 50-year mark and some of the many high points, I was also led to remember how devastat-ing life was before meeting Jesus and

By Gary Garner

The current day Ark and the Dove

Gary and Nancy Garner

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(Continued from page 2 - PRESSING ON)

being empowered by the Holy Spirit. We might each do well to reflect on that time in our own life. Whether we were mired in near hopelessness and despair, or just in a confusing life without purpose or direction, the Holy Spirit motivated and empowered us into a total redirection and the full-ness of a new great life – built around Him. Without the Holy Spirit, most of us would only have an occasional glimpse of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, self-control emanating in our lives; but by God’s grace, they all grow in our garden as bountiful fruit.

Without the Holy Spirit, there would have been no Pittsburgh 50th celebration, no group of participants coming, no reason to gather. Quite likely the secular world would have continued to dominate a sleeping “Christian” church.

What would Alleluia Community look like without the empowering of the Holy Spirit? Let’s see:

• No Alleluia • No relationship with most of

our closest friends• No Faith Village• No ACS school• No relationships that became

great marriages• No vibrant young next gen-

eration among us• No great adventure that we all

share. In fact, our personal lives would

likely be in a different location and a hollow shell of what we enjoy daily. South Augusta in 2017 would likely be a haven for drugs, gangs and prostitu-tion.

It is so important to be grateful for the blessings the Lord has poured out over each of us to bring us to our present place.

Most of us frequently encounter people at work, on the street, in the stores and even in church who are still mired in stress-filled lives with no obvious purpose — a life we once knew all too well. Let’s remember we are the ones who have been given the “Answer” and are called to share Him and the blessings He has for all the others! Let us invest in them as oth-ers invested in us so that they may experience joy in the journey.

Hopefully the new wave of the Spirit will see far more joyful people redeemed and empowered than we

Gary Garner, a woodworker for Jesus, serves in the Outreach Ministry and on the New Spiritual Life Team for Alleluia Community and is an author and contributor to the Alleluia Dove newsletter. He and his wife, Nancy, have been Full Covenant Members of Alleluia since 1987 and are active in the Right to Life movement. They have four adult children, 14 grandchildren and five great-grandchildren and attend St. Joseph Catholic Church in Augusta, Georgia.

The Elders’ CornerKeeping you abreast of what’s happening

30 Days of September

Since the elders have recom-mended that the community read “The Benedict Option” by Rod Dreher for the 30 Days of September, we wanted to give some guidance on reading the book. We ask you to skip Chap-ter 5 because it is ecumenically insensitive. We also want you to skip Chapter 8 because the fol-lowing chapters (9 &10) are more important. Everyone can read these chapters, but we are not doing them in common as part of our 30 Days plan.

The book relates some of the disciplines that the monks in the monasteries during the “dark ages” used to retain spiri-tual, moral and cultural virtues and values. We want to encour-

age everyone to examine their lives and see if some of these disciplines and virtues could be reenergized. The Holy Spirit is constantly calling us to renewal. We use September as our yearly reminder to take practical steps in this renewal.

We are not advocating cut-ting ourselves off totally from the world or building a wall around Faith Village and creating an Alleluia enclave. We are ask-ing everyone to look at whether their family has become more “of” the world than just “in” the world. Have a positive attitude about the 30 Days recommen-dations and trust that the Holy Spirit is working through the el-ders for your benefit.

Pressing On

can even imagine!GLORY!!

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© 2017 Alleluia Community, adm. by Alleluia Christian Service Center, Inc. P.O. Box 6805, Augusta, GA 30916-6805, (706) 798-1882. All rights reserved. Submit articles for the Dove to barbarah@yeslord.com.

Like many support groups in commu-nity, ours has recently experienced some changes. We were formerly known as the Routhier Support Group, but with Bob Routhier’s decision to remain as a Pasto-ral Coordinator, William McKie bravely stepped up to fill the need.

We are a pretty amiable group and the majority of us have been in support group together for many years. We are a “Golden Oldies” group and, with the ex-ception of Larry Stenger, Alice Alger, and Anita McKie, we are all retired from full time work.

The change in our work status has enabled us to serve in numerous ways, both in the community and in our respec-tive churches. We meet on a regular basis every Tuesday night, but with the busy summer and vacations, we have cut back to every other week. Our meetings are varied in style and substance; we might just have a potluck or, frequently, our own praise and worship sessions led by Anna Reilly, a wonderful worship leader! Whatever is going on, everyone is ready to serve and participate 100%. It’s not un-usual for us to have perfect attendance at our gatherings or at other community functions.

We are also blessed to be able to make a retreat together each year. Last year we gathered for the weekend in the Isle of Palms, S.C., for a wonderful retreat complete with praise and worship, pri-vate prayer time, group sharing, a Lord’s Day meal and just plain fun in between! We have already scheduled for the retreat in the same location for this fall, and are eagerly looking forward to it.

Our support group is also strong in the area of service. Many of our mem-bers spend themselves sacrificially in serving the community and community members. Recently, after Jim Dooley was diagnosed with a progressive muscle disease, it was decided that a member of the support group would each take a day of the week to come and pray over him for healing. What a blessing to have that kind of prayer support on your side! The members of our support group are:

Meet the McKie Support Group

William and Anita McKie, Bob and Ginny Routhier, Jim and Jill Dooley, Bob and Al-ice Alger, Gary and Sara Molen, Mike and Anna Reilly, Billy and Jeanne Cleveland, Fr. Rich Hart, Cathy Green, Larry Stenger.

I believe that the main charisms of our support group are care, accountabil-ity and laughter, with a good measure of food and good times thrown in! We are truly blessed!

By Jill Dooley

Dove Challenge #6A good friend of yours lives

in London, England and has 5 identical suitcases to ship; the destinations are Blackpool, Cork, Coventry, Truro, and Whitby. So which of these pieces of luggage is most likely to be lost in tran-sit? Why do you think that?

Send your answer to chal-lenge@yeslord.com with your name, grade, and Dove Chal-lenge #6.

William and Anita McKie

Bob and Ginny Routhier

Gary and Sara MolenBilly and Jeanne Cleveland

Jim and Jill Dooley

Bob and Alice Alger and Mike and Anna Reilly

Fr. Rich Hart, Larry Stenger and Cathy Green