Release the Prophetic Destiny in Philadelphia : A City Under Reconstruction 9781935245827, 9780979322754

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Author Maurine McFarlane’s voice rings clearly throughout Release the Prophetic Destiny in Philadelphia, as she calls us to achieve the founder’s vision for this city, of peace, brotherhood, fair-dealing and prosperity.  Her energy and passionate commitment to the community that we serve is matched by her intellectual achievement and clear thinking.  Thoughtful, well-organized and insistent, this book was written to create positive change in our communities.   As we work together to meet the challenges that face our city and our nation, Ms. McFarlane’s book will serve as an important guide, and her ardor and vision as an example to us all. —Louis Giorla, Commissioner for Philadelphia Prison System

Maurine McFarlane has done what few people do, she has taken a vision directly from God and translated it into a strategic action plan with one goal in mind: To Restore Philadelphia to its original purpose—a place of Love, Caring, and Community. In this very readable book, the author connects the Action Plan to the vision given to her by God. This book should not only be read by every religious leader in Philadelphia, but around the nation and the world. It is a step by step revelation on how to translate vision to action. All seminaries would be wise to recommend this book as a must read for all of its students. This author has written a rare book that offers a glimpse into the soul of one who is faithful to God’s instructions. —Rev. W Wilson Goode Sr., Former Mayor of Philadelphia

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Release the

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Philadelphia

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MAURINE MCFARLANE

Release the

in

Philadelphia A City Under Reconstruction

Oviedo, Florida

Release the Prophetic Destiny in Philadelphia— A City Under Reconstruction by Maurine McFarlane Published by HigherLife Development Services, Inc. 2342 Westminster Terrace Oviedo, Florida 32765 (407) 563-4806 www.ahigherlife.com This book or parts thereof may not be reproduced in any form, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise—without prior written permission of the author or publisher, except as provided by United States of America copyright law. The views expressed in this manuscript are those of the Author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, HigherLife Development Services, Inc. Unless otherwise identified, scripture quotations are from the New American Standard Bible®, copyright © The Lockman Foundation 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995. (www.Lockman.org) Copyright © 2009 by Maurine McFarlane All rights reserved ISBN: 978-0-9793227-5-4 Cover Design: Dwayne Payne and Eric Powell Second Edition 09 10 11 12 13 — 5 4 3 2 1 Printed in the United States of America

DEDICATION To my daughter Crystal Marie and my son Blake Randolph. If it were not for you and the grace of God I would not be here today. I love you both more than words can say. You are indeed my joy, my life, and without a doubt my greatest investment. Also to Queen Terry, Dorothy West and Julia Edwards, the women God has chosen to show me the love of a mother. To Fitzroy Murdock and the late William D. Terry for showing and teaching me the true meaning of a father’s love. To Ellen Ryan, Audrey and Mark Terry, thank you for being everything a sibling should be and much more. You have all made this road I travel much easier to bear. May God continue to richly bless you. To the many friends and family whose names are to numerous to mention, I appreciate you and I love you. Knowing you has enhanced my life.

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ne of the great teachers of our time, Dr. Myles Munroe, says everything we accomplish in life is a synergistic product of many people who have contributed to what we have done and who we have become. This work is no different. I am forever grateful to all the great men and women who have taught, encouraged, corrected, and inspired me throughout my development over the years. In laboring with and birthing this project, I would like to thank the following spirits: For the development and production of this book, I give thanks and praise to my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ for entrusting to me this revelation to impart to His Body. His guidance and direction were paramount in shedding light on the historical and spiritual roots of the present day problems we are encountering in society today, and the realities of the kinds of solutions required of us as a people to restore our society to the natural order of things. His inspiration and relentless pursuit of me to get this work finished is greatly appreciated. The book and its underlying research are really a collaborative effort of many people and institutions. Without the insight and revelation knowledge of these great men and women of God, and the authority, without hesitation, given to me by each of them to use their works, this book would not have been possible. Heartfelt thanks to Dutch Sheets and Chuck D. Pierce, Dr. Myles Munroe, Bishop Noel Jones, Jonetta Rose Barras, Joan Hunter, E. G. White and Dr. David Blankenhorn I appreciate Bishop C. Milton Grannum and Reverend Hyacinth Bobb Grannum for laying the foundation for my spiritual life so that this book could be not just a theory. God would not have chosen any other church for me but New Covenant Church of Philadelphia.

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I needed a pastor, but more importantly, I was in need of a teacher. A teacher who knows the word of God and whose life reflects the word of God. Your lives and characters further refined mine. To my beloved children Crystal and Blake, who in my relentless pursuit of the truth and the demand of my hectic schedule, have allowed me the freedom to find my purpose, and for being my most faithful supporters. To Apostle Richard Hausley, my spiritual father, thank you for your encouragement, and always making yourself available to listen. To my partners in business and in Christ, Carol Blacken and Lillian Samuel, thank you for your covenant relationship and your commitment to the work we are called to do in Christ Jesus. I wish to extend a special thanks to Hope Flinchbaugh and Vanessa Chandler for editing and copy editing the manuscript, respectively. You have helped me so much, and I appreciate your constant care and understanding as you all have given so much of your time reading and reading many pages. To the publishing management team at HigherLife Development Services who is stepping out on faith with me. Finally, to the rest of my team and prayer partners Janie Drayton, Angela Sharp, Terri Cooper-Smith, Rose R. Dzatah, Jackie Cannad and the intercessors team at New Covenant Church of Philadelphia. Thank you for believing in me and seeing this project through to fruition and for making another journey worthwhile. May God continue to richly bless and keep you.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgements ................................................................................ xi Introduction ...............................................................................................1

Part One: The Problem, the Attack, and the Solution 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

The Price of the Vision ................................................................... 11 Message to Philadelphia................................................................. 14 Can Philadelphia Be Restored? ..................................................... 21 Who Is the Enemy? ......................................................................... 26 Repentance ....................................................................................... 35 Confession ........................................................................................ 40 How Do We Take Back Philadelphia? ......................................... 47 The Work of the Church ................................................................ 57 Submitting to God’s Purpose ........................................................ 62 Identify and Move Froward ........................................................... 67

Part Two: A Fatherless Society—The Root of Our Problems 11 12 13 14 15 16 17

The Role of Men in the Transformation ..................................... 71 The Cost of a Fatherless Society ................................................... 74 It’s Time for Change........................................................................ 85 The Fatherless Boys ......................................................................... 92 Fatherless Girls .............................................................................. 100 The Great Love Story .................................................................... 114 Battle for the Mind ........................................................................ 117

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Change from the Inside................................................................ 122 Reunited with God ........................................................................ 125

Part Three: The Call of Lighthouse Covenant International 20 21 22

The Transformation of Philadelphia.......................................... 137

23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30

Our Call to Action ........................................................................ 157

Poverty: A Key Factor ................................................................... 144 Strategic Planning in Action—A Methodology for Accomplishment, Focus, and Breakthrough ........................... 150

Housing Development ................................................................. 162 Housing Options ........................................................................... 173 Education ........................................................................................ 184 Community Development Program .......................................... 192 Medical Program ........................................................................... 198 Environmental Program .............................................................. 204 The Work and the Life .................................................................. 209

Endnotes ................................................................................................ 213

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INTRODUCTION he city of Philadelphia is the largest city in Pennsylvania and the fifth largest city in the United States with 1.4 million residents. This commercial, educational, and cultural center was named The City of Brotherly Love by William Penn, the English Quaker who envisioned the area as a place where anyone of any color or background could live together in peace and harmony. The city was once the second largest in the British Empire and the social and geographical center of the original thirteen colonies of America. During the eighteenth century, it eclipsed New York City in political and social importance with Benjamin Franklin playing a large role in Philadelphia’s early rise to prominence. It was in this city that some of the ideas and subsequent actions gave birth to the American Revolution and American independence. Philadelphia, a city that once embraced love and friendship, peace and harmony, is now a city filled with desolation and its neighborhoods are destitute of that original spirit of love. Today, its poverty rate is the highest of any major United States city. Philadelphia is a city that is guilty of the blood that has been shed and defiled by the idols it’s made. Violent crime and property crime has grown at the rate that exceeds the national average, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) statistics.1 Violent crimes include murder, rape, robbery, and aggravated assaults. “Philly,” as residents call it informally, had the highest murder rate among the nation’s largest cities in 2007 and 2008. So far this year, at the time of this writing, more than one person a day has been killed and Philadelphians are more likely to be murdered than residents of other cities whose populations exceed one million people. A number of factors have contributed to the high homicide rate in the city of Brotherly Love. Criminologists say the crime is attributed

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to a complex mix of social and economic causes—unemployment, resurgence in gang activity, increased traffic of illegal guns, reduction in programs for youth development, children growing up in poverty, and single-parent households. Thus the city has become a reproach to the nation and a mockery to the rest of the land. Its people have despised the holy things of God; some have committed abomination with neighbors. They have taken bribes to shed blood and have injured their neighbors for personal gain. Religious leaders have committed violence against the law and have profaned the holy things of God; they have made no distinction between holy and profane, and they have not taught the difference between unclean and clean. Unfortunately, although the religious leaders of Philly see the violence of our city, most of them have not strengthened the sickly, healed the diseased, bound up the broken, or sought to find the lost. The watchmen of the city are off duty with no one listening to hear a message from the Lord and warn the people. Philadelphia is a city in bondage—the enemy has it by the throat. The murder rate increases everyday; poverty, homelessness all increase on a daily basis. Is this the destiny God intends for what the founder of Pennsylvania, William Penn, called “The City of Brotherly Love?” Let’s look closer at the name, Philadelphia. Philia is usually translated friendship, though the term is used broader than that. As Gerard Hughes points out in Books VIII and IX Aristotle, philia includes young lovers, lifelong friend, cities with one another, political or business contacts, parent and children, fellow voyagers and fellow-soldiers and members of the same religious society, or from the same tribe.2 All of these different relationships involve getting along well with someone, though Aristotle at times implies that the words indicate that an actual liking is required. Philia, in its deepest definition, means love to the brethren. What is love? Where does it come from? The Gospel breathes the spirit of love. Love is the fulfilling of its precepts, the evidence of its

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Introduction power, the pledge of its joys, and the ripe fruit of the Spirit: “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another” (John 13:34). The obvious inquiry is this: Do you love the people of God because they are the people of God? Do you love them because you discover in them the amiableness of that religion which is altogether lovely? Do you love them, not merely because they love you or have bestowed favors upon you, not because they are of your party, but because they bear the image of your heavenly Father? Do you love them for their love of God, their self-denial, their heavenliness, their usefulness in the world, their reproachless example, their faithfulness and love of duty? Do you love them when they reprove you and when their example condemns you? And do you love them in proportion to the measure of these excellencies, which they possess? Do you feel an interest in them and for them? Can you bear and forbear with them? Can you forget their infirmities or do you rejoice to magnify them? Can you cast the mantle of charity over their sins and pray for them, and watch over them, and pity, and love them still? And can you feel thus and act thus toward the poorest and most despised of the flock? If so, here is your encouragement: “Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God” (I John 4:7). Philadelphia is a city at war. Life without war is impossible in the natural or supernatural realm. It is a fact that there is a continuing struggle in the physical, mental, moral, and spiritual areas of life. The very elements that sustain us while we are alive work to decay and disintegrate our body once it is dead. If we have enough inner strength to fight, we help produce the balance needed for health. The same is true for the mental life. If we want to maintain a strong and active mental life, we have to fight. This struggle produces the mental balance called thought. Morals are the same. Anything that does not strengthen us morally is the enemy of virtue within us. Whether I overcome, thereby producing virtue, depends on the

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level of moral excellence in my life. But we must fight to be moral. Morality does not happen by accident; moral virtue is acquired. When Nehemiah, who was living in exile in Babylon, learned that his beloved city Jerusalem was in ruin, he wept for days before God, “When I heard these, I sat down and wept and mourned for days, and I was fasting and praying before the God of heaven” (Nehemiah 1:4). Many of the other exiles may have been praying for Jerusalem too, but Nehemiah wept, mourned, fasted, and prayed—and his prayer touched the heart of God. Many may not have cared about Jerusalem, but Nehemiah did and that was the very thing that set Nehemiah apart and made his prayer effective. He did care. He cared passionately—so passionately that he took it to God day and night: “Let your ears now be attentive and your ears open to hear the prayer of your servant, which I am praying before you now, day and night, on behalf of the sons of Israel your servant” (Nehemiah 1:6). It was clear from Nehemiah’s prayer that evil had come upon the city of Jerusalem because of the sins of the people. Why should Nehemiah be bothered about them? He was doing well in Babylon, having worked his way up to the very trusted position of cupbearer to the heathen king. Someone had to carry this burden—someone had to feel the heartbeat of God. Someone had to know His mind and pray it forth so that it would become a reality. Since Nehemiah was the one willing to do this, God chose him. Nehemiah showed his passion for the needs of his people and his city when he prayed fervently before God day and night about the matter. My burden and what has now become my personal passion for the city of Philadelphia did not happen for me the way it did for Nehemiah. I did not have a burden for the city, but I did have a burden for my people, specifically the African and the Caribbean people of this city. But that was all God needed—someone to care, someone He can use. The book of Ezekiel says, “I the Lord searched for a man among them who would build up the wall and stand

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Introduction in the gap before me for the land.” The Lord is always looking for someone to stand in the gap and intercede on behalf of His people. For me this happened in the summer of 2004 while I was praying before going to bed. I am not sure what exactly happened, but as I knelt to pray, God began a very powerful impartation to me that lasted for an hour. A sharp pain came over my entire body; I have never experienced such pain before—it was not a particular area of my body that hurt. It was my whole body! What happened next would forever change my life. I began to feel the burden and the pain of what appeared to be a great many people behind me. I was in so much pain I began to weep for them. And then the words came out of my mouth: “What do you want me to do? Whatever you want me to do Lord, I will do it.” I cried so hard that I could not regain my composure for what seemed like a long time. I wept over my people so hard that at times I felt as though my heart was breaking. I did not know I could cry from so deep a place inside. After that experience, I would never see my people the same way again. Like most people in the world, I used to see people from a very narrow lens, out of my own perspective and experiences. But God has seen fit to remove the veil from my eyes and open my spiritual sight to see the truth of what’s around me, and what it is I am about to face in the future. I am not assuming that I am the only believer or even the primary believer on whom the Lord has placed this burden. But I do I realize I am a leader in this modern-day movement and I know I may play a leadership role in this effort. I also realize that I represent the entirety of the prayer movement. In every generation there is always a call of the prophet to put things back in order. God says I will make all things new, not make new things. That would just make Him a fashion designer. The Lord reconstructs and makes it new. Philadelphia is a city under reconstruction; the Lord is preparing to do a new thing in Philadelphia: “Behold, I will

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do something new, Now it will spring forth; Will you not be aware of it? I will even make a roadway in the wilderness. Rivers in the desert” (Isaiah 43:19). Each of us has a special area in which we feel compassion as few others can feel it. This is usually the area of our own experience. After that special time in prayer, I can understand not only the physical pain, but also the psychological pain that comes along with it. And because I know what people are going through, I can empathize with them in a way that others cannot. There is something I cannot do in the natural for a drug addict because I have never experienced it. I must ask God to allow me to feel His compassion for those who are bound by drugs. It is difficult to be effective until you have been affected, and those of us who have been delivered from any bondage have a special gift that we can then share with others. Relatively few people care about the homeless or why and how they got that way. Fewer still care about our addicts and alcoholics or our nearly two million prisoners shut away out of our sight. But God has not forgotten the orphans (fatherless), the homeless, the strangers (foreigners), the widows, and the imprisoned of this city and the world. In fact, He’s declared Himself their friend and benefactor, “A father of the fatherless, and a judge of the widows, is God in His holy habitation” (Psalm 68:5). We are commanded by God to remember those who are imprisoned just as if we were there imprisoned with them, “Remember the prisoners, as though in prison with them, and those who are illtreated, since you yourselves also are in the body” (Hebrews 13:3). While He was on earth, Jesus was criticized for being a friend of sinners (Matthew 11:19). He loved sinners so much that He wept for them. He even wept for Jerusalem, where He was often rejected and ridiculed and eventually executed (Luke 19:41). Such passionate concern for a fallen man must seem very strange to most people, even ridiculous, but it is wholly explained by God’s love for His creation. The type of compassion or passion that Jesus felt for

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Introduction people in need is rather rare in our modern world. But the tragedy is that somehow even we Christians have adopted the attitudes of those around us. It is almost to the point that we think if we help someone, we’re doing him or her a disservice. If we give anything to those in need, it is considered by many that we are jeopardizing their ability to learn to stand on their own two feet. A dangerous and patronizing cliché we often hear is, “Give a man a fish and feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for life.” But we did not get any of these concepts from the Bible. In God’s Holy Word we find love and compassion and an outstretched hand to those who are fallen. God delights in lifting up the fallen, restoring the broken, and using those considered unusable. People living with chronic hunger have generations of wisdom about “fishing.” The problem is the barbed wire around the lake. Until we can begin to feel His heartbeat and know and understand His thoughts for the needy, we will never pray effective prayers for them. My spiritual call to write this book is clear. I see Philadelphia as Nehemiah saw Jerusalem—in ruins because of the sins of its people. Yes, God’s promise to the people of that time is as true to the people of this time in this city today: “And my people who are called by my name humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, will forgive their sin and will heal their land” (II Chronicles 7:14). The Divine Trinity fueled the compassion of Nehemiah for his beloved city and people until he could do nothing else but return to Jerusalem and rebuild it. Even today, when you feel and connect with God’s heartbeat of creative and reconstructive compassion, God will move heaven and earth to empower you to fulfill your God-given passion. Please walk with me. Let us Release the Prophetic Destiny in Philadelphia—A City Under Reconstruction!

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PART ONE

THE PROBLEM, THE ATTACK, AND THE SOLUTION

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CHAPTER 1

THE PRICE OF THE VISION I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of Him. I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened, so that you will know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, and what is the surpassing greatness of His power toward us who believe (Ephesians 1:17-19).

n her book Healing the Whole Man Joan Hunter writes, “It is God’s plan that our eyes be opened to everything that He has for us in life and in ministry. It is His plan that the eyes of our understanding be enlightened to those we should be ministering to as well. It is essential we understand what God has called us to say and do each and every day.”3 I want to share with you the outline of the preparation for battle and the release of the prophetic destiny on Philadelphia, but before I do that I need to give you a foundation of how this all began. In the summer of 2005, I had a vision. It actually may not be considered a vision because most people consider a vision to be something you experience in your sleep or a moment in time when the Lord allows you to capture a view of something similar to a snapshot. I want to put this in a Biblical tone that will hopefully give you a hint about how this experience felt to me:

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The words to Maurine, to whom the word from the Lord came, in the days of Governor Rendell and John F. Street, Mayor of Philadelphia, in the sixth year of his reign, were to: “Write all the words, which I have spoken to you in a book.” Then, the word of the Lord came to me saying, “Do you know how you take back your city?” He did not wait for an answer! He said, “Gather all the churches in the city, and simultaneously pray in the spirit, and pull the spirit down, and you pay for it.”

Those precious words are the summary of my journey to initiating reconstruction of Philadelphia through prayer and the reason I’ve taken the time and effort to write this book. I want to take back my city—and I want to obey the Lord. I turned to my friends to approve this message and was surprised and disappointed when they didn’t understand. You can be sure that our soul’s personal history with God is often an account of the death of our heroes. Over and over again God has to remove our friends to put Him in their place, and that is when we sometimes falter, fail, and become discouraged. So I had to think about this personally—when the person who represented for me all that God was to me turned away and was not with me anymore, did I give up on everything in life? Did I become ill or disheartened? Or did I do as Isaiah did and see the Lord? In the year of King Uzziah’s death I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, lofty and exalted, with the train of His robe filling the temple. Seraphim stood above Him, each having six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. And one called out to another and said, “Holy, Holy, Holy, is the Lord of Host, the whole earth is full of His glory.” And the foundation of the thresholds trembled at the voice of him who calls out, while the temple was filling with smoke. Then I said, “Woe to me, for I am ruined! Because I am a man of unclean lips. For my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts.” Then one of the seraphim flew to me with a burning coal in his hand, which he Had taken from the alter with tongs. He touched my mouth with it and said, “Behold, this has touched your lips; and your iniquity is taken away and your sin is forgiven.” Then I heard

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The Price of the Vision the voice of the Lord, saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for Us?” Then I said, “Here I am, Send me!” He said, “Go and tell this people: ‘Keep on listening, but do not perceive. Keep on looking, but do not understand’” (Isaiah 6:1-9).

My vision of God is dependent upon the condition of my character. My character determines whether or not truth can even be revealed to me. Before I can say, “I saw the Lord,” there must be something in my character that conforms to the likeness of God. Until I am born again and really begin to see the Kingdom of God, I only see from the perspective of my own biases. What I need is God’s surgical procedure—His use of external circumstances to bring about internal purification. Your priorities must be God first, God second, and God third, until your life is continually face to face with God and no one else is taken into account whatsoever. Your prayer will then be, “In all the world there is no one but You, dear God; there is no one but You.” Keep paying the price. Let God see that you are willing to live up to the vision. Looking back now, I find it interesting that the Lord would talk to me about Philadelphia. I do not believe I had a burden for this city or its people; in fact I had some very unpleasant experiences with the people of this city. Today, however, I am living a different story. Like Nehemiah, the Lord has placed purpose in my heart and the burden for the people of this city. I always believed my ministry would start overseas, somewhere in Africa, South America, or in the Caribbean, but never Philadelphia. In February of 2007, the Lord began to minister to me on certain scriptures about what He was about to do in Philadelphia and the surrounding area. The first scripture came from the book of Revelation.

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CHAPTER 2

MESSAGE TO PHILADELPHIA And to the angel of the church in Philadelphia write: “He who is holy, who is true, who has the key of David, who opens and no one will shut, and who shuts and no one opens says this: ‘I know your deeds. Behold, I have put before you an open door which no one can shut, because you have little power, and have kept My words, and have not denied My name. Behold, I will cause those of the synagogue of Satan, who say that they are Jews and are not, but lie—I will make them come and bow down at your feet, and make them Know that I have loved you. Because you have kept the word of My perseverance, I also will keep you from the hour of testing, that hour which is about to come upon the whole world, to test those who dwell on the earth. I am coming quickly; hold fast what you have, so no one will take your crown. He who overcomes, I will make him a pillar in the temple of My God, and he will not go from it anymore; and I will write on him the name of My God, and the name of the city of My God, the new Jerusalem, which comes down out of heaven from My God, and My new name. He, who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches’” (Revelation 3:7-13).

read this passage over and over, trying to figure out what the Lord was trying to say about this city and about me. My friend and theologian Sharon Stone says, “God does not always call those who are of great influence. He calls those who have little so that He can capitalize on that little and grant the favor where necessary so that we function as though we had great influence from the start. The truth of the matter is, the more money you have, the more influence you have—but God chooses weak

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Message to Philadelphia and base things to confuse those who think they should have been chosen because of their greater influence or money.  People will wonder how this small group of people who nobody of great influence knew could be catalysts for such great change. And we said we answered the call of God for this endeavor, not because we first had/have the money to do so, but for the genuine reasons he called us—the burden for people.  And we said Yes to him.  As a result, money would come . . . automatically.” Recently, I heard the most beautiful song by Troy Bright entitled, “That’s Just the Way the Father Is.”4 The lyrics mirrored my own thoughts about the Father, questioning how by disregarding my past and looking beyond my many faults and flaws, He unconditionally loves me so much that He puts his trust in me to carry out his will and remains by my side until the very end. But, that is exactly how the Father is. He will take the least in the Kingdom, and call them to do great things. One moment in the presence of God will change everything. He will change your plans; He will change your destiny. A week later I was studying the word when He directed me to the book of Numbers: The Lord therefore said to Moses, Gather for Me seventy men from the elders of Israel, whom you know to be the elders of the people and their officers and bring them to the tent of meeting, and let them take their stand there with you. Then I will come down and speak with you there, and I will take of the spirit who is upon you, and will put Him upon them; and they shall bear the burden of the people with you, so that you will not bear it all alone. The Lord said to Moses, is the Lord’s power limited? Now you shall see whether My words will come true for you or not (11:16-17, 23).

Okay, I think the Lord is trying to tell me something here. You mean my ministry is not going to start in Africa, to people I think are more deserving? I was beginning to feel like Jonah, “You (God)

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are sending me with the message that will save the people of this city.” Has He forgotten how they treated me? During the first presidential election of the twenty-first century, I decided to do something I had never done before—register the African and the Caribbean communities to vote. I felt passionate about that election and I wanted change, so when a councilwoman from New Jersey came to Philadelphia to register the Caribbean community and sought help to do so, I said yes. Unaware of the politics and the evil in Philadelphia, the famed City of Brotherly Love, one would have thought that I agreed to punish the people. I was new in my walk with Jesus Christ and even though the relationship accelerated quickly, I had very little knowledge about the different spirits that present themselves and attack you when you are about to make change. The spirits of jealously, lying, and sabotage, just to name a few, flew at me and I was under the attack. I would go home night after night crying out to the Lord, “It is not supposed to be like this.” If only my fireplace could talk . . . unknown to me, it was a test of my faith. Needless to say, I also made some bad choices, which usually happens when you are under pressure and still looking to the world to help you resolve them. Praise the Lord! What the devil meant for my “bad,” the Lord turned around for my good. On March 13, 2007, two days before I left for the 16th Annual Women In Covenant Conference, I took my father to the Veterans Administration Hospital for his check-up. While I was waiting in the lobby, the Lord began to speak to me again, and this time it was about Lighthouse Covenant International. Lighthouse Covenant International (LCI), a new humanitarian organization and ministry the Lord is emerging into Philadelphia. He instructed me to put the company vision and mission statement in the lobby of the headquarters of Lighthouse Covenant International. He also wants me to place inside the building a structure reading, “Jesus is the Truth, the Way and the Light,” and another that says, “God Bless

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Message to Philadelphia America.” On the top of the Lighthouse Covenant International headquarters building, which will be located in Center City Philadelphia, He wants a large light that illuminates over the city twenty-four hours a day. On March fifteenth we left for the conference. This was my first women’s conference and I was looking forward to it. I have to admit I knew nothing about the conference other than the town where we were going to be was somewhere in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. To my surprise and pleasure, the theme for the conference was right in line with the message the Lord gave me two days earlier: “Let your light shine before all men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven” (Matthew 5:16). Rev. Dr. Hyacinth Bobb-Grannum gave the word the first night. I was inspired. The next morning around 4:00 a.m., this is what the Lord showed me when He visited me: Philadelphia was transformed to a new city. It was beautiful—the streets were clean and everywhere there was green grass. I heard myself talking to a group of people, but I could not see them. I was telling them that God is changing the city. Suddenly the Spirit of God came upon me and I began to speak in tongues.

This went on for a while until I was awake and still speaking. I became conscious of my roommate and, in my concern not to wake her, I spoke softly until I fell back to sleep. Later that morning she told me she heard me speaking in tongues in my sleep, so she began to speak also. I don’t remember hearing her, but I told her I had a dream and the Holy Spirit came upon me. Three days later on March 18, I had another vision.5 I am not sure where I was, but I peeked into this room and I saw all these men with their hands stretched up high in the air, as if they where trying to reach God. I thought to myself, Why are all these men here? Days later the Lord took me to Isaiah 62:1-12. I realized He was telling

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me what He was about to do in Philadelphia. This revelation was so powerful for me that I mediated on it day and night: For Zion’s sake I will not keep silent, And for Jerusalem’s sake I will not keep quiet. Until her righteousness goes forth like brightness, And her salvation like a torch that is burning. The nations will see your righteousness, And all kings your glory, And you will be called by a new name, which the mouth of the Lord will designate. You will also be a crown of beauty in the hands of the Lord. And a royal diadem in the hand of your God. It will no longer be said to you, Forsaken, nor to your land will it any longer be said “Desolate”; But you will be called, “My delight is in her,” And your land, “Married”; For the Lord delights in you, And to Him your land will be married. For as a young man married a virgin, so your sons will marry you; And as the bridegroom rejoices over the bride, So God will rejoice over you. On your wall, O Jerusalem, I have appointed watchmen; All day and all night they will never keep silent. You who remind the Lord, take no rest for yourselves; And give Him no rest until He establishes and make Jerusalem praise in the earth. The Lord has sworn by His strong arm, “I will never again give you grain as food for your enemies; Nor will foreigners drink your new wine for which you have labored.” But those who garner it will eat it and praise the Lord; And those who gather it will drink it in the courts of my sanctuary. Go through, go through the gate, clear the way for the people; Build up, build up the highway, remove the stones, lift up a standard over the peoples. Behold, the Lord has proclaimed to the end of the earth, Say to the daughter of Zion, “Lo, your salvation comes; Behold His reward is with Him, and His recompense before Him.” And they will call them, “The holy people, The redeemed of the Lord.” And you will be called, “Sought out, a city not forsaken” (Isaiah 62:1-12).

AN INTERCESSORY CALL I am part of the intercessory prayer army of the New Covenant Church of Philadelphia. I began in the summer of 2005 and prayer sessions were held in the main sanctuary. Later that summer the

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Message to Philadelphia morning prayer meetings moved to Founders Hall, but by the end of the summer we were moved back into the sanctuary. Even though I enjoy many gifts in the body of Christ, I determined my ultimate call is intercessor. I discovered this in the beginning of my walk with the Lord. He would wake me up to pray for someone or, in the middle of my prayer, He would drop a concern in my spirit for whom to pray. Although I had no understanding of the call, I embraced it. The writers of the book, Releasing the Prophetic Destiny of a Nation, believe the call of God is progressive. The authors tell us, “This actually means that you have a starting place, but God matures you into the fullness of the plan. God has a plan for each of our lives; He also has a plan for people, groups and a plan for the nations. When He is knitting us together in our mother’s womb, that plan is initiated. The call to God is the highest part of God’s plan for us individually. God then matures our individual call as we align corporately in the body of Christ.”6 We were never made to be independent. God made us so that our gifts and destinies would align with others. The hand needs the arm; the eyes need the mind, and so on. Once we find our place in the body of Christ and we see that room has been made for our gifts, our call is extended to the city and territory that we are part of. As we become stewards and faithful to demonstrate God’s covenant plan in every aspect of our life, He can extend our call even to nations. Therefore, the functionality of our gifts can increase and be used in a greater scope, function, or sphere of authority. Over the last four years I have seen the Lord develop His call in my life for the nation, starting with my own Jerusalem. Jerusalem is your city, your community, your family, your very home—it’s where you are. The call of God is very personal, but has great corporate and natural ramifications. The more I obey Him, the more He prospers my family. They seem to thrive because of my obedience to the Lord.

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Just as the church transitions from one wineskin to another so that they can receive the revelation that is pertinent in their age, I believe the prayer force must also transition. God’s intercessors usually hear first because they have heeded the call to stand in the gap, “Where there is no vision, the people are unrestrained, but happy is he who keep the law” (Proverbs 28:19, NIV).7 God is expressing to our city that He would not have one perish. He also wants us to return to His covenant plan. Once I receive the word of God, I decree the word of God. The power of that decree sets in motion God’s plan in the earth for today.

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CHAPTER 3

CAN PHILADELPHIA BE RESTORED?

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n order for us to walk into the full plan God, it is important that we understand the following passage of scripture: The God who made the world and all things in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands; nor is He served by human hands, as though He needed anything, since He Himself gives to all people life and breath and all things; and He made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined their appointed times and the boundaries of their habitation, that they would seek God, if perhaps they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us; for in Him we live and move and exist, as even some of your own poets have said, “For we also are His children” (Acts 17:24-28).

God has a perfect time and place that He has determined for us. When we are in the right place at the right time we can “grope” for God, we can bring His blessing down into the earth. Old cycles can break. Restoration begins and starts a process to bring us full circle into God’s perfect plan. God does not look at how long sin or iniquity has been in place; He looks for someone who will grab hold of Him and start His process working in the earth. To grope means to touch God, and when we touch God and He touches us, Heaven and earth come into agreement.8 Grope is a covenant word also, such that not only do Heaven and earth agree, but covenant blessings are released as well.

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Since the Garden of Eden, mankind has been in need of restoration, a restoration that begins the day we were born. God knits us together in our mother’s womb and I believe He knits purpose within us. God’s ultimate plan is for the Garden to be filled with His glory. His glory would then work its way out and cover the entire earth. There are elements we have to process before we see restoration occurring. We must deal with illegal bloodshed, idolatry, immorality, and covenant breaking. When these issues enter into God’s covenant relationship and plan for a city or a nation, they have to be dealt with and reconciliation has to occur. Therefore repent and return, so that your sins may be wiped away, in order that time of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord; and that He may send Jesus, the Christ appointed for you, whom heaven must receive until the period of restoration of all things about which God spoke by the mouth of His holy prophets from ancient time (Acts 3:19-21).

The dictionary definition of “restoration” is to revive and return to life or to bring back to a former or original condition.9 Restoration from God’s point of view begins multiplication! Once the process starts, you have the right to double, quadruple, and even enter into a sevenfold completion of all of God’s purposes. There is usually a process in everything. “Process” is the course of something developing and eventually coming into its full operation.10 Process includes preparation, discipline, order, change, development, and operational steps that bring you to a destination. Therefore, we go through process to reach our destiny. So that our city might be transformed, God’s order must first be established. When strategic intercessors are aligned with apostolic leaders, breakthrough begins. Intercessors carry the burden of God, prophetic people make key declarations, and apostles set the decrees in motion. In other words, intercessors keep the heavens open, prophets begin to express God’s heart, making key declarations into the atmosphere, and apostolic leaders pull upon that

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Can Philadelphia Be Restored? revelation of Heaven and bring it into an established form in the earthly realm.

WORSHIP AND INTERCESSION CAUSES THE CITY TO SHIFT In the words of prayer warriors Dutch Sheets and Chuck D. Pierce, “When we worship and intercede, we tear down the snares that have been erected in the earth by our enemy. God has a process of manifesting His will on Earth. Worship invades each one of the steps of that process.”6 Sheets and Pierce teach this process as follows: 1. Intercessory Burden. God releases His burden from heaven. One of the terms related to intercession is “burden bearing.” Burden bearing means to sustain, bear or hold up against a thing. The intercessory work of Christ reached its fullest and most profound expression when our sins were laid on Him and He bore them away. Therefore, the Lord will lay His burden on us for something in the earthly realm, and we are to stand and pray until we get rid of it. I do not believe we can withstand this burden without intimate worship. 2. Revelation Releases. When we are bearing the burden of the Lord, we are lifting that burden up to Him for change. He begins to release revelation to us that will give us strategy to see the individual or the city or the situation change. The Holy Spirit begins to help us. He is our advocate. He is our comforter. He is our helper. He is our counselor. He is our intercessor. He helps us in our weakness so we can withstand the weight of the burden. When we don’t know to pray, He reveals the will of the Father to us.

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3. Prophetic Declaration. Once we have revelation, we can make declaration. We call things as they should be. The Lord formed the world by faith. As we ascend in worship, faith abounds. We can then speak what is not into the form that it should be. This is the creative power of the Word when filled with Christ’s life. As we worship we hear and the life of God abounds in the earth. 4. Apostolic Execution. Once the Word and will of God is being released in heaven, our burden begins to lift. The gift of apostles is key in days ahead. Apostolic authority is key to establishing God’s will in the earth. Apostles have territorial authority. They also execute the prophetic will of the Lord in the earthly realm. Apostles are called to worship and war. 5. Divine Fulfillment. One of the gifts of the apostle is the gift of building. Once God has released His will from heaven, we have interceded and stood in the gap to see what will established, we have made prophetic declarations, and apostolic leadership has gone forth into new vision, then we begin to see the divine will of God fulfilled in the earth. We then drop on our knees and worship and thank God.6

SPIRITUAL WARFARE IS THE ANSWER FOR PHILADELPHIA’S SICKNESS So, let’s go back to what the Lord originally said to me during that hour of intense intercession for Philadelphia, “The Lord says gather all the churches in the city and pray in the spirit and pull the spirit down.”

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Can Philadelphia Be Restored? The most important strategy in spiritual warfare is to know what God’s will is. It makes little difference what other people say. The question that must be asked is, “What did God say about it?” Before one can war against the adversary, he must be rid of all uncertainty concerning God’s will in the matter. Until we know what God’s will is, there is nothing to base our faith on. Many may not like the idea of getting involved in spiritual warfare. They may feel that they had come to Christ as a lamb, but now they are being told they have to go to war. But whether we like it or not, the devil has already declared war on us. It is now up to us to learn how to fight. God Himself is a warrior, “The Lord is a warrior; The Lord is His name” (Exodus 15:3). God has a battle planned for His people. We can count on Him to teach us how to war if we are willing to learn. An awakening about spiritual warfare is taking place in the city of Philadelphia today. God is raising up warriors to go into cities and nations to pray against prevailing principalities and powers. The devil, however, will always launch a counter attack, so never have your defenses down and always prepare for war.11

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CHAPTER 4

WHO IS THE ENEMY? he first principle of warfare is to know your enemy. We must understand that our war is against Satan. As Christians begin to understand that overcoming the sickness that plagues our city involves warfare, they will be better equipped to fight. What is a demonic being? It is an evil spirit that is looking for a body to inhabit and needs a doorway in which to enter. Can Christians have demons? The answer is always the same: Do Christians have bodies? Remember that the cause of sickness is sin and sin is also the doorway that many demonic spirits use to move into a person’s life. Demons can’t inhabit your spirit; but given the right into your life, they can affect your body and your soul, which is your mind, your will, and your emotions. How do you deal with these spirit entities? First of all, you need to know you have authority over demons. God gives this authority to all believers without exception, “And these signs will accompany those who believe: In my name they will drive out demons” (Mark 16:17). Along with being fully persuaded that you have this authority, you must also have an understanding of how it functions. This authority is yours when you understand your position in Christ and not just your power or abilities in Him. It is not what you can do to the demon that gets them to obey, but it is who you are in Christ that they have to submit to, “The seventy-two returned with joy and said, ‘Lord, even the demons submit to us in your name’” (Luke 10:17).

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Who Is the Enemy? The spirit of murder, the spirit of envy, the spirit of hopelessness, the spirit of addictions, and the spirit of lack come from the devil. Look at what Jesus says! “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly” (John 10:10). At another time, Jesus told Peter that Satan desired to have him (Luke 22:31). This shows us who our enemy is. Satan hates humanity because he hates God and everything that is like God. When he attacks with sickness, emotions, death, and murder, his goal is to harm what God has made in His likeness. Anytime the devil snatches away one of God’s children God does not get the glory. It’s really not about us—we just get caught up in the crossfire. Satan has many demons whose business it is to make people sick physically and emotionally. These spirits of infirmity, fear, and bondage must be dealt with. When attacked by these spirits, a person does not have to die. Instead, he should declare war on the sickness. Though we may not like war, we must understand that even the Kingdom of God suffers violence. Take this warning from Jesus: “From the days of John the Baptist until now the Kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and violent men take it by force” (Matthew 11:12). From out of nowhere violence comes to assault God’s people. There is a war going on and we are involved in it: Put on the full armor of God, so that you will be able to stand firm against the schemes of the devil. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places (Ephesians 6:11, 12).

Our war is different. The warriors are not necessarily dressed in combat boots; sometimes they are dressed in pretty dresses and high-heel shoes. Some are young, sometimes they are old, but God’s people can become mighty warriors. This is not for those looking

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for an easy road. Engaging in warfare is an arduous business, but the victory is well worth the fight. Joan Hunter, author of Healing the Whole Man, found out through her life experiences that demons are singular in their purpose. There are many types of evil spirits or demons and each one has its own manifestation. For example, a spirit of anger can only manifest as anger. A spirit of infirmity can only manifest as sickness. And a spirit of perversion is always perverse and has no other traits. Joan continued to explain that setting people free from demons is very easy because demons must obey believers acting under the authority of God using the name of Jesus. However, there is this one caution: as in any ministry, make sure you are led by the Spirit and not by your own desires to see someone set free. Jesus clearly explained that if I cast a spirit out of someone but neglect to deal with the cause (doorway) in which the spirit came, I could be doing more harm than good.3 When the unclean spirit goes out of a man, it passes through waterless places seeking rest, and not finding any, it says, I will return to my house from which I came. And when it comes, it finds it swept and put in order. Then it goes and takes along seven other spirits more evil than itself, and they go in and live there; and the last state of the man becomes worse than the first (Luke 11:24-26).

It is very important that the root cause is dealt with and that there is repentance from engaging in this cause. There are two very important questions to ask in order to find the root cause: (1) How long have you had the problem? (When did it start?) (2) What happened just before or when the problem started? (Identify the doorway.)

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Who Is the Enemy? Fear, unforgiveness, bitterness, pride, lust, greed, generational sins, curses, and any participation in the occult are just a few of the root causes.

HOW DOES THE ENEMY OPERATE? Wining this war not only requires knowledge of who the enemy is, but also how he operates—meaning, God will reveal the strategies and weapons that the enemy will use against us. We need to look at his record and observe his method of attack, which will help us prepare for the battle. Genesis 3:1-7 shows the first time the devil came against mankind. The same weapon he used against Eve is the same weapon he is using against us today: he tempts us with thoughts, ideas, and suggestions. The battlefield is our mind and those who influence our thoughts will influence our actions. The Bible says Jesus is the same yesterday, today and forever; and so is the devil. He does not have to change his method—it works perfectly, just look around us. Adam and Eve’s minds were pure initially. They had no sin, yet the devil was able to take them out. Today we have a corrupt mind (sin nature) and the cares of life. If we don’t know how to come back in this war, we will get our butts kicked. We have to make sure the devil doesn’t take us out, but rather we put him under our feet. The devil is a liar and his lies have enough truth to deceive the believers. If you don’t know the Word of God, you will be deceived. Our mind is open to the devil through ideas, thoughts, and suggestions. Knowledge and its proper use wins battles. Knowledge without action is just information. “If you have a Bible, you have the knowledge of God,” says Dr. Fredrick Price. Revelation twelve shows us the deception of the devil: And there was a war in heaven, Michael and his angels waging war with the dragon. The dragon and his angels waged war, and they were not strong enough, and there was no longer a place found for them in heaven. And the great dragon was thrown down,

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the serpent of old who is called devil and Satan, who deceive the whole world; he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him (Revelation 12:7-9).

Verse nine says he deceives the whole world, not just black people or white people. Not just men or women, but the whole world. If the mission of the devil is to deceive us through ideas, thoughts, and suggestions, then the question to ask ourselves is this: Am I going to be victorious or am I going to be victim? It’s up to us; whether we loose or win is our choice. Any thought that comes into our mind that is not grounded in the word of God must be rejected.

THE WORD OF GOD It is impossible to overemphasize the power of God’s Word in the life of a believer. Christ is the living Word of God; the Bible is the written Word of God. Just look at this! “He sent His word, and healed them, and delivered them from their destructions” (Psalm 107:20). God’s Word is just as effective today, just as powerful and creative as when the worlds were framed by the Word of God, “I am the Lord; I will speak, and the word that I shall speak shall come to pass” (Ezekiel 12:25). Regardless of our circumstances, we can depend on the Word of God. God watches over His Word to see that not one word fails, “I will hasten my word to perform it” (Jeremiah 1:12). The Word of God produces the promise. When believed and acted upon, any promise of God is transformed into the power of God. Real faith is built on the Word of God. Paul put it this way: “Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God” (Roman 19:17). The word of God is actually God speaking to us. A “rhema” is a Spirit-inspired word from the written “logos” Word of God that brings life, power, and faith to perform and fulfill it.12 It is a personal word from the Bible. The Word of God must become personal. If God’s Word says it’s true, then it’s true. It is

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Who Is the Enemy? mine and I believe it now. I have it now even though I can’t see it because God cannot lie.

THE NAME OF JESUS Whatsoever ye ask in My name, that will I do. (John 14:13a) In this day you will not question Me about anything. Truly, Truly, I say to you, “If you ask the Father for anything in My name, He will give it to you.” Until now you have asked for nothing in My name; ask and you will receive, so that your joy may be made full (John 16:23-24).

According to these Scriptures, we have the right to ask the Father for anything in the name of Jesus, that name holds power and dominion over Satan and his entire Kingdom. There is power in the name of Jesus. For this reason also, God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father (Philippians 2:9-11).

All the authority that was in Jesus in the flesh is now available to us in His name. He gave His name to the church. And He called the twelve together, and gave them power and authority over all the demons and to heal diseases. Jesus gives us legal right. And He sent them out to proclaim the Kingdom of God and to perform healing (Luke 9:1-2). The seventy returned with joy, saying, “Lord, even the demons are subject to us in your name.” And He said to them, I was watching Satan fall from heaven like lightning. Behold, I have given you authority to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing will injure you (Luke 10:17-19).

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As Christians we have the authority to speak and take control over the situations that emerge in our lives. We do not have to wait for God to do it. God gave us the power of attorney to do it in His name. God said, “Let us make man in our Image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth” (Genesis 1:26).

Man is a representation of God on the earth. When man moves on the earth, it’s like God moving on the earth. That’s the authority God gives to man. David asked God this question: “What is man that you take thought of him, And the son of man that You care for Him? Yet you have made him a little lower than God, And you crown him with glory and majesty” (Psalm 8:4). One of the pastors of the New Covenant Church of Philadelphia, Rev. Fred Broko, taught on “Kingdom Dominion Through Your Works,” based on 1 Peter 2:9: “But you are A Chosen Race, A royal Priesthood, A Holy Nation, A People For God’s Own Possession, so that you may proclaim the Excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light.”13 God expects us to walk with royalty—we are to know who we are and walk in confidence because we are representatives of God. With this confidence we can look the devil in the eyes and let him know he cannot stop us from doing what we came to do. We were born for such a time as this. The problems of Philadelphia and the problems of the world are a result of man submitting to the devil. Man became a servant to the devil. Before sin man did not have to work hard, man did not need faith to see God—He was there. The devil rules the earth by stealing the authority from man. How do we know the devil has authority? “Again, the devil took Him [Jesus] to a very high mountain and showed Him all the Kingdoms of the world and their glory;

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Who Is the Enemy? and he said to Him, “All these things I will give you, if You fall down and worship me” (Matthew 4:8). Jesus fasted for forty days and forty nights; He was hungry. We need to be careful for that which we hunger, because the enemy is always there to satisfy our hunger. Naturally, Jesus told the devil to get lost. He said that it was for this reason He came to earth, to give the Kingdom back to man. If you don’t know what you have, you will sell it cheap. Esau sold his birthright for a pot of stew. I believe our people of this generation are easily influenced because they don’t know who they are or from where they came, so anyone can come along and sell them anything—and they will buy into it. If you don’t find out who you are, you will give your future and the future of your children away for drugs, alcohol, sex, gambling, credit cards, and the latest quick fix. Know what you have, so you don’t give it up so easily to the devil. Jesus came to earth to give us back the Kingdom and all authority on the earth. Let’s use that authority and take back what the devil has stolen from us.

THE BLOOD OF JESUS In the beginning of the year the Lord had me spend a great deal of time in the Old Testament, especially the books of Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy and Joshua. The ministry to which I am called is one of restorations: I am called to rebuild and restore the lives of God’s people. As the Lord ministered to me, it became clear to me what He wants us to do. The Lord is no longer interested in financing poverty—He wants to finance change. Change comes not only from our physical surroundings but, more importantly, change comes from our minds, what we think and believe. The Israelites stayed in the wilderness for forty years because they could not transform their minds. Moses’ effort to physically get them out of Egypt was not enough to save them, because their minds were still in bondage.

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If you can change the way people think and perceive their lives, the rest will take care of itself. I also learned through Scriptures how important the Blood is, “By the blood of the Passover, God put a difference between the Egyptians and the Hebrews” (Exodus 11:7). Just before the children of Israel left Egypt, God said to Moses: Speak to all the congregation of Israel, saying . . . take to them every man a lamb . . . (and eat the flesh of the lamb) . . . it is the Lord’s Passover. And God said, “When I see the blood, I will pass over you” (Exodus 12:3-11, 13).

The blood of the lamb was their sure defense. It is likewise our defense today. Our sins and sicknesses were bought with the precious blood of Jesus. The stripes Jesus received brought forth much blood, which was shed for our healing. Surely our grief ’s He Himself bore, And our sorrows He carried; Yet we ourselves esteemed Him stricken, Smitten of God, and afflicted, But He was pierced through for our transgression, He was crushed for our iniquities; The chastening for our well being fell upon Him, And by His Scourging (Stripes) we are healed (Isaiah 53:4-5).

For some people, simple meditation on the scourging of Jesus brings healing. Some plead or declare that blood and receive their healing. The Bible says that the end time believers will overcome the devil by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony (Revelation 12:11). Satan accuses us before God, day and night, but the Bible says we can overcome him by the blood of the Lamb. God wants us to take authority and He has provided us with an effective means for doing this. The Word of God, the name of Jesus, and the precious blood of Jesus are the spiritual weapons of our warfare.

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CHAPTER 5

REPENTANCE ot many people talk about repentance in our day—not even in the church. But repentance is an essential theme in Scripture. The words repent, repents, repented, and repentance appear over seventy times in the Bible. Repentance was the message that Jesus went about proclaiming: “Repent for the kingdom of heaven is near (Matthew 3:2).” Repentance is the message that the apostles preached on the first day of Pentecost: “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins (Acts 2:38).” How shall a man be just with God? How shall the sinner be made righteous? It is only through Christ that we can be brought into harmony with God and with holiness. But how are we to come to Christ? Many asked that same question when convicted of sin after Peter spoke. They cried out, “What shall we do?” The first word of Peter’s answer was, “Repent.” Repentance isn’t just for unbelievers. Repentance is an activity for believers, which we continually practice as we fall into sin: “Those whom I love I rebuke and discipline. So be earnest and repent” (Revelation 3:19). You may also see Luke 17:3-4; II Corinthians 7:9-10; II Peter 3:9; Revelation 2:5, 16, 22; 3:3. Many people teach that repentance merely means changing your mind and has nothing to do with changing your heart or sorrowing over your sin or hating your sin. It is true that the Greek word for repentance, metanoia, is made up of the two words: “meta” meaning change and “nous” meaning mind.14 But to say that this

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is all the word means would be to miss the essence of the meaning of repentance. The root meaning points you in the right direction, but it doesn’t go far enough. The word “repentance” includes all of the background of this word captured in the Old Testament. Repentance was something that God spoke about on many occasions before and hence the word has a richer context and meaning than simply changing one’s mind. In Hebrew thinking, repentance had much more to do with the heart than the mind: If they take thought in the land where they have been taken captive, and repent and make supplication to You in the land of those who have taken them captive, saying “We have sinned and have committed iniquity, we have acted wickedly.” If they return to you with all their heart and with all their soul in the land of their enemy who have taken them captive, and pray to You towards their land which You have given to their fathers, The city which You have chosen, and the house which I have built for Your name (I Kings 8:47, 48).

Repentance is not something we do by ourselves—it is not purely our work. Repentance is something that God must do in us. II Timothy 2:25, 26 and Acts 11:18 tell us, “God grants repentance.” You can only repent when the Holy Spirit brings conviction. The Christian life would be very much simpler if we grasped that we must work together with whatever the Holy Spirit is seeking to do in and with us. We should live life in sensitivity to whatever God is doing in our lives and collaborate actively with Him. Repentance consists of quitting my resistance to the Holy Spirit, seeing matters God’s way, and going along with the process that God is doing in me. There must be repentance before forgiveness can be expected. Let’s look at what Jesus said: “Take heed to yourselves. If your brother sins against you, rebuke him; if he repents forgive him” (Luke 17:3). Note the order of events that our Lord sets forth: if repentance, then forgiveness.

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Repentance Forgiveness comes from repentance, not by accident. Repentance is no pleasure trip. It may involve tears. The Bible calls it godly sorrow: “This godly sorrow contains earnestness, eagerness to be clean, indignation, alarm, longing, and concern” (II Corinthians 7:8-11).15 The Old Testament believers showed their repentance with tearing of their clothes, wearing sackcloth (very uncomfortable clothing), and ashes on the head. Repentance is no pleasure trip. It can be extremely painful to admit that you have been wrong. Author of The Chronicles of Narnia, C. S. Lewis, said, “Repentance is something much harder than merely eating humble pie. It means unlearning all the self-conceit and self-will that we have been training ourselves into for thousands of years. It means working with God in killing a part of yourself, undergoing a kind of death.”16 But weeping is only one of the emotions associated with true repentance. Paul tells us that godly sorrow brings a repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret (2 Corinthians 7:10). Delirious joy is a fruit of true repentance—joy over the wonder of sins forgiven, of God’s loving acceptance of me, of new power cleansing and, finally, we need to ask God to change our hearts with an infusion of His righteousness. This is the good news—a transformation of my wicked heart. We do not have power to transform ourselves, but God does. We do not have the power to be a holy, truly repentant person. Only the Father working through the Cross can change us—and He desires to do so. The prayer of David after his fall illustrates the nature of true sorrow for sin. His repentance was sincere and deep. There was no effort to palliate his guilt; no desire to escape the judgment threatened inspired his prayer. David saw the enormity of his transgression. He saw the defilement of his sole—he loathed his sin. It was not for pardon only that he prayed, but for purity of heart. He longed for the joy of holiness—to be restored to harmony and communion with God. This was the language of his soul: “Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered! Blessed

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is the man unto whom the Lord impute not iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no deceit!” (Psalm 32:1, 2). Have mercy upon me, O God, according to thy loving-kindness; according unto the multitude of Thy tender mercies blot out my transgressions; and my sin is ever before me . . . Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me and I shall be whiter than snow . . . Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from Thy presence; and take not Thy Holy Spirit from me. Restore unto me the joy of Thy salvation; and uphold me with thy free spirit . . . Deliver me from blood guiltiness. O God, Thou God of my salvation; and my tongue shall sing aloud of Thy righteousness (Psalm 51:1-14).

Repentance such as this is beyond the reach of our own power to accomplish; it is obtained only from Christ, who ascended up on high and has given gifts unto men. Jesus Christ is the source of every right impulse. He is the only one that can implant in the heart enmity against sin. Every desire for truth and purity, every conviction of our own sinfulness, is evidence that His Spirit is moving upon our hearts. What did Jesus say? “If I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto Me” (John 12:32). Christ must be revealed to the sinner as Savior dying for the sins of the world. And as we behold the Lamb of God upon the cross of Calvary, the mystery of redemption begins to unfold to our minds and the goodness of God leads us to repentance. In dying for sinners, Christ manifested a love that is incomprehensible and, as the sinner beholds this love, it softens the heart, impresses the mind, and inspires contrition in the soul. Beware of procrastination. Do not put off the work of forsaking your sins and seeking purity of heart through Jesus. Here is where thousands upon thousands have erred to their loss. I will not here dwell upon the shortness and uncertainty of life; but there is a terrible danger—a danger not sufficiently understood—in delaying to yield to the pleading voice of God’s Holy Spirit, in choosing to live in sin; for such this delay really is. Sin, however

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Repentance small it may be esteemed, can be indulged in only at the peril of infinite loss. What we do not overcome, will overcome us and work out our destruction.17

Adam and Eve persuaded themselves that the small matter of eating the forbidden fruit could not result in such terrible consequences as God had declared. But this small matter was the transgression of God’s immutable and holy law and it separated man from God and opened the floodgates of death and untold woe upon our world. Age after age there has gone up from our earth a continual cry of mourning, and the whole creation groaned and travailed together in pain as a consequence of man’s disobedience. Heaven itself felt the effects of their rebellion against God. Calvary stands as a memorial of the amazing sacrifice required to atone for the transgression of the divine law. Let us not regard sin as a trivial thing.

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CHAPTER 6

CONFESSION e that covered his sin shall not prosper; but who so confesses and forsakes them shall have mercy” (Proverbs 28:13). The conditions of obtaining the mercy of God are simple and just and reasonable. The Lord does not require us to do some grievous thing in order that we may have the forgiveness of sin. We need not make long and wearisome pilgrimages or perform painful penances to commend our souls to the God of heaven or to expiate our transgression. God makes it clear that the person who confesses and forsakes his or her sin shall have mercy, “Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed” (James 5:16). Confess your sin to God, who is the only one who can forgive them, and your faults to one another. If you have given offense to your friend or neighbor, you are to acknowledge your wrong and it is his or her duty to freely forgive you. Then you are to seek the forgiveness of God, because the brother or sister you have wounded is the property of God and in injuring him or her you sinned against his Creator and Redeemer. Those who have not humbled their souls before God in acknowledging their guilt have not yet fulfilled the first condition of acceptance. If we have not experienced that repentance or have not, with true humiliation of soul and brokenness of spirit, confessed our sins, abhorring our iniquity, we have never truly sought for the forgiveness of sin—and if we have never sought for repentance, then we have never found the peace of God. True confession is always of a specific character and acknowledges particular sins. The sins may be of such a nature as to be brought

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Confession before God only; they may be wrongs that should be confessed to individuals who have suffered injury through them or they may be of a public character and should then be as publicly confessed. But all confession should be definite and to the point, acknowledging the very sins of which you are guilty. Confession will not be acceptable to God without sincere repentance and reformation. There must be decided changes in the life; everything offensive to God must be put away. This will be the result of genuine sorrow for sin. The work that we have to do on our part is this: “Wash yourselves, make yourselves clean; put away the evil of your doing from before Mine eyes; cease to do evil; learn to do good; seek justice, relieve the oppressed, defend the orphan, plead for the widow” (Isaiah 1:16,17). The spirit of self-justification originated in the father of lies and has been exhibited by all the sons and daughters of Adam. Confessions of this order are not inspired by the divine Spirit and will not be acceptable to God. True repentance will lead a man to bear his guilt himself and acknowledge it without deception or hypocrisy. The example in God’s word of genuine repentance and humiliation reveal a spirit of confession in which there is no excuse for sin or attempt at self-justification. Paul did not seek to shield himself. He paints his sin in its darkest hue, not attempting to lessen his guilt. Paul writes: Many of the saints did I shut up in prison, having received authority from the chief priest; and when they were put to death, I gave my voice against them. And I punished them in every synagogue, and compelled them to blaspheme; and being exceedingly mad against them, I persecuted them even unto strange cities (Acts 26:10, 11). Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of whom I am chief (1 Timothy 1:15).

The humble and broken heart, subdued by genuine repentance, will appreciate something of the love of God and the cost of Calvary. As a son confesses to a loving father, so will the truly penitent bring

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all his sins before God. And we have this promise from our heavenly father: “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (I John 1:9).

POSITIONING In Philadelphia and the surrounding areas, we have not yet been able to experience spiritual recovery and restoration back into the fullness of God’s blessing, even though many have asked Him for it. This is because we must do more than ask—there is an order and pattern that must be followed. As the pattern unfolds, we must humble ourselves, pray, seek His face, and repent. We are then positioned for more of God’s healing to occur. Due to the positive effects of much prayer, fasting, and repentance on the part of many, it is now time for the fruit of these activities to occur: realignment, repairing, rebuilding, restoring, and healing. It is clear to me that God is realigning and positioning Philadelphia so we can move over into a new era of revival and blessing. Philadelphia is about to see a great awakening, which results in many salvations and the turnaround of a city back to its God and its destiny.

THE CALL TO FULFILLMENT Dutch Sheets and Chuck D. Pierce wrote the best example I have ever read about fulfilling the purpose of the call of God in the earth. They explain that when a prophetic word is released from Heaven into the earth realm, we find that God is: 1. Working to restore our lives personally. 2. Working corporately to mature us. 3. Working territorially to release His glory and break hindering spirits. 4. Working generationally to connect us.6 42

Confession This pattern is found in Joel 2:3: A fire consumes before them And behind them a flame burns The land is like the garden of Eden before them But a desolate wilderness behind them, And nothing at all escapes them.

Once that prayer army is raised up and we begin to prophesy, spirits of desolation begin to flee. A great example of this is in Ezekiel 37, the story of the dry bones. Philadelphia has areas that could be related to the dry bone scenario. Sheets and Pierce give their account of how Ezekiel dealt with processing the situation that he saw. If Ezekiel had stopped at any point before God’s full purpose had been accomplished, he would have failed. Ezekiel went through a four-step process at each new level of prophecy. I agree with Sheets and Pierce that we need to follow these four steps if we are going to stay on track with prophetic fulfillment in our city: 1. He received prophetic revelation. Ezekiel sought God and was open to receiving prophetic instruction. In fact, he expected God to speak to him. How often in our daily lives do we expect to hear God? God is speaking to us today! We need to listen for God’s voice and direction in our lives in order to receive the instructions that will move us forward. 2. He obeyed the voice of the Lord. God told Ezekiel what to say and do in order for the step to be accomplished. This seems so basic and yet it is a critical step that we must understand. Ezekiel could not have moved to the fourth level of prophecy without first obeying God at the first, second, and third levels. If you are having difficulty gaining new revelation and hearing the voice of the Lord, go back and be sure 43

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you have done all that the Lord has required of you thus far. 3. He watched God’s purpose being accomplished and assessed the situation. At each level of obedience, Ezekiel saw miracles happen as God’s will was accomplished. Even so, he knew that all of God’s purposes had not yet been fulfilled. He saw the bones come together. This in itself must have been a great and miraculous sight. But when he looked closer, he saw that even with this great miracle there was no breath. Then he saw breath come into the skeletons—a great army of living, breathing beings replaced a dead pile of dry, useless bones. And yet there was hopelessness and infirmity. It was not until Ezekiel saw the Lord break infirmity and death off of the great army and bring them into the land He had promised them that the process of prophetic fulfillment was complete. Even though we may see great miracles along the way, we need to be sensitive to the Holy Spirit’s leading as to whether or not His will has been fully accomplished. 4. He listened for his next instruction. Miracle after miracle did not stop Ezekiel from seeking God for the next step. He did not bask in the awesome works of God in a way that stopped him from looking forward. Of course we need to stop and thank God for His great power and allow ourselves to be drawn into worship, but we can’t let the glory of something that has already occurred keep us from moving toward a greater level of glory.6 God is bringing about a shift in Philadelphia. A shift is a change of place, position, or direction. As we advance into this shift, we must

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Confession recognize that the enemy is plotting to stop it. God is ready for us to shift through our choice to enter into a new dimension of faith.

GOD’S TIMES AND SEASONS There is a time and a place for everything under heaven. There is a time to give birth and a time to die; A time to plant and a time to uproot what is planted; A time to kill and a time to heal; A time to tear down and a time to laugh; A time to mourn and a time to dance; A time to love and a time to hate; A time for war and a time for peace (Ecclesiastes 3:1-9).

Not only does place seem to be important to the Lord, but also time. God makes everything appropriate to His time. The Lord is not “in time” He is time. He knows the end from the beginning. However, He set the human race into a time sequence in His plan in the earth. He expects us to seek Him during the timeframe that He has determined for our lives. Dutch Sheets uses this example from his state gathering in Alaska. Sheets said, “The word chronos refers to the general process of time or chronological time. The word kairos refers to the right time, the opportunity or strategic time, the now time.”6 As he began to study these two words, Sheets says God began to reveal a very important truth to him. Sheets says he has always separated these two concepts—chronological time and the right time—but God has showed him the inaccuracies. Often they are simply different phases of the same process. “Kairos, in many ways, is an extension or continuation of chronos. As the process of God’s plan unfolds, chronos become kairos. The new is connected to the old and, in fact, is often the result of what happened in the old. Kairos, the opportune time, is literally born of chronos, the general time. When we’re in a non-strategic general season of life’s daily routine, plodding along in the chronos time, God doesn’t totally start over with a kairos season. His overall agenda does not change. He simply takes us through one phase of 45

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a process in which our perseverance and faithfulness have allowed Him to shift us into the next phase-a strategic season. He changes the time and season, transforming chronos into kairos.”6 In the Word of God, the timing element is built around the feasts. The Old Testament contains two calendars—a civil and a religious one—and this can complicate our understanding of the origins of the New Year. Rosh Hashanah begins what is known as the Head of the Year and culminates with the Feast of Tabernacles. This is different from the first month of the year, which actually begins at Passover. Understanding the concept of time will allow us to recognize God’s purpose in the earth. This also helps us to stay focused prophetically. Therefore, I know we have entered a key kairos time that we cannot afford to miss. For the sake of the people of Philadelphia, I pray we are not a people that are too disillusioned to recognize the time we are in. When God brings a shift, we must be ready to shift with Him. If we are not careful, we won’t believe that He can bring us from the chronos stages through the kairos seasons and into fullness.

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CHAPTER 7

HOW DO WE TAKE BACK PHILADELPHIA? n order to have complete victory in this war, we need to look at the history of this state—not just Philadelphia, but also the surrounding states of Delaware and New Jersey. What happens in Delaware and New Jersey affects Philadelphia and vice versa. Looking back at the history of the states allows us to identify the different types of spirits that have been controlling the regions. Also, history sometimes needs to be healed. It is very important that the root cause is dealt with and that there is repentance from this cause, especially on a corporate level. The root cause for sin and satanic influence in our region or state may be something as simple as the fall of humanity or perhaps the Civil War, racial tensions, divisions, etc. The fact is that history often needs to be healed. Another great missile with which we can fight war is the prophetic word. The city of Philadelphia can war with the word of a mature, seasoned prophet. Understand that prophecy alone will not bring healing to the sickness of this city. We must war with other weapons. If the people do not take the Word of God for themselves, we cannot expect the prophetic word to come to pass. But if the people stand on the Word of God, we can then war also with His prophetic words. This corporate level of healing is what Isaiah talked about: “Those from among you will rebuild the ancient ruins; you will rise up the age-old foundations; and you will be called the

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repairer of the breach, the restorer of the street in which to dwell” (Isaiah 58:12). To get a prophetic understanding about each state, as well as other insights relating to its history and calling, I turn again to Dutch Sheets and Chuck D. Pierce, authors of Releasing the Prophetic Destiny of a Nation. Sheets and Pierce believe they were called by the Lord to go to all fifty states to decree and declare the message of the Lord upon each state. I have related the prophetic words for each of the states from their book in the following sections. God moves on our behalf when we obey the strategy He releases to us prophetically in our territories. Moving forward by in obedience by faith causes us to overcome the confederacy of demonic power in our region. This history, along with today’s prophetic utterances, enables us to stand in faith, declaring God’s will and purpose across the region.

DELAWARE Delaware: (Named after Lord De La Warr) Statehood: December 7, 1787 (1st state) Motto: Liberty and Independence Familiar Name: The First State Fifty-State Tour: Releasing the Firstfruits of a Nation Delaware was the first state ratified in the United States Constitution. Delaware was given first place in national parades and presidential inauguration because it was the first state in the Union. In June 2003 in a meeting in Delaware, Dutch Sheets told the audience, “When you were the first to sign a legal document, it gave you rights in the spirit in this nation. You have enough authority to break the impasse. You need to lead the parade of breakthrough! You need to lead the inauguration of the new.” 1. Pray that Delaware would rise up to lead the parade of the breakthrough.

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How Do We Take Back Philadelphia? Dutch Sheets declared, “The word for Delaware is this: You’re going to reconnect to your roots and you are a firstfruits state. The firstfruits are the Lord’s, and the anointing to secure the firstfruits is now upon us. We have commission to secure the firstfruits, and when we secure the firstfruits, the whole lump will become holy.” Chuck Pierce went on to say: “And the Lord would say to you, this is the time that I’m rising you up to cross over. This is the time that I’m sending you forth. This is the time that I’m releasing My sound through the cities of this state. For I’m going to pour My glory on this state. You’ll have a three-day prayer blitz across this state where you are praying strategically from city to city to worship.” “I call My people to pray three days, and you will move with My glory in these lands. And your home will be unlocked, your people will be unlocked, and this land and this nation will come under My authority again.” During the first meeting of the Fifty-State Tour in Delaware, Pierce said there were 100 ministries represented. This was an unprecedented and tremendous response from Delaware. The level of anointing was absolutely powerful. Yet that night the enemy visited Pierce and said, “I’m keeping this gate in place, because if you unlock this gate, you are going to unlock Philadelphia. Then you are going to restore the government. Then the government of the land will experience revival like never before and you’ll move forward.” 2. Declare that the gate in Delaware is unlocked (Ephesians 6:12-13)! 3. Pray that Delaware would take on the whole armor of God for this battle; for the God of peace will soon crush Satan underneath our feet (Romans 16:20). Pierce prophetically declared, “If you will rise up, I am hovering over you in such a way that a new birth will be conceived for this nation. But to conceive this new birth, you must reconnect into what I have destined as the firstfruits of this land. And the firstfruits are Mine; and if the firstfruits are holy, the whole lump will

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become holy. I am reconnecting you into a place of holiness that this nation has not seen in a hundred years. And by 2005, holiness will be known, the power of my holiness, for I am holy. It will be known that I visited Delaware. Your government has grown dirty and dingy over this state, but I have come here tonight to say I am going to remove that garment that is like death. And where death has come and visited this particular state and produced a shroud to this nation, I say I am removing that death garment.”

NEW JERSEY New Jersey: (Named after the Island of Jersey) Statehood: December 18, 1787 (3rd state) Motto: Liberty and Prosperity Familiar name: The Garden State Fifty-State Tour: The Watchman State That same month, June 2003, Chuck Pierce and Dutch Sheets came into our New Jersey with a huge mandate—to snap the watchmen back into alignment. The urgency of the hour demanded it. New Jersey is a gateway state into our nation. The watchmen needed strengthening and equipping and they needed reinforcements added to their ranks. After praying for New Jersey, Chuck followed with this prophetic word from the Lord: “There are vipers working in Jersey City and Newark. Find those vipers, so the vipers do not become snipers. Look carefully and watch, for I have found a nest, and I am ready to break the egg of that nest so they do not hatch out. I have rose up this time and released this anointing because you must watch and you must watch now. I am calling you into a night watch, and I am saying as you watch in the night, you will see what is wanting to break out and even be harvested in the day. Find the night watches that will be established in this state.” “Establish the night watches and watch these next two and half months. Watch carefully, for you are playing a major part. If you 50

How Do We Take Back Philadelphia? will gather the state to pray for the first twenty-one days of August, one county per day, and during the fourth watch of the night, I will break the power of the enemy from off of your state.” Immediately, small pockets of intercessors across New Jersey began night watches in their homes, but in a concerted ongoing effort from August 1–21, 2003, the entire state of New Jersey began their “Fourth Watch of the Night Prayer Initiative.” Each of the counties in New Jersey was assigned a 3 a.m. to 6 a.m. watch. Look what the Bible says happens when we watch during that time: And have you ever ordered Morning, “Get up!” Told Dawn, “Get to work!” So you could seize Earth like a blanket And shake out the wicked like cockroaches? As the sun brings everything to light, Brings out all the colors and shape, The cover of darkness is snatched from the wicked— They’re caught in the very act! (Job 38:12-15, The Message).18

History tells us that five men from New Jersey signed the Declaration of Independence. Five is the number of God’s grace. This is the prophetic picture for us today that even at the very birth of our nation, New Jersey was graced to declare freedom. New Jersey is also known for its superb militia during the Revolutionary War. This militia was made up of hardworking men and boys who would drop everything at the sound of the trumpet and fight for freedom. Like the men of Nehemiah’s time, they were able to both build the wall and wield the sword. Pierce prophesied during the Fifty-State Tour assembly that in Trenton, the state capital of New Jersey, a voice of deception had arisen that caused the city to be blocked off. This blocking off in the spirit is keeping the government from making a full shift towards righteousness. Teachings released in Trenton against territorial warfare have shut down the prophetic and apostolic declarations needed to open the heavens over the city. This needs to be repented of so the block 51

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will be removed. Chuck Pierce prophesied that vipers wanting to become snipers were resident in Jersey City and Newark. To date, none of the statewide intercessory networks have solid prayer teams in place within these cities.

PENNSYLVANIA Pennsylvania: (Name for founder William Penn and “Sylvania,” Latin for “wood”) Statehood: December 12, 1787 (2nd state) Motto: Virtue, Liberty, and Independence Familiar Name: The Keystone State Fifty-State Tour: The First Shall Be Last—A Governmental Shift State Sheets and Pierce finished their Fifty-State Tour in Pennsylvania, the Keystone State, in August 2003. The keystone is the stone at the top of an arch that holds everything together. Much of Dutch’s teachings in Pennsylvania related to governmental authority. They met at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church, declaring that the synergy from the other forty-nine states would connect with the meeting being held that last night held in one of the darkest parts of America—downtown Philadelphia. They decreed that God would reconnect, revive, and restore His plan for our nation. Chuck Pierce decreed that the government was on His shoulders, that His government was the absolute government over our nation, and that every other government would align with His purpose. Watch for great shaking ahead. Chuck said, “God is government!” God rules. Whatever He decrees will become reality. Therefore, we must get snapped into the place that God has for us, get to know God well, find out what He wants to do, and decree it. Jesus said, “on earth as it is in heaven” (Matthew 6:10). The prophetic word indicates that Pennsylvania is truly the Keystone State. A keystone is the block that holds all the other 52

How Do We Take Back Philadelphia? blocks of an arch in place. The prophetic sense is that Pennsylvania will play a role in helping the nation come into alignment spiritually and that will set the pace in governmental praying and declaration. The indication is that the greater agreement that we come into in our prayer, the greater the power in prayer. Chuck mentioned that worship will be a big part of this and that there will be a “grass roots movement.” He said there would eventually be seven key centers for worship that will cut off the head of the enemy in the state.

BRIEF HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA It would be impossible to understand the beginning and potential of the state of Pennsylvania without an understanding of its founder William Penn. William Penn came alive in Jesus in England at the time when King James persecuted anyone who did not conform to the Church of England. However, Penn’s passion for the Lord did not allow him to live the life of comfort that could have been his. Instead of living the life of a courtier, he spent much time in prison, persecuted for his faith in the Lord. Penn became convinced that religious toleration couldn’t be achieved in England. He went to the king and asked for a charter that would enable him to establish an American colony. The king considered this request because he owed William Penn’s father a great debt. But the idea also seemed like an easy way to get rid of troublesome Quakers. On March 4, 1681, Charles II signed a charter for Penn to own and govern a territory west of the Delaware River and north of Maryland, approximately the present size of Pennsylvania. King Charles II granted Penn’s request so that he could personally be free from a debt that he owed Penn’s father. Penn sailed to America on the ship Welcome and arrived November 8, 1682. With assembled friends from the Quaker group, Penn founded Philadelphia, a city whose name means “city of brotherly love” in Greek. He approved the site between the Delaware and Schuylkill rivers. Historians agree that Penn was most concerned

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about developing a legal basis for a free society. In his First Frame of Government, which Penn and initial land purchasers had adopted on April 25, 1682, he expressed ideals anticipating the Declaration of Independence: “Men being born with a title to perfect freedom and uncontrolled enjoyment of all the rights and privileges of the law of nature . . . no one can be put out of his estate and subjected to the political view of another, without his consent.”19 He desired that men live in holiness, which would include living in covenant with God and in covenant with men. His First Frame of Government provided for secure private property, virtually unlimited free enterprise, a free press, trial by jury and, of course, religious toleration. Whereas the English penal code specified the death penalty for some 200 offenses, Penn reserved it for just two— murder and treason. As a Quaker, Penn encouraged women to get an education and speak out as men did. He called Pennsylvania his “Holy Experiment.” By creating this new government for Pennsylvania, Penn set an enormously important example for liberty. He showed that people who are courageous, persistent, and resourceful enough can live free. He went beyond the natural right theories of his friend John Locke and showed how a free society would actually work. He showed how individuals of different races and religions could live together peacefully when they mind their own business. He affirmed the resilient optimism of free people. Penn’s work provides a seed for the nation in another important manner. The revision of the constitution for Pennsylvania, “The Charter of Privileges,” served as an outline for the Constitution of the United States. Unfortunately, the climate began to change after the death of William Penn. Instead of seeking to coexist in mutual respect and love, those who carried on after Penn began to push out the Native Americans. The many injustices are illustrated by the following stories.

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How Do We Take Back Philadelphia? First, there was “The Walking Purchase.” The Europeans were to take the amount of land that a man could walk in a day and a half. Instead of using an average man to walk, William Penn’s son, Thomas Penn (1702–75), who was proprietor of Pennsylvania in 1737, hired the three fastest walkers in the colony and offered a large prize to the one who could cover the most land. The winner, running on a carefully cleared path, crossed more than twice the land the Delaware Native Americans had anticipated, causing the tribe to lose about 1,200 square miles (3,100 square km) of their land. At Thomas Penn’s request, members of the Iroquois Confederacy began to enforce this unpopular decision.20 The Albany Treaty was another such debacle where one tribe’s claim to land was given over to others even though there was not proper representation of the Natives in Pennsylvania at the treaty signing. These and many other injustices alienated the Native Pennsylvania Americans from British. As stated by Chuck Pierce on the early years of Pennsylvania history, she has shown herself to be the seed of the nation in other ways.   

The signing of the Declaration of Independence took place in Philadelphia Washington’s famous prayer took place at Valley Forge, just a few miles from Philadelphia York, Pennsylvania, became the nation’s first capital

Yet the early history of the state clearly shows that Pennsylvania has a role in planting seed. As we have already seen, this seed has not always been pure seed. Early in the process, we see the contamination of the seed with leaders of the Masonic order such as Pennsylvania’s own Benjamin Franklin. According to Pierce, as a result, the holy seed of the gospel began to be mixed with the esoteric philosophies of freemasonry. Today, the lodge itself lists many Blue Lodges in the State. The result is that many leaders in the church have made pacts with other 55

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gods. In addition, other aspects of witchcraft including Pow-wow and Wicca have and still do hold sway over many in the state. Pennsylvania history would not be complete without the discussion of the Battle of Gettysburg. The battle took place over three days in 1863 with the participation of 97,000 Union troops and 75,000 Confederate soldiers. When the battle was over, 51,000 had lost their lives, ranking Gettysburg as the deadliest battle on US soil. Injustice and racism have plagued Pennsylvania over the years. York, Pennsylvania, became a hotbed for black and white hatred. Just a few years ago, two trials for murders on each side of this issue captured the nation’s attention. Other hate groups such as the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) have set up residence in Pennsylvania. Pierce believes that even as Satan has perverted things in the state, the Lord desires for Pennsylvania to be just the opposite—the state of brotherly love, just as the name Philadelphia means, “The city of brotherly love.”6

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THE WORK OF THE CHURCH hat is the responsibility of the church to the crises that face Philadelphia? The Lord said, “Gather all the churches [not some of the churches] in the city, and come together and pray in the spirit; and pull the spirit down.” Today, thousands of ministers and missionaries claim to be God’s servants. Hundreds of churches claim to be doing the work of God. But how many religions truly have a clear, distinct commission based solely on God’s Word? Just what has God commissioned His people to do? What is the work of God in Pennsylvania? “Therefore they said to him, ‘What shall we do, so that we may work the works of God?’ Jesus answered and said to them, ‘This is THE WORK OF GOD that you believe in Him whom he has sent’” (John 6:28, 29). From the beginning of Christ’s ministry with just twelve disciples to the hundreds and thousands of laborers, supporters and co-workers of today, God’s true work has had a vital job to do—a commission to fulfill. The purpose for which Christ established the Church characterizes its work, its activities, and overall commission. What happened to the churches in Philadelphia? Are they not the watchmen of the city? Did they fall asleep on the job or were they too busy building themselves up, climbing the ladders of the religious and political world and forgetting what they were commissioned to do? Has a territorial spirit taken over the leaders in the Philadelphia Church? I believe that while they were fighting and competing against each other, the enemy came in and took over the city of Philadelphia completely.

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In Matthew 16:18, Jesus Christ said, “I will build my church.” He did not say that there would be different denominations. He certainly did not say that there would be conflicting beliefs and doctrines: “There is one body, and one Spirit, just as also you were called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all, and through all, and in all” (Ephesians 4:4-6). “The Church Christ established in A.D. 31 was not divided. Yet, religion today is a mass of confusion—with hundreds of different sects and denominations that all claim the title of ‘Christianity.’ The work is a spiritual work. Through the New Testament, Christ shows us the purpose of the work of God, which is twofold: to proclaim to the world, for a warning witness, the good news of the coming Kingdom of God (Mark 1:14-15, and 2); and to nurture the Church-to ‘feed the flock’ (I Peter 5:2), thereby preparing the people whom God adds to the Church to be taught and trained for governmental positions under Christ when He comes to rule over all the nations. The Church was to be built as the spiritual temple to which Christ shall come at His return, Malachi 3:1.”21 In chapters two and three of the book of Revelation, the Apostle John wrote down the revelation he received from Jesus Christ about the seven Church eras. These seven eras were named after seven actual churches in Asia Minor in the first century, located in successive order on a long mail route. These two chapters of the Bible show the progressive history of the Church from its founding all the way up to the coming return of Christ. The Ephesus church was the first, followed by Smyrna, Pergamos, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia and Laodicea. “God—not man or the world—set the original pattern of Church organization. God appointed first apostles, then evangelists, pastors and elders—and also deacons and deaconesses to help with physical matters. The form of Church organization is primarily outlined in I Corinthians twelve and Ephesians four. It is a theocratic government, with authority administered in hierarchical form, from the

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The Work of the Church top down. It is a family government based on God’s law of love (Ephesians 4:11-13; I Corinthians 11:3).”17 The resurrected Christ was (and is today) the head of the Church. Peter was the chief apostle. After some years, Peter and most of the original twelve apostles seemingly disappeared from view. Jesus had sent them to “the lost sheep of the house of Israel” who were then in Asia Minor, Western Europe, and Britain (Matthew 10:6; 15:24). They were lost in identity and lost spiritually. Evidently, of all the apostles, only Paul remained in the Middle East and Rome. “After only twenty years of existence, however, the gospel of the Kingdom of God began to be suppressed. By the middle A.D. 50s, it was superseded by another message that was not the true gospel (Galatians 1:6-7). By A.D. 70, when Jerusalem fell to the Romans, the proclaiming of the true gospel to the world had virtually ceased. Enemies of the true Church had begun to persecute the work. A fierce controversy arose as to whether the gospel was about Christ or Christ’s message. A great false church rose to teach a false gospel about the person of Christ (Matthew 24:5; II Corinthians 11:3-4, 13-15). From that time on, a spurious gospel was preached in the name of traditional Christianity, by which Satan deceived the whole world (Revelation 12:9). This influential, counterfeit church made sweeping changes. Its leaders downplayed the need for mankind to keep God’s law, claiming the law had been ‘done away.’ In place of the law, they emphasized a message of grace—but grace turned into a license to disobey (Jude 4).”17 The Church in the first century was not a world power, neither religiously nor politically. It is fundamentally the same as it was in the first century embodying the faith “once delivered unto the saints (Jude 3).” That aspect has never changed. Yet, today the Church functions in a vastly different and highly complex and mechanized world. Accordingly, modern conditions have necessitated different procedures and methods of operation.

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THE CHURCH TODAY After being rendered virtually ineffective for 1,900 years, the work of God was revived by Jesus Christ, true to prophetic timing, in the 20th century. It remains alive and active today. Where is that work? At that time, the Church was not fulfilling the commission Christ had given it to do—they were not actively proclaiming the gospel of the Kingdom of God. Rather, their work consisted of merely tending the small flock of believers. They had also moved away from God’s form of government. Instead, they were organized on a collegial, democratic style of government. At this point, we need to understand a principle by which God always has worked: God’s work always starts small, like the grain of mustard seed (Matthew 13:31; Zechariah 4:10). Also, Christ always leads through ONE MAN at a time. He worked through Abraham. He worked through Moses, through Joshua, through one judge at a time, through Samuel, through David, through Solomon. He worked through Peter and, when Peter left the Middle East, through Paul. These men had, in greater or lesser number, staff assistants under them, but God’s WORK was headed by ONE MAN AT A TIME!

THE COMMISSION OF THE CHURCH “The entire chapter of Revelation ten speaks about the commission of the Church, especially verse eleven. The commission is primarily one of warning: ‘And he said unto me, Thou must prophesy again before many peoples, and nations, and tongues, and kings’ (11). This verse outlines the size and scope of God’s primary commission to His remnant Church in this end time. It is for many peoples and nations a huge job!”17 The Prophet Ezekiel sheds further light on this watchman warning in Ezekiel 33: “If the watchman sees the sword come upon the land and does not warn, and then the blood of the people will be on the watchman’s head” (3-4).

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The Work of the Church The Church is also commissioned to feed the flock (I Peter. 5:2). Christ has set ministers in the Church . . . “For the perfecting of the saints. For the edifying of the body of Christ: Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man” (Ephesians 4:11-13). The Church must be ready for the return of Jesus Christ. Revelation 3:8 describes the Church in the last days. It is a Church with little strength—a work that is supported by only a small number, but that has faithfully kept the Word of God and not denied God’s authority. Christ promises to set before that small Church an open door to preach the gospel until the present work of the Church is completed. Jesus said in Matthew 7:20 that by their fruits you shall know them. In looking for God’s true Church, you need to find the one that is preaching the truth, including newly revealed truths: “Surely the Lord God does nothing Unless He reveals His secret counsel to His servants the prophets” (Amos 3:7).

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CHAPTER 9

SUBMITTING TO GOD’S PURPOSE erriam-Webster Dictionary defines “purpose” as “What one intends to accomplish or attain. It implies little more than just what one has in mind to do or bring about; it suggests a more settled determination.”22 Public service and helping the needy are often cited. Variants of philosophies such as eudemonia and objectivism sometimes claim that self-sacrificial goals are destructive. Modern spiritual philosophy sees the purpose in life as improving the environment and world condition for all beings. In the most immediate sense this means each individual finding their own special talents which are a gift to serve others. This in turn is found in pursuing a soul level joy, so that the personal and highest individual purpose of life is pursuit of soul level joy. This is the first joy, that which has followed the individual from birth. In most instances it begins with the desire for acceptance and evolves to discovery of each person’s genius or gift to serve. “A Christian worker has to learn how to be God’s man or woman of great worth and excellence in the midst of a multitude of meager and worthless things. Never protest by saying, ‘If only I were somewhere else!’ All of God’s people are ordinary people who have been made extraordinary by the purpose He has given them. Unless we have the right purpose intellectually in our minds and lovingly in our hearts, we will very quickly be diverted from being useful to God. We are not workers for God by choice.” “Many people deliberately choose to be workers, but they have no purpose of God’s almighty grace of His mighty Word in them.

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Submitting to God’s Purpose Paul’s whole heart, mind, and soul were consumed with the great purpose of what Jesus Christ came to do, and he never lost sight of that one thing. We must continually confront ourselves with one central fact: . . . Jesus Christ and Him crucified (1 Corinthians 2:2). Jesus said, ‘I chose you (John 15:16).’ ” “We need to keep these words as a wonderful reminder in our theology. It is not that we have gotten God, but that He has gotten us. God is at work bending, molding, and doing exactly as He chooses. And why is He doing it? He is doing it for only one purpose, that He may be able to say, ‘This is My man, and this is My woman.’ We have to be in God’s hand so that He can place others on the Rock, Jesus Christ, just as He has placed us. Never choose to be a worker, but once God has placed His call upon you, woe be to you if you ‘turn aside…to the right or to the left . . . (Deuteronomy 28:14).’ He will do with you what He never did before His call came to you, and He will do with you what He is not doing with other people. Let Him have His way.”23 Many may say, “How do you know this is your purpose?” The moment the Lord called me and took the time to instruct me with the details, this vision became alive in my heart and became the central motivation of my daily walk. The Scripture says this: “These signs will follow those who believe” (Mark 16:17). It would be interpreted as those who believe that God will actually use them, those who believe God’s Word is for them personally, and those who believe that God will move through them as they obey His Words. He does not build on any natural capacity of ours at all. God does not ask us to do the things that are naturally easy for us. He only asks us to do the things that we are perfectly fit to do through His grace—and that is where the cross we must bear will always come. Those who believe the Word understand the hope of the calling on their lives and know that God will move through them to accomplish the miraculous. But I said my ministry is one of restoration. And it is, but before we can restore one’s life, one has to first be

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delivered from bondage. What qualifies me? The Grace of God and my willingness to be obedient to the Word and Promise of God. If God said it, that settles it for me. Naturally, I had to pay the price; one does not get to this place with out paying a price. Every situation and circumstance in my life has led me to this place and time in history. I remember the day I realized God could use me, not because I was anyone special, or because of any ability of my own. I knew He would use me because I believed His Word was true and at that point the possibilities for my life became limitless through faith in God. My hunger for the Lord allows me to step out of my comfort zone. My hunger for the Lord allows me to plant my seed in the Kingdom of God. My hunger for the Lord allows me to say, “Yes,” regardless of the cost. My hunger for the Lord allows me to be convinced myself. My hunger for the Lord allows me to walk in total obedience. Many will try to contradict my testimony. Many will say it’s a lie. My answer to the body of Christ is this: listen to the word of the Lord, as Job eloquently expressed to his friend during his time of trials: I too will answer my Share, I also will tell my opinion. “For I am full of words; The spirit within me constrains me. “Behold, my belly is like unvented wine, Like new wineskins it is about to burst. “Let me speak that I may get relief; Let me open my lips and answer. “Let me know “be partial to no one, Nor flatter any man. “For I do not know how to flatter, Else my Maker would soon take me away” (Job 32:17-22).

“There is no mystery in believing. Our Lord never insists on having authority over us. He never says, ‘You will submit to me.’ No, He leaves us perfectly free to choose—so free, in fact, that we can spit in His face or we can put Him to death, as others have done, and yet He will never say a word. But once His life has been created in me through His redemption, I instantly recognize His right to absolute authority over me. It is a complete and effective domination in which I acknowledge, ‘You are worthy, O Lord 64

Submitting to God’s Purpose (Revelation 4:11) . . . ’ It is simply the unworthiness within me that refuses to bow down or to submit to one who is worthy. When I meet someone who is more holy than myself, and I don’t recognize his worthiness or obey his instructions for me, it is sign of my own unworthiness being revealed. God teaches us by using these people who are a little better than we are; not better intellectually, but more holy. And He continues to do so until we willingly submit. Then the whole attitude of our life is one of obedience to Him.”23 If our Lord insisted on our obedience, He would simply become a taskmaster and cease to have any real authority. He never insists on obedience, but when we truly see Him we will instantly obey Him. Then He is easily Lord of our life, and we live in adoration of Him from morning ‘til night. The level of my growth in grace is revealed by the way I look at obedience: Blessed are those who trust in the Lord, They are like trees planted along a riverbank, with roots that reach deep into the water. Such trees are not bothered by the heat or worried by long months of drought. Their leaves stay green, and they go right on producing delicious fruit (Jeremiah 17:7-8, NLT).24

Rick Warren, author of The Purpose Driven Life, writes, “It’s not about you. The purpose of our life is far greater than our own personal fulfillment, our peace of mind, or even our own happiness. It’s far greater than our family, our career, or even our wildest dreams and ambitions. If we want to know why we were placed on this planet, we must begin with God. We were born by his purpose and for his purpose. Contrary to what many popular books, movies, and seminars tell us, we won’t discover our life’s meaning by looking within ourselves. You’ve probably tried that already; I know I have. We did not create ourselves, so there is no way we can tell ourselves what we were created for!”21 Rick wrote there are five benefits of living a purpose-driven life:  

Knowing your purpose gives meaning to your life. Knowing your purpose simplifies your life. 65

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Knowing your purpose focuses your life. Knowing your purpose prepares you for eternity. Knowing your purpose motivates your life.

I will not discuss the different topics Rick presents to us except for this one—knowing your purpose prepares you for eternity. This topic must be explained because it’s so relevant for the reasons why we do the things we do. However, I do recommend if you have not yet read The Purpose Driven Life that you purchase a copy soon—it will change your perspectives. Warren writes, “Knowing your purpose prepares you for eternity. Many people spend their lives trying to create a lasting legacy on earth. They want to be remembered when they’re gone. Yet, what ultimately matters most will not be what others say about our life, but rather what God says. What people fail to realize is that all achievements are eventually suppressed, records are broken, reputations fade, and tributes are forgotten. Living to create an earthly legacy is a short-sighted goal. A wiser use of time is to build an eternal legacy. We weren’t put on earth to be remembered. We were put here to prepare for eternity. One day we will stand before God, and he will do an audit of our life, a final exam, before we enter eternity. From the Bible we can surmise that God will ask us two crucial questions: First, ‘What did you do with my son, Jesus Christ?’ God won’t ask about our religious background or doctrinal views. The only thing that will matter is, did I accept what Jesus did for you and me and did we learn to love and trust him? Jesus said, ‘I am the way and the truth and the life. No man comes to the Father except through me.’ Second, ‘What did you do with what I gave you?’ What did you do with your life-all the gifts, talents, opportunities, energy, relationships, and resources God gives us? Did we spend them on ourselves, or did we use them for the purpose God made us for?”

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CHAPTER 10

IDENTIFY AND MOVE FORWARD t’s time to identify the apostolic leaders who are developing prototypes or models for this generation. The four walls of the church must expand to encompass all societal structures. We must identify apostolic Kingdom prototypes where Church leaders and economic leaders are working together to bring transformation to our community. We must identify the apostolic leaders who are willing to shift their minds from maintenance and pastoring to dominion. We must identify the nations where the Spirit of God is raising up leadership to ready our nation to be disciples. In his book, Steps to Christ, author E. G. White states, “We must advance spiritually; we must go beyond our current levels of celebration and religious ritual (see John 2). We must go beyond our poverty way of thinking and enter into harvest multiplication mode (see I Kings 17). We must be willing to push past any halfway point in our lives and have a desire to complete the task at hand. We must go beyond our past failures and structures of unbelief that would hold us captive and prevent us from accomplishing our future. We must be aware of every opportunity that the Lord has set before us and not miss the open window and door of heaven that comes into our spheres of influence (see II Kings 13). The Bible says that the Lord knows the beginning from the end. He is the Alpha and Omega. Let’s cooperate with Him and experience the best in our generation.”17

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THE STRATEGIES—ACHIEVING UNITY THROUGH HUMILITY The strategies, I believe, for bringing all the churches together to accomplish and bring forth the manifestation of the Word of God has to be led by the apostles and the leaders of the church coming in unity through humility and with one agenda, to take back the city of Philadelphia from the enemy. In chapter two of Philippians, Paul presents a case for unity to the people of the church in Philippi. Paul declares that in order to gain unity, there must be humility. He dealt with the concept of humility in verse five after he argumentatively suggests in verse one that there is consolation in Christ: “Therefore if there is any encouragement in Christ, if there is any consolation of love, if there is any fellowship of the Spirit, if any affection and compassion” (Philippians 2:1). Paul is actually saying, “As Christians, we have appeal in our union with Christ Jesus because we have consolation in Christ; we have comfort of love; we have fellowship of the Spirit; and we have affection of mercies.” God is also appealing for unity in the Church today. It will bring great joy when the members are thinking the same thoughts—to love one another, to be likeminded, have the same love, and be of one accord. We are not to let petty quarrels and dissension bring division among the members.

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PART TWO

A FATHERLESS SOCIETY— THE ROOT OF OUR PROBLEMS

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CHAPTER 11

THE ROLE OF MEN IN THE TRANSFORMATION It’s in Christ that we find out who we are And what we are living for. Long before we first heard Of Christ . . . He had His eyes on us, had designs on us for glorious living, part of the overall purpose he is working out in everything and everyone (Ephesians 1:11, The Message).18

his chapter focuses on the most important resources in our society—the people: man, woman, and child and each person’s role in the community, the home, and in the family. Restoration has to first start with the people—not just their physical environment, but more importantly, their mind, body, and spirit. If all we concentrate on is the outward appearances of a community and the people that live in the community never change, we are still left with a broken-down, desolate community with a fresh coat of paint, waiting to be detonated and blown up.

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FATHER AS THE FOUNDATION I’d like to quote a large section of a book titled, The Principle of Fatherhood, by Dr. Myles Munroe, founder and president of Bahamas Faith Ministries International. This is an excellent book and Dr. Monroe has this to say about fatherhood:

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“I want you to picture the problem with our nations and societies as well as the solution. God created man and out of him was produced a woman. Eve was Adam’s baby. That means everything she needed to nourish and sustain herself came from Adam, her source. If societies and nations have problems with drugs, unwed mothers, teenage pregnancy, corruption, violence and the like, then they must go back to the foundation in order to solve the problem. If they have a national problem, then they must go back into the communities to find the source of the problem. Obviously, the community’s problems affect the nation, which is a multiplicity of communities. Communities’ problems are rooted in the families that make up each community. When we check to see what the family’s problems are, we must look at marriage. When we examine the condition of our marriages, we discover that husbands and wives are divorced, mothers have been abandoned, and men are not sustaining their families. What does all of this boil down to? Brothers, we are the root of the problem affecting the nations! The foundational source has a problem: men are not being the father God created them to be. Understand this: The church cannot fix society’s problems when the foundation is out of place. When the foundations are being destroyed, what can the righteous do (Psalm 11:3)? No matter how much the church works at correcting social ills, if the foundation that God laid for the family is not in place, even the work of the righteous will not be successful. The devil does not care if the church is filled with women. As long as the men do not come to their father, then women and their children are fatherless. Fatherhood is the foundation of the family, the church, and the culture. The primary mission of the church is to be fisher of men (Matthew 4:19; Mark 1:17). When men return to the Father, then they can be sustained and nurtured by their Source and become the sustainers they are called to be for their families. Remember, when humanity fell in Genesis 3, God never asked where the woman was. God asked, Adam where are you (Genesis 3:9)? In other words, Adam was out of position. If an enemy wanted to destroy a nation,

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The Role of Men in The Transformation a community, or a family, who would the enemy attack? Just one person is the object of Satan’s attack—the father! When fathers move out of their place as sustainers, nurturers, and protectors, the foundations are destroyed and society crumbles.”25

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CHAPTER 12

THE COST OF A FATHERLESS SOCIETY

t the root of sin is the absence of real fathers in our world. The sin problem is a fatherhood problem, because sin is the result of a man—Adam—who declared independence from God, his Source and Father. Adam believed he didn’t need a father and that he could be a father—without the Father. That is when the human race fell into rebellion against God. Dr. Myles Munro eloquently explains the root meaning of the word sin, armatia, means separation. Adam separated himself from Father God and fell into a state of separation and sin. In other words, man could be called a “fatherless child” because of his own choice. Imagine that. Orphaned by choice! Homeless by choice! Separated from his Father by choice! How tragic was the choice of Adam to reject his Father. Statistics of a fatherless America show children of fatherless families have earlier and more frequent sexual activity, a dramatically greater risk of drug and alcohol abuse, more mental illness, more suicide, poorer educational performance, and higher rates of teen pregnancy, criminality, and sexual abuse. They are more likely to have suffered child abuse and more often have earlier death, confused identities (boys), more aggressive behavior (boys), more emotional distress, uncooperative behavior, more anxiety and depression (girls), more antisocial behavior, and school suspensions. This issue extends beyond class lines. Even controlling for variations

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The Cost of a Fatherless Society across groups in parent education, race and other child and family factors, eighteen to twenty-two-year-olds from disrupted families were twice as likely to have poor relationships with their mothers and fathers, to show high levels of emotional distress or problem behavior, [and] to have received psychological help.27 Before I proceed further with this issue of the Fatherless society, I want to acknowledge and express my appreciation and thanks to the many fathers around the world that take their role seriously. They are doing extraordinary things—not only in their homes, but also in their communities. Organizations such as the 100 Black Men of America, Inc., whose values are committed to the intellectual development of youth and the economic empowerment of the African American community based on the following: respect for family, spirituality, justice, and integrity. Unfortunately, too many of our fathers are not stepping up to the plate for their children. How can they? They themselves have never been taught how to be a father and had no role model from whom to learn. The cycle will continue until a generation rises up and says, “Enough is enough; the curse stops with me.” The first time I heard the Kirk Franklin song, “Looking for You,” I broke down.26 My soul cried out, This is my pain! This is the pain of every child who’s father was never around—who had to make it on their own . . . and the choices we make that affect our lives are not always the right ones. This is the story of many fatherless children in our society. Having lived many lives and traveled many places, I have come to realize that we tend to walk a similar physical or psychological terrain most of our lives. Only those blessed by miracles avoid re-treading the same ground. We return to where we have been before because we sense that the answer to life’s perplexing challenges lie just beyond the edges, along the side of the road, skillfully hidden in the underbrush. Psychologists repeatedly acknowledge that our search for definition and explanation inexorably leads back to our childhood.

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I want to make this point clear for those who believe a woman can do it all. I am a single mother with two children; I do most things very well, but parenting a male child is not one of them. Fortunately for my children and me, the Lord placed outstanding people in our lives that took on the role of the extended family. I am a no-nonsense, disciplinary person, but even with a strong personality, I needed the help of men in the family to assist in the raising of my children—men who are well rounded and making a positive contribution to society. Of course, many moms have no choice but to do it all because many fathers (in and out of their homes) have abdicated their responsibility for proper love, discipline, support, and protection. The disastrous social consequences of this abdication are clearly evident and well-documented. Although some single parents do manage to bring up relatively well-adjusted kids with the help of extended families, churches and schools, the correlation between social deviancy and fatherless homes is irrefutably linked. The reality is women need men, men need women, and children need their parents—both of them.

FATHERLY INFLUENCE Children with fathers at home tend to do better in school, are less prone to depression, and are more successful in relationships. Children from one-parent families achieve less and get into trouble more than children from two-parent families. “Children who grow up with their fathers do far better—emotionally, educationally, physically, every way we can measure—than children who do not,” notes Institute for American Values president David Blankenhorn. “This conclusion holds true even when differences of race, class and income are taken into account.” “The simple truth is that fathers are irreplaceable in shaping the competence and character of their children . . . [The absence of

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The Cost of a Fatherless Society fathers] from family life is surely the most socially consequential family trend of our era.”27 In other words, act now, pay later. “Children from mother-only families have less of an ability to delay gratification and poorer impulse control (that is, control over anger and sexual gratification). These children also have a weaker sense of conscience or sense of right and wrong.”27  Children from low-income, two-parent families outperform students from high-income, single-parent homes. Almost twice as many high achievers come from two-parent homes as one-parent homes.27 According to the CDC, Department of Justice, DHHS and the Bureau of the Census, 63% of teen suicides, 70% of juveniles in state-operated institutions, 71% of high-school dropouts, 75% of children in chemical-abuse centers, 80% of rapists, 85% of youths in prison, 85% of children who exhibit behavioral disorders, and 90% of homeless and runaway children are children from fatherless homes. In fact, children born to unwed mothers are ten times more likely to live in poverty as children with fathers in the home.28 “Not all fathers are separated from their children voluntarily— many are forcibly removed by mothers who’ve bought into the lie that fathers aren’t necessary. Of course, there are also mothers who just want to upgrade. Under such circumstances, most state courts provide father’s limited responsibility or visitation with their children, and only now are some states acknowledging the critical role fathers play in the lives of their children.”30

COOL DAD OF THE WEEK Although there are fathers who maintain contact with their children after a divorce, the pattern of the relationship between the father and child changes. They begin to behave more like relatives than like parents. Instead of helping with homework, nonresident dads are more likely to take the kids shopping, to the movies, or

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out to dinner. Instead of providing steady advice and guidance, divorced fathers become “treat dads.”29  “Here is the truth—and it is a hard truth for men who have abandoned their families, but a harder truth for their children: Most social problems—crime, drug abuse, unwed pregnancy and abortion, youth suicide, school dropouts and the like—are the direct consequence of fatherless households.”31 In his book, Fatherless America, David Blankenhorn details the rise of fatherlessness in America and its societal effects. Blankenhorn also prescribes various measures intended to restore fatherhood as an ideal to restructure the societal effects of fatherlessness. We do not yet know the full impact of fatherlessness on children and on society. Blankenhorn, however, details some of the effects.27 The United States is becoming an increasingly fatherless society. A generation ago, an American child could reasonably expect to grow up with his or her father. Today, an American child can reasonably expect not to. Fatherlessness is now approaching a rough parity with fatherhood as a defining feature of American childhood. This astonishing fact is reflected in many statistics, but here are the two most important. Tonight, about forty percent of American children will go to sleep in homes in which their fathers do not live. Before they reach the age of eighteen, more than half of our nation’s children are likely to spend at least a significant portion of their childhood living apart from their fathers. Never  before in this country have so many children been voluntarily abandoned by their fathers. Never before have so many children grown up without knowing what it means to have a father. Fatherlessness is the most harmful demographic trend of this generation. It is the leading cause of declining child well being in our society. It is also the engine driving our most urgent social problems, from crime to adolescent pregnancy to child sexual abuse to domestic violence against women. Yet, despite its scale and social consequences, fatherlessness is a problem that is frequently ignored

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The Cost of a Fatherless Society or denied. Especially within our elite discourse, it remains largely a problem with no name. If this trend continues, fatherlessness is likely to change the shape of our society. Consider this prediction. After the year 2000, as people born after 1970 emerge as a large proportion of  our working-age adult population, the United States will be divided into two groups, separate and unequal. The two groups will work in the same economy, speak a common language, and remember the same national history. But they will live fundamentally divergent lives. One group will be recipients of basic benefits—psychological, social, economic, educational, and moral—that are denied to the other group. The primary fault line dividing the two groups will not be race, religion, class, education, or gender. It will be patrimony. One group will consist of those adults who grew up with the daily presence and provision of fathers. The other group will consist of those who did not. By the early years of the next century, these two groups will be roughly the same size. Surely a crisis of this scale merits a response. At a minimum, it requires a serious debate. Why is fatherhood declining? What can be done about it? Can our society find ways to invigorate effective fatherhood as a norm of male behavior? Yet to date, the public discussion on this topic has been remarkably weak and defeatist. There is a prevailing belief that not much can—or even should—be done to reverse the trend. When the crime rate jumps, politicians promise to do something about it. When the unemployment rate rises, task forces assemble to address the problem. As random shootings increase,  public health officials worry about the preponderance of guns. But when it comes to the mass defection of men from family life, not much happens. There is debate, even alarm, about specific social problems:  

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Children growing up in poverty Youth violence Unsafe neighborhoods Domestic violence The weakening of parental authority

But in these discussions, we seldom acknowledge the underlying phenomenon that binds together these otherwise disparate issues: the flight of males from children's lives. In fact, we seem to go out of our way to avoid the connection between our most pressing social problems and the trend of fatherlessness. We avoid this connection because, as a society, we are changing our minds about the role of men in family life. As a cultural idea, our inherited understanding of fatherhood is under siege.  Men in general and fathers in particular are increasingly viewed as superfluous to family life—either expendable or as part of the problem. Masculinity itself, understood as anything other than a rejection of what it has traditionally meant to be male, is typically treated with suspicion and even hostility in our cultural discourse. Consequently, our society is now manifestly unable to sustain, or even find reason to believe in fatherhood as a distinctive domain of male activity. The core question is simple: Does every child need a father? Increasingly, our society's answer is, "No," or at least, "Not necessarily." Few idea shifts in this century are as consequential as this one. At stake is nothing less than what it means to be a man, who our children will be, and what kind of society we will become. In addition to losing fathers, we are losing something larger: our idea of fatherhood. Unlike earlier periods of father absence in our history, we now face more than a physical loss affecting some homes. We face a cultural loss affecting every home. For this reason, the most important absence our society must confront is not the absence of fathers but the absence of our belief in fathers. Like motherhood, fatherhood is made up of both a biological and a social dimension. Yet in societies across the world, mothers

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The Cost of a Fatherless Society are far more successful than fathers at fusing these two dimensions into a coherent parental identity. Is the nursing mother playing a biological or a social role? Is she feeding or bonding? We can hardly separate the two, so seamlessly are they woven together. But fatherhood is a different matter. A father makes his sole biological contribution at the moment of conception—nine months before the infant enters the world. Because social paternity is only indirectly linked to biological paternity, the connection between the two cannot be assumed. The phrase, "to father a child," usually refers only to the act of insemination, not to the responsibility of raising a child. What fathers contribute to their offspring after conception is largely a matter of cultural devising.27 Margaret Mead, author of Male and Female, A Study of the Sexes in a Changing World, says, “Moreover, despite their other virtues, men are not ideally suited to responsible fatherhood. Although they certainly have the capacity for fathering, men are inclined to sexual promiscuity and paternal waywardness. Anthropologically, human fatherhood constitutes what might be termed a necessary problem. It is necessary because, in all societies, child well-being and societal success hinges largely upon a high level of paternal investment: the willingness of adult males to devote energy and resources to the care of their offspring. It is a problem because adult males are frequently—indeed, increasingly—unwilling and unable to make that vital investment.”30 Even though Mead’s statement is true for some men in our society, I believe that the majority of the men in our society are responsible and do take the responsibility of fatherhood very seriously and are raising productive young men in our society.

BRINGING THE WAR BACK HOME The odds that a boy born in America in 1974 will be murdered are higher than the odds that a serviceman in World War II would be killed in combat.31 

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US Senator Phil Gramm said, “When you look at some neighborhoods, the odds really mount. Colin Powell in an interview noted that he was fortunate to make it out of a neighborhood and survive; only he and two others lived to make it out of Harlem. Powell had strong family support.”32 What impact will the absence of fathers have on such children and on society? Fatherhood is society’s most important role for men because it helps men to become good men: more likely to obey the law, to be good citizens and to think about the needs of others. Moreover, fatherhood enriches children by providing a father’s physical protection and material resources, by contributing to identity, character, and competence, and by satisfying the day-today nurturing fundamental to a child’s well-being. By helping men become good men and by enriching children, fatherhood advances society’s interests. Rising fatherlessness, however, has become the major cause of declining child well-being and the underlying source of our most important social problems, especially those rooted in violence. Note the following observations: 1. Children living apart from their fathers, particularly male children, are more likely to engage in violent acts: The rapid growth of crime in our society over the past three decades does not derive from traditional male norms but from the decline of certain traditional male norms, particularly the norm of paternal obligation and the duty to provide for children. 2. Fatherlessness increases the incidence of domestic violence. One would expect that the absence of fathers in the home would decrease rather that increase the incidence of domestic violence. However, absent fathers are often replaced by father-substitutes— stepfathers and live-in boyfriends—who are uninhibited by fatherhood. Married fatherhood emerges 82

The Cost of a Fatherless Society as the primary inhibitor of male domestic violence. By reducing the likelihood of sexual jealousy and paternal uncertainty, by directing the male’s aggression toward the support of his children and the mother of his children, married fatherhood dramatically restricts the tendency among men toward violent behavior. Absent such inhibitions, unmarried women are four times more likely to be abused by their boyfriends than married women are likely to be abused by their husbands. 3. The spreading risk of childhood sexual abuse is directly related to the decline of married fatherhood and the growing presence of unrelated males in households with children. 4. Children living apart from their fathers are more likely to live in poverty and lack economic security. For 1992, in married-couple homes, the median income was approximately $41,000 and only about 13 percent of all young children lived in poverty. 5. In single-mother homes, the median income was approximately $9,000 and about 66 percent of young children lived in poverty. Increasingly, whether one lives in poverty or prosperity depends upon whether one has a father. 6. Adolescent childbearing is inextricably linked to the decline of fatherhood—not only because more and more adolescent boys are willing to impregnate girls without the slightest intention of becoming an effective father but also because more and more adolescent girls are growing up without a father in the home.27

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A father’s love and involvement builds a daughter’s confidence in her own femininity and contributes to her sense that she is worth loving. This sense of love-worthiness gives young women a greater sense of autonomy and independence in later relationships with men. Consequently, women who have had good relationships with their fathers are less likely to engage in an anxious quest for male approval or to seek male affection through promiscuous sexual behavior. Conversely, young women who lack a good relationship or any relationship with their fathers are more likely to engage in such behavior.

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CHAPTER 13

IT’S TIME FOR CHANGE avid Blankenhorn, author of Fatherless America: Confronting our Most Urgent Social Problem, argues for the restoration of the idea of the “Good Family Man.” To this end, he notes: “As a father, the Good Family Man is not perfect, but he is good enough to be irreplaceable. He is married. He stays around. He is a father on the premises. His children need him and he strives to give them what they need, every day. He knows that nothing can substitute for him. Either he is a father or his children are fatherless. He would never consider himself ‘not that important’ to his children. Such men provide for, protect, nurture, and sponsor their children. As providers, Good Family Men understand that they have a responsibility to provide financially for their families. As protectors, Good Family Men ensure not only the physical safety of their children, but also their moral safety by deflecting destructive societal forces. As nurturers, Good Family Men assist their wives in managing the household and providing the affection and attention children require from both parents. As such, Good Family Men supplement and complement the efforts of their wives. Finally, as sponsors, Good Family Men teach their children a way of life: More than providing for their material needs, or shielding them from danger, or even taking care of them and showing them affection, paternal sponsorship means cultural transmission—endowing children with competence and character by showing them how to live a certain kind of life.”27

D

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Blankenhorn then proposes twelve measures intended to spark a renewal of fatherhood: 1. Requesting every man in the United States to take a pledge affirming the principle that every child deserves a father 2. Creating a new governmental agency responsible for reporting annually on the state of fatherhood 3. Organizing fathers into clubs aimed at renewing fatherhood through father-child activities 4. Expending tax dollars and providing regulatory relief to create safe zones intended to reduce male violence 5. Asking married fathers to reside in public housing with their families with a view toward reducing male violence 6. Encouraging new non-partisan populist movements to empower families and strengthen community life 7. Establishing an interfaith council to defend the institution of marriage; 8. Requiring legislatures to consider whether a particular piece of legislation strengthens or weakens the institution of marriage 9. Drafting community vision statements that defend the institution of marriage 10. Supporting legislation to regulate sperm banks 11. Organizing professional athletes into a public service campaign on the importance of fatherhood 12. Writing a new textbook for high school students on marriage and family.27

DEAL WITH THE TRUTH We may not agree with all of Blankenhorn’s ideas and suggestions but, we have to admit, it gives us a place to start. In a society that

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It’s Time for Change is taken over by violence, drugs and hopelessness, just to name a few, we need to take an honest assessment of our culture and look deep within ourselves. What is our responsibility to the truth? We must address these problems in our communities. Our people are not going away—we have to face them head on and deal with them. No one person has the answer, but as a society we need to come together to unite and agree to be a part of the solution and not perpetuate the problem. The Source and Sustainer of every man is Christ. It is time for the churches to go after men and lead them back to the Father through Jesus Christ. When men get back to Christ, they return to their rightful position in creation as fathers like the Father. Only then can men sustain their marriages, families, communities, and nation. Myles Monroe said, “The Father can only create or generate in his children what he has received from his father. Father is the source, the creator, the generator, and the progenitor. Future generations can receive only what the father gives them. Since Adam rejects his Father, thereby rendering him fatherless, the only inheritance he had to give to future generations was sin and death—a fatherless inheritance. As a fatherless child, Adam’s bequest to humanity was fatherlessness.”25 “One more point needs to be made. If Adam’s first child was a woman, and Adam was fatherless, then all women, starting with Eve, are fatherless. That means women are looking for just one thing—a father, not a husband. They are suffering from fatherlessness. All too often, women are lost and making so many mistakes because all they have in the house is a husband, not a father. What they need is a father who can teach them about the Father, God. Without fathers, there is a curse upon women and future generations. In essence, every husband must also become his wife’s father.”25 Salvation is the result of a man—Jesus, the Second Adam— providing us with the way to return to the Father. When the second Adam (Jesus) came to earth, He returned the orphaned children of humanity back to their Father, God. Remember, Adam left his

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Father. The mission of Jesus was to return our fatherless, orphaned humanity back to the Father God. Malachi prophesied that this would happen when John the Baptist prepared the way for the Messiah: “He will turn the hearts of the fathers to their children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers; or else I will come and strike the land with a curse” (Malachi 4:6). As I continued my research on this topic, I came across an article written by MSNBC Reporter Michael E. Ross, who indicated that the picture isn’t new, but the depths of its despair and pathology are new. Ross reports, “At a time when the U.S. economy is on the upswing and more people are finding work, young African American men are falling further behind.”33 That’s the grim portrait painted by three new and forthcoming books by scholars at Columbia, Georgetown, and Princeton universities. The U.S. Census Bureau estimates there are about five million black men in America between the ages of twenty and thirty-nine. The new books, and an earlier one from Harvard, find that these men are losing ground in mainstream American society despite the advances made by black women who are presumably part of the same socioeconomic experience. This vexing problem is caused by a variety of social ills.34

AMONG THE STUDY’S FINDINGS: 9 Rates of imprisonment for young black men escalated throughout the 1990s and continued climbing well into the current decade. About 16% of black men in their twenties who were not college students were either in jail or in prison. 9 African Americans are seven times more likely to go to prison or jail than whites.

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It’s Time for Change 9 Almost 60% of black male high school dropouts in their early thirties have spent time in prison. 9 The percentage of young jobless black men continues to increase, part of a trend that generally hasn't abated in decades. In 2000, about 65% of black male high-school dropouts had no jobs, either because they couldn't find work or because they were in jail. By 2004, the studies found that the number had grown to 72%. 9 The numbers for young black men were higher than for whites and Hispanics similarly affected. Making matters worse, a forthcoming book, which includes a study of nearly 1,500 private employers in New York City, found that black job applicants with no criminal records weren’t any more likely to get a job than white applicants who were just out of prison.

PERSISTENCE OF IMBALANCE Princeton sociology professor, Devah Pager, said, “A lot of people are skeptical that African Americans still face discrimination in the job market. But even in a diverse city like New York, the evidence of discrimination is unmistakable.”35 “The 1990s were an eye-opener,” said Harry Holzer, a professor of public policy at Georgetown University. “You had the strongest labor market in thirty years; all things being equal, those were good times for African Americans. A lot of black moms were entering the labor market, but the dads kept dropping out.”36

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ONE PROBLEM, MANY CAUSES Holzer sees many reasons for the bleak situation: unemployment, enduring bias in American life, the disproportionate impact of the war on drugs. “When you look at what’s responsible, there’s a lot of stories,” he said, “the labor market changed a lot. There was a disappearance of good jobs for less educated men. For blacks you have continuing problems of discrimination, job flight from the cities. “The worst employment problems are in the Northeast areas— Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland—the Rust Belt cities where a generation ago black men relied on heavy manufacturing. The fraction of black men in heavy manufacturing has dropped precipitously,” Holzer said. “Those areas are also among the most racially segregated in the country. It might not just be the disappearance of those jobs—some of the work got outsourced — but also the disappearance of the quality of schools and neighborhoods left behind.” But for Holzer, the biggest problem is the large number of imprisoned men. “When you have a system where one-third of African American men are in the criminal justice system, you’re going to have problems.” He says solutions will be rooted in education and employment. “I think we need to emphasize three broad approaches: first, a range of education, training and youth development, especially in middle school and high school, to prevent boys from disconnecting and to prepare them for the labor market.” “Then we need to improve their financial incentives to accept lower-wage jobs by raising the minimum wage and extending the earned income tax credit to low-income childless adults, especially if they pay child support,” Holzer said, “and we should address the specific problems faced by ex-offenders and non-custodial fathers as they attempt to enter the labor market.”36

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“SELF-FULFILLING PROPHECY” Otherwise, Holzer senses the persistence of a chilling condition among young black American men, what might be called preemptive despair. “You see this disconnection problem with young boys in their adolescent years starting to drift away,” he said. “The girls are graduating more. But it’s almost as if these young boys look down the road and sense a bleak future and they disconnect early—a self-fulfilling prophecy.”36

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CHAPTER 14

THE FATHERLESS BOYS ow important is the father as a teacher to their children? Dr. Myles Munroe, founder of Bahamas Faith Ministries International, explains the importance through the commands of God to Abraham to his household and the generation after him. “If a man takes the responsibility to become the teacher and instructor in his home, he attracts God’s favor and blessing. Why? Because the father being a teacher is the source, that everyone who comes out of him must look to him for instruction. God teaches the father to teach the future generations.”25 Look again at Adam and Eve in Genesis 1-3. Dr. Munroe said, “Eve was taken out of Adam. Eve was designed and fashioned to be a receiver, but she was receiving from the wrong source. Adam is the giver, obviously. So a female really is a receiver and an incubator. The woman does not initiate, she responds. She gives to her children as she has received from her husband who is also her father. The man gives seed to the woman, and she gives back to the man a child. She takes what a man gives her, multiplies it, and gives it back. What incubators do is give life to the seed.” “Herein lies a key principle: Whatever seed the father plants and whatever he teaches, that seed and instruction will be birthed through the mother to the children and the children’s children. So, whatever Eve gave back to Adam was supposed to have been an increase and multiplication of that which Adam gave her in the first place. But, Eve broke the principle. She came to Adam with something he never gave her. She had received from a source other than the right source. God’s purpose was distorted. God imparted to

H

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The Fatherless Boys Adam. Adam instructed Eve, but Eve went to another source for teaching and instruction—the serpent. Consequently, instead of bringing back the fruit of life, Eve offered Adam the fruit of death.” “Life comes from God the Father. Lies and destruction are what the devil gives. It is no wonder that, when Eve birthed children, the first fruit born by her children was hate and murder. She had received from the source not of God and birthed the thing she had received—death.”25 Applying this principle in our families, we can see that our children are supposed to bring back to us all that we have deposited into them. The only way for a father to know how well he has done is by his grandchildren. If the father has taught his wife and children the things of God, then godly lives will be produced in his children’s children. But if the father is absent or fails to teach the principles and precepts of the truth from the Word of God, then sin will be the fruit of his children’s children. It’s that simple. That is the awesome power of the father as a teacher: Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. The one who sows to please his sinful nature, from that nature will reap destruction; the one who sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life (Galatians 6:7, 8, niv).

A wife and mother can bear only good fruit when the father sows into her the fruit of the Spirit. We see the result of sowing into the flesh all the time. Fathers who sow abuse, reap abuse. Fathers who sow addiction have addicted wives and children. Fathers who sow divorce, reap divorce. Fathers who sow love, reap love, “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, fruitfulness, gentleness, self-control” (Galatians 5:22-23). This is the result of boys who have no father to teach and give them instructions. On August 20, 1998, Reuters News reported the results of a new study by Cynthia Harper of the University of Pennsylvania and Sara S. McLanahan of Princeton University:

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“Young men who grow up in homes without fathers are twice as likely to end up in jail as those who come from traditional twoparent families . . . those boys whose fathers were absent from the household had double the odds of being incarcerated—even when other factors such as race, income, parent education, and urban residence were held constant.”37 The following is a sample of what other sources have had to say about the risks faced by fatherless children:      

63% of youth suicides are from fatherless homes38 85% of all children that exhibit behavioral disorders come from fatherless homes39 80% of rapists motivated with displaced anger come from fatherless homes40 71% of all high school dropouts come from fatherless homes41 70% of juveniles in state-operated institutions come from fatherless homes42 85% of all youths sitting in prisons grew up in a fatherless home43

IT IS FATHERHOOD THAT MAKES CHILDHOOD POSSIBLE “A judge will try a divorce case in the morning and place the children in the mother’s custody,” says Reverend Malachi Walker. “He will try a criminal case in the afternoon and send a man to prison for robbing a liquor store. The chances are three out of four that the criminal he sends to prison grew up in a female headed household just like the one he himself created that morning when he tried the divorce case. He can’t see any connection between the two cases. The time lag prevents him: the kids he placed in the mother’s custody were toddlers and the criminal he sent to prison was in his teens or twenties. Toddlers don’t rob liquor stores.”

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The Fatherless Boys Says Walker, “Besides most fatherless boys don’t grow up to rob liquor stores and most fatherless girls don’t grow up to breed illegitimate children. Therefore what? Therefore the legal policy of giving custody to mothers is OK? Therefore we can ignore the increased probability that fatherlessness will create delinquency?” “This is the ‘safe drunk driver argument.’ Most drunk drivers don’t get in accidents. They get home safely and sleep it off. Therefore drunk driving is OK. It’s not OK. And exiling fathers from families is not OK.”44 Sociologist David Popenoe in his recent book, Life Without Father, states that the facts that will not go away: “The negative consequences of fatherlessness are all around us. They affect children, women, and men. Evidence indicating damage to children has accumulated in near tidal-wave proportions. Fatherless children experience significantly more physical, emotional, and behavioral problems than do children growing up in intact families.”45 Why do judges routinely award custody of children to mothers when they try a divorce case? The world will give us two reasons: 1. There is a mindset that fatherhood is simply male participation in reproduction. 2. Judges recognize that a child is dependent upon his or her mother. The truth is that children need both their mother and their father. This was formerly understood to mean they needed husbands and fathers. But husbands and fathers need to be given authority from their wives and children if they are to function as providers and protectors. God said, “He shall rule over thee (Genesis 3:16).” A man does not only need the sexual loyalty of his wife, but he also needs his wife’s respect for his position as the head of the home. Patriarchal civilization depends on male and female chastity and mutual respect for each other’s roles in the family.

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Rev. Malachi Walker writes, “It is fatherhood, which makes childhood possible. It is father absence which creates ghettos and gangs and messed-up kids—boys trying to find their identity through violence, girls trying to find their identity through sexual promiscuity, which will lead to the violence of the next generation. They need real fathers, ‘sociological fathers,’ not mere studs interested in sharing a one-night stand with Mom.”44 Until lawmakers and judges see that they must support the father’s role because it is the weak link in the family, we will have more matriarchy—along with its familiar accompaniments: crime, educational failure, illegitimacy, teen suicide, gangs, and the rest. Until about 100 years ago, fathers were unquestioned familial child-rearing authorities. Most men worked at home or close to home and participated hands-on in their children’s upbringing. Educators of boys were also nearly always male and the social environment boys inhabited were predominantly masculine. In traditional cultures, boys spend lots of time with their fathers and other adult male role models, developing into manhood surrounded by masculine energy. In the West, the Industrial Revolution destroyed normal family and community dynamics, removing fathers from the home. Carl Jung observed that sons develop their image of absent or emotionally distant fathers through the mother’s often aggrieved and resentful eyes and learn to view their own masculinity through the jaundiced lens of her hostility. This results in wounded images of both father and self. Today the problem is amplified. The notion that children are corrupted by exposure to masculine values is gaining increasingly wider acceptance.46 Jung writes, “In modern child-rearing theory and progressive education, supposedly female values of compassion, nurturing, forgiveness, rebirth, and renewal are emphasized positively, while masculine qualities of strength, protection, justice, judgment, and punishment are disparaged.”46

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The Fatherless Boys Some people feel that the traditional male values of honor, heroism, and restraint belong to a world of the past and even suggest that this may not be a bad thing. But it is a bad thing. Rev. Malachi Walker says, “Boys who grow up in a predominantly feminine environment risk low self-esteem, excessive and unhealthy dependence on females, and emotional immaturity. Only men can confer a sense of soul-union with other men. Only men can understand and truly empathize with the particular fears, anger, sadness, and sometimes despair that are part and parcel of being male.”44 Children need men as a constant in their lives. Both girls and boys need fathers who understand and affirm an essentially male approach to parenting and who can teach them that family life is something in which men can and should participate. Men and women are suited to different parenting roles at different times in a child’s development. “I changed lots of diapers when my kids were little,” says Rev. Malachi Walker, Pastor of Great Commission Church in Indianapolis, Indiana. “But I don’t think infant care is an activity men are hard-wired to assume naturally. Women are provided by nature with a baby-nurturing maternal instinct that men just do not possess. On the other hand, men are better equipped to teach children that life makes stiff demands and often has harsh consequences. Male parental approval is more qualified than motherlove, and fathers tend to discipline more by rules than by emotion. Kids of both sexes whose fathers actively participate in their early development tend to have higher IQs, get higher marks in school and possess a better sense of humor.”44

FATHERLESS BOYS FACED WITH A BIG DISADVANTAGE Malachi Walker writes, “The black males I work with suffer from hopelessness and delusions about life. Many are from single-parent

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homes and lack positive male role models to encourage, guide, nurture, discipline, and love them. While I applaud black mothers who have tried for centuries to fill this gap, fatherlessness is a major crisis for black males. When we look at our educational system, it is often unequipped to work with black males. The dropout rates, suspensions, and expulsions for black males are startling. Unlike when I was growing up attending Indianapolis Public Schools, it is a rarity to find black male teachers.”44

WRONG PRIORITIES Excelling in sports has become more important in this society than achieving an education despite the reality that few will make it to the professional ranks. Only five percent of high school athletes go on to become college athletes—five out of every 100 high school athletes. Only three percent of college athletes become pros. Another obstacle facing black males is disparaging sentencing within the criminal justice system and a lack of opportunity for change once they are released from the penal institutions. How do we expect them to turn it around when they are unable to find adequate jobs, housing, and support once they are released? Instead of encouraging them, we kick them further into the abyss of hopelessness.

BLACK MEN MUST STAND UP Black men need to stand up and be men of integrity, honesty, provision, and direction. They need to be mentors who are willing to go into some of these homes that are lacking fathers and set good examples. And not for one day or one year, but for the long haul. We have to find ways to keep our black males in school and help them to graduate high school and college. More creativity is needed in teaching methods to reach them. We should reward them for not selling drugs, for not perpetuating illegitimacy, and for graduating from school. They must be 98

The Fatherless Boys shown how to make the honor roll, find jobs, become entrepreneurs, and serve God and their communities. Teaching them how to overcome adversity is crucial. Showing them how to handle disagreement without anger and without killing is a necessity. And they must learn to value life. Earning an honest living to pay for what they need in life is important. In an age of economic crises, they must be taught how to be patient and work toward their goals.

WORKING TOGETHER There are churches, schools, and other institutions addressing these problems and trying to make a difference. Sadly, however, they struggle for funding, recognition, and volunteers. Some are wellknown entities; some are the best-kept secrets in town. Uniting to help those groups save black males is one of the solutions we must embrace. Black males are becoming extinct. Finger pointing is no longer acceptable. Hillary Clinton reminded us of something we already know: It takes a village to raise a child. It takes me—and you. We are their hope for a brighter future.47

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FATHERLESS GIRLS onetta Rose Barras, author of Whatever Happened to Daddy’s Little Girl, wrote, “Initially, fatherless girls camouflaged their rage, giving it a universal aura and keeping it hidden in personal relationships or inside their homes. Now, following the lead of fatherless boys who over the past two decades have increasingly terrorized society with sordid brands of violence, ravaging communities and creating death tolls that rival small wars, some fatherless girls have taken their hostilities to the street. They have turned their anger onto society, becoming involved in drug sales, gangs, murder, and general mayhem.”48 Growth in the female population since 1980 under Federal and State correctional authorities increased more than 500%, from about 13,400 in 1980 to about 84,400 at the calendar year-end 1998, with the preponderance in state facilities. While far smaller than the total male inmate population, the female inmate population is growing at a faster rate. From 1990 to 1998, the annual rate of growth for female inmate populations averaged 8.5 %, versus an average annual increase of 6.6 % for male inmates. Also, from 1990 to 1997 (most recently available data), imprisonment rates for both female and male inmates showed widespread disparities by race. In 1997, black females were more than twice as likely as Hispanic females and eight times more likely than white females to be in prison according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS).49 Characteristics of a typical female inmate was over the age of thirty and a member of the racial or ethnic minority. Before entering

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Fatherless Girls prison, a large percentage of the female inmates had abused drugs and had experienced physical and sexual abuse. A large majority of female inmates in Federal and State prisons were unmarried and almost two-thirds had at least one minor child. The number of minor children whose mothers were in Federal and State prisons increased from about 61,000 in 1991 to 110,000 in 1997. Women prisoners are disproportionately women of color, with African American women comprising 46% of the population nationwide, white women comprising 36%, and Hispanic Women comprising 14%. Incarcerated women are overwhelmingly poor. The majority of women prisoners in a federal prison (53%) and women in a county jail (74%) were unemployed prior to incarceration.28 “The relationship between family structure and crime is so strong that controlling between family configuration erases the relationship between race and crime and between low income and crime,” says William Galston and Elaine Kamarck, authors of an essay entitled, “Putting Children First: A Progressive Family Policy for the 1990s.”50 The national Center for Juvenile Justice reported a 125 percent increase in violent crimes committed by girls between 1985 and 1994. Furthermore, female gangs are sprouting up throughout the country, especially in urban centers.51 Lowell Duckett, a retired lieutenant in the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department who worked in the Special Emphasis Unit that focuses on gang activity, says the majority of the girls in these gangs come from single-parent homes, suffer low self-esteem, and have a need to feel safe or protected. He says that while most female gangs tend to be unarmed, when they do have weapons, they are as violent (and sometimes even more violent) as their male counterparts. “Males will shoot just enough rounds; females will empty the gun into you,” he adds. Duckett observes, “Once again, the fatherless girl, engaged in this type of violence, is hoping to ensure that she is in control. If the person doesn’t die or isn’t significantly injured, then that person

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will return to hurt her. Further, the fatherless daughter sees in her mind’s eye the people who have hurt her. She is looking to get even, to settle the score. It doesn’t matter if her targets are male or female. Both mother and father in some way have caused her agony. They should pay.”52 Jonetta Rose Barras says, “Sometimes the fatherless women in the throes of the Rational Application Developer (RAD) Factor turn the dagger on herself, and the range and anger become depression. She is unable to act; this inability to advance the course of her life may seem to some to be bland and without hostility. But while it is a passive song, the screeching wail has reached such a fever pitch only the soul hears it; the fatherless woman suffering depression deliberately wounds herself over and over each day.”48

“NOT QUITE GOOD ENOUGH” According to Jonetta Barras, arriving at a place of comfort is more difficult for African American women, who each day meet a mainstream culture that, absent segregation, still does not fully embrace the black aesthetic and personality. Even today, when more and more young people are singing black music, can recite the name of African American athletes, and don urban, Afro-centric attire, the whole of society still whispers to the black women, You’re not quite good enough. Your hair is too nappy, your butt too wide, your nose not pointed enough, and your lips too full. This kind of subliminal rejection by American’s patriarchal society forces African American women into the syndrome even when they are reared in two-parent households. “That rejection accounts for the aggressive drive in some women—the desire to succeed, and the increased expressions of the RAD Factors through the burgeoning numbers of black women suffering depression.”48 “Every day, a woman makes a choice between state of the queen and state of the slave girl,” notes Marianne Williamson, author of

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Fatherless Girls A Woman’s Worth, a book that explores the role of women in the world and the mistakes we make that minimize that role. “In our natural state, we are glorious beings. In the world of illusion we are lost and imprisoned, slaves to our appetites and our will to false power. Our jailer is a three-headed monster; one head our past, one our insecurity, and one our popular culture. Love should never ask you to relinquish your own feelings.”53 There isn’t a blueprint that women follow to soothe the pain and the scars of fatherlessness. Each girl or woman must find her way. But there are some common, generic keys that can help open a few doors. We must learn to celebrate ourselves and sing our own songs.

ABORTION—THE SILENT KILLER Since 1973, when abortion was legalized, abortion has taken millions of black lives—and I say it this way because I believe an unborn child is indeed a living being. Here in Pennsylvania, blacks make up no more than twelve percent of the population, yet about forty percent of all abortions in the state are performed on African American women. According to the Alan Guttmacher Institute, a nonprofit research organization and affiliate of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, black women are three times more likely than white women to have abortions.54 From 1999-2002, an average of 844 black babies were aborted each day in America, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. How many women are sitting in the pews of black churches, silently mourning the children they aborted?55  Research from the Elliot Institute, an organization in Springfield, Illinois, that studies the aftereffects of abortion on women, shows that those who abort are more likely to attempt suicide and more likely to abuse drugs and alcohol.56 There is a hidden health crisis affecting black women. I believe abortion is its cause.

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 It’s high time we start a new dialogue about the impact of abortion on the African American community. Young black women must be shown that there are viable alternatives to abortion, such as seeking help from churches or crisis pregnancy centers or adoption. They don’t have to shoulder the burden of unexpected pregnancy alone.  Abortion will never be a solution to poverty, racial discrimination, or the shortage of black women in politics. Abortion is a failed public policy, which is tantamount to setting off a bomb in black families. It will take us decades as a people to recover from this tragedy. “They call themselves ‘pro-choice’ advocates,” says Dr. David C. Reardon of the Elliot Institute. “But in fact, as our research over the last twenty years has shown, what they are really selling women is a ‘poor choice.’ Women who make the choice to have an abortion subsequently face an elevated risk of death from all causes (especially suicide), more depression, more substance abuse, more delivery problems in later pregnancies, more divorces, more breast cancer . . . and the list goes on and on.”57 “It is especially important to note that there is no evidence that abortion is ever a good choice. Specifically, there is not a single known statistically validated study demonstrating that abortion generally makes women’s lives better. The only claims of benefits are anecdotal—and even in these cases, the women often say that while they don’t regret having chosen abortion, they have struggled with it, or at best, have not had any major problems ‘yet.’  Given the fact that women who suffer emotional reactions to abortion often suppress these emotions, this anecdotal evidence is very weak indeed.”  “Abortion is not a liberating, healthy choice. In most cases, women who submit to abortions only do so in response to the pressures of circumstance (or other people). Often, they simply feel that they have ‘no choice but the poor choice of abortion.’ ”  If abortion does not help women, why are we killing babies? I found that a

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Fatherless Girls lot of people who consider themselves pro-choice, once they began hearing that, they began thinking, ‘Why are we doing this?’ . . . . they are some how able to live with abortion if they think that women are being helped.”56 Reardon continues, “On the political side we have fallen into the trap, a choice between helping the baby or helping the woman. Whose rights are more important, the baby or the woman? That’s a false dichotomy. God joined woman and child together in such a way that to help one you have to help the other, if you hurt one you are going to hurt the other. It’s unavoidable.” “When we think of sermon on abortion there is a tendency to think of a ‘thou shalt not’ sermon. Abortion is an evil, it’s destroying a human life, thou shalt not. Ah. And that’s true. But the balance of that is that God’s mercy is so great and loving, and embracing to those who get caught in this trap. We need to understand the diabolical aspects that trap people in this, and keep people from healing. We need as a Church to really emphasize more and more an outreach in post-abortion healing. We have programs like Project Rachel, still a little-known part of the Church activity. My advice and my advocacy is that we need to make post-abortion healing a very high priority within the Church.” Says Reardon, “We have to defuse this notion that we are only ‘fetus-lovers’ and don’t care about women: we care about the women, we care about them before abortions, and we care about them afterwards. And they are never separated from us in our hearts and in our desire to help them find healing. We have to build up a sense of hope and understanding that there is healing. You do not have to be afraid. And it is a scary thing to go through, and many don’t want to deal with it, don’t want to confront it. But we’ve got to bring forward the women and men who have been through the process and let them share their joy. There is so much joy after mourning and through the healing and coming back into the Church, and receiving the Sacraments with joy, and being free of the secret.”56

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And so abortion recovery and healing can be a great evangelization opportunity for the Church. Once men and women who’ve been involved in abortions find the healing and peace that they have been seeking, it can be infectious and it is also life transforming. They have been into the pit, they have seen evil, they have stared evil in the face, and they don’t want any part of it in the future. We talk about the need for spiritual revival in this country. Ironically, I think that God has allowed this evil of abortion to be the tilling of the soil—the breaking of souls that will bring about the healing. Psalm 51: 17 says, “A broken and a contrite heart, O God, You will not despise.” And this is what abortion does to people— it breaks them and it humbles them. The greatest threat in all sin, of course, is having excuses. And as people realize they can throw aside all excuses and cling to the cross, that is where they find the healing and the life transforming power of Christ.

THE HEALING BALM Jonetta Rose Barras, author of Whatever Happened to Daddy’s Little Girl, notes that there are other specific steps the fatherless daughter can take to heal herself. They are summarized here to inspire your healing journey: 1. Speak the truth, unabashedly. Father loss is painful. It is affecting and has affected your life. You should not be ashamed of this. 2. View life through your adult eyes. For most of our lives, we fatherless daughters have seen the world with a child’s eyes. We are angry at the world for taking him away. Angry with our mothers for sending him away. Angry with ourselves for not being special enough to keep him at home. It is hard to know what drove your mother and father to divorce or never to

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Fatherless Girls marry, or for your father simply to walk away. We cannot fathom or manage the complexities of adult interpersonal relationships because emotionally we are still children, believing that if we don’t behave as our mother did, then our husbands, lovers, and mates won’t reject us; they won’t abandon us. We do somersaults, leap tall buildings; we try to affect our own miracles, all because we are living neck-deep in fear and seeing the world as children. 3. Let go of the fantasy. Your father, even before he and your mother got divorced, wasn’t perfect. He wasn’t perfect before he abandoned you. He wasn’t perfect when he died. Therefore, he comes with his own set of human flaws that may have affected his relationship with your mother, or caused his death. The reality is, he was just a man—someone you loved and maybe someone you still love. 4. Identify the ways you believe you were affected by father loss. Knowing specifically how you were affected helps with beginning to change your behavioral patterns. You want to be your best self. You have been hurt, you are in pain, but sleeping with two hundred partners won’t make it better, nor will running away from love guarantee a life without further anguish. In fact, anti-intimate behaviors increase the likelihood that the opposite will occur. 5. Come out of the closet. “Once you are out of the closet yourself, you will discover that there are many, many like you, others like you, other who can understand exactly how you feel because they have been there themselves,” says Harris. “It feels wonderful to find another survivor who knows firsthand what you are

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going through. Pain is miraculously halved when it is shared.” 6. Refuse to see yourself as a victim. “A victim is someone who has no choices, someone who is dependent on those around her to protect her. A victim looks outside herself, not inside, for clues about her feelings, her next move,” asserts Roth. 7. Enough with the mea culpas. You are worthy! You have not committed a mortal sin. There isn’t a need, as I believed as a child, for the fatherless daughter to beat her chest and cry mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa. God did not single you out for punishment. You are not Job. You do not have to make penance. You were not responsible for your fatherlessness. But you are responsible for what happens from this point on in your life. You can choose whether you will be forever handicapped by your experience, or whether you will use adversity to your advantage, allowing yourself to be empowered by it. 8. Go ahead, cry. Grieve. Cry all day and all night, if you want. “Tears belong to the wounded woman. The tears can be congealed in ice from with the dagger like points and edges of icicles. Or they can rush out in a torrential storm that can flood the ground upon which a woman stands,” says Linda Schierse Leonard, author of The Wounded Woman: Healing the FatherDaughter Relationship, a book which explores the father-daughter relationship from a feminist and psycho spiritual perspective. “But the tears may also fall like the fructifying rain which enables growth and spring’s rebirth.” For years you have lived a pain-filled life. You masked it with dysfunctional behavior. You

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Fatherless Girls slept with every Joe, Curtis, and Michael. You took your anger out on anyone who ventured into your environment—even your children. You were too afraid to love anyone, so you made them keep their distance and when they didn’t you made a beeline for the nearest door. You used drugs, you overate, and maybe you tried to prove you were queen of the mountain. You must be worn out. Your spirit must be screaming to be comforted, to just realize all of that frustration, all of that sadness. “Healing is about opening our heart, not closing them. It is about softening the places in us that won’t let love in. Healing is a process. It is about rocking back and forth between the abuse of the past and the fullness of the present and being in the present more and more of the time.” Let it out. Then get ready for the rest of your life.48 9. Learn to trust, again. The fatherless woman is riddled with fears. She is ruled by fear. She is a slave to her fears. Fear, as Audrey Chapman says, is the absence of trust. Because we lost our fathers, either through death, divorce, or abandonment, we develop an enormous fear about rejection and being alone. If we can’t trust our father to hang around, whom can we trust? If we can’t trust ourselves to select the right men, whom can we trust? The issue is always there, plaguing us, unresolved. Before the fatherless girl can heal fully, she must learn to trust again. One step at a time is the method I use and continue to use. I don’t test people or even test myself by saying, If he does this, then I know he can be trusted. That’s game playing, and no one has time for that. But I do pay attention to the little things. Are promises kept? If they aren’t, what reasons are given? Is my date on time? If he isn’t what reason is given? If I am in trouble and call for favor, 109

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how does my friend respond? And then I ask myself how much any of this really matters to my friendship, and to my survival. 10. Gain Mastery over your life. Some people use their careers as a way of gaining control over their lives. But the fatherless daughter has to be careful about how important she allows her career to become in her life. Instead, she should seek balance while developing a plan to reconcile herself with herself. Spend a few days listening to your inner voice: Ask yourself what you are saying about you. What do you like about yourself? Are you happy with your current case of friends? Are you tired of being the aggressor? One day I simply resolved to evict my masculine self; she had gained control over every room in my internal house. And, while she was getting things done, Lord, she was creating a bunch of other issues and wearing me out. Reconnecting to yourself offers an opportunity to discover what you have done to separate you from the parts of yourself as a woman. The realization that the masculine had taken control over my internal house was the beginning of reclaiming myself. 11. Feel free to re-create yourself. The fatherless daughter unable to locate her true self may want to start at the present. She may want simply to remark herself. She can’t forget her past, but she can reduce its importance. Just as she tried to remark herself for others, she may want to do it for herself. It took me nearly thirty years to arrive at a place where I am happy with myself, although, to be sure, there are things that need further improvement. Considering my starting line, I haven’t done too badly—but the greatest improvement came after I met my spiritual father. 110

Fatherless Girls 12. Find that Father. Find your father, literally or figuratively. Return to where the problem all began. Reach out to your fathers, tell them about your pain, tell them what they thought they missed, ask them why they left. In order to have a complete picture of yourself, you need to know the other side—the father. Find him. 13. Choose a good surrogate. If you can’t find your father or you are not interested in reconnecting with him because he was abusive or “no good,” then create a father for yourself. Find a male relative, family friend, or older friend who will serve in that role. Let him in on what role you want him to play and why. Don’t use him as a sugar daddy, someone on whom you would grow dependent. Do use your surrogate as a confidant, a guide, someone with whom you can share parts of your life and can trust to handle them with care. 14. Hold a funeral and say good-bye. When a father has died or there simply is no chance reconciliation can occur and a surrogate isn’t enough to sufficiently heal the wound. Do a dance, write a poem, write a letter, hold a funeral, do whatever you need to do, but say goodbye. Let the sadness you feel be expressed; let the anger you feel be expressed. And when all that needed to be said to your father is said, release him. 15. Forgive and forget. These are the greatest gifts the fatherless daughter can give to herself. If there is no forgiving of her parents, especially her father, then there can be no moving on to her future. But even before she forgives her father, she must forgive herself the mistakes she has made in her life. This is

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one area of my life the Lord worked diligently with me. It took some time, but it did happen. I had that pain for so long it became part of me, and I was not ready to let it go. It gave me the excuses and the justifications to make the choices I did; I had someone to blame for my mistakes. When I came to the realization that I was the one in pain, while his life is going on, I surrendered and let it go, and then resolved to salute my present and become infectiously excited about the glorious future that awaits me.47

SISTER, YOU ARE THE WOMAN OF PROVERBS 31 The Book of Proverbs in the Bible speaks of the worthy woman. My sister, stop believing the lies of the devil, and start to concentrate on the words God says about you. You are this woman. Do not get overwhelmed by all the things this woman can do and miss out on the central message of who she is and who you can become. She multitasks; she is responsible for taking care of her husband, children, job, church commitments, charitable work, and sometimes elderly parents. She is a helper and she is a leader. As described by Dr. Myles Munroe, this woman receives seed into her physical, emotional, psychological, and spiritual wombs, incubates it, and then uses it to build and transform the world around her. While she is fulfilling all of these vital purposes in the home and in the world, she knows her first place is in God. An excellent wife, who can find? For her worth is far above jewels. The heart of her husband trusts in her, and he will have no lack of gain. She does him good and not evil all the days of her life. She looks for wool and flax and works with her hands in delight. She is like merchant ships; she brings her food from afar. She rises also while it is still night and gives food to her household and portions to her maidens. She considers a field and buys it; from her earnings she plants a vineyard. She girds herself with

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Fatherless Girls strength and makes her arms strong. She senses that her gain is good; her lamp does not go out at night. She stretches out her hands to the distaff, and her hands grasp the spindle. She extends her hand to the poor, and she stretches out her hands to the needy. She is not afraid of the snow for her household, for all her household are clothed with scarlet. She makes coverings for herself; her clothing is fine linen and purple. Her husband is known in the gates, when he sits among the elders of the land. She makes linen garments and sells them, and supplies belts to the tradesmen. Strength and dignity are her clothing, and she smiles at the future. She opens her mouth in wisdom, and the teaching of kindness is on her tongue. She looks well to the ways of her household, and does not eat the bread of idleness. Her children rise up and bless her; her husband also, and he praises her, saying: “Many daughters have done nobly, but you excel them all.” Charm is deceitful and beauty is vain, but a woman who fears the Lord, she shall be praised. Give her the product of her hands, and let her works praise her in the gates (Proverbs 31).

THE FATHER AS A LEADER “Being the head of the family does not impart more worth or value to the man. Being the head has to do with responsibility. Too many men confuse being the head with being the boss. A father is not the boss of his house; a father is the head. A father doesn’t rule his house; he leads his house. We must understand the function of the father as leader in the house.”25 This simple principle has been ignored in our society. We have homes where women are giving commands but never received instruction. So the children do not feel any authority nor sense any power in Mom’s voice because there is no man in the house. As a result, there is lawlessness and rebellion in the home expressed in the behavior and attitude of the children. The father is really the key to healing the whole society and fixing the family. In his family, he must return to his God-given function of being a teacher like the Father who teaches him.

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THE GREAT LOVE STORY here do I begin to tell the story of a love that never goes away and never ends? A love story that is older than the sea, the simple truth of the love of Christ and the joy He brings to us. The Lord Jesus Christ has delivered me and continues to deliver me from many things in my life. In the process of writing this book I discovered my own issues of fatherlessness that had not been addressed. Some emotions are buried so deep within us it takes a sledgehammer to root them up. Yet, when we allow Him, the Grace of God will give us a life of complete wholeness—and this is the desire of the Father for his children. We are His beloved.

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Beloved, I pray that in all respects you may prosper and be in good health, just as your soul prospers. For I was very glad when brethren came and testified to your truth, that is, how you are walking in truth. I have one greater joy than this, to here of my children walking in the truth (III John 1:2-4).

To live a life of wholeness means nothing is missing and nothing is broken or damaged. Life is not a fraction, but complete. Just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him. In love He predestined us to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, which He freely bestowed on us in the Beloved. In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace. Also, we have obtained an inheritance having been predestined according to His purpose who works all things after the counsel of His will (Ephesians 1:4-7, 11).

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The Great Love Story Our father fracture shapes how we react and imbeds low selfesteem, inferiority, and insecurity. It also shapes how we treat each other. But thank God for Jesus, who not only came to earth to save us from our sins, but He also came to show us the Father. He gave new meaning to this empty world of mine. He showed me that I matter to Him. The God that created the Heaven and Earth; I matter to Him, you matter to Him, just the way you are. We don’t have to do anything for His love, because He gives it freely. How long does it last? Can love be measured by the hours in a day? I have no answer now, but this much I can say, I know I will need Him until the stars all burn away, and He will be there. Beloved, your earthly father may have abandoned, neglected, rejected, and abused you, but your Heavenly Father loves you. He created us because He is so full of love. The fountains from which love flows are in God, not in us. We cannot earn it; it’s a gift, given freely. One of my favorite movies is Love Story. There is verse in the song from that movie that tells of a great love. I am convinced the author was thinking of the Lord while writing this piece, He fills my heart with very special things, He fills my soul with so much love, that anywhere I go I am never lonely, He is always there.58

Sometimes we only have a legal relationship with God. We need to know He is our father. Our distorted view of God leaves us with problems in our lives. We will never know the depth of true love until we experience the love of Jesus Christ. We can’t heal ourselves; there must be an intervention by God. Today all things are changing. We serve notice to the curse; the father fracture is healed. Surely our grief ’s He himself bore and our sorrows He carried; yet we ourselves esteemed Him stricken, Smitten of God, and afflicted. But He was pierced through for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; the chastening for our well being fell upon Him, and by His scourging we are healed. (Isaiah 53:4-6).

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This is what our heavenly Father did for us; we don’t have to live in pain anymore. Rejoice . . . I am calling the mothers; come forth! I am calling the fathers, you are our foundation—come forth and take your place in the family, in the home, community and society! Your freedom comes from believing the word of God, what He says about you, Beloved. The desire of the Lord is for His children to believe Him. When you believe, He will underwrite your future. Once you have accepted the love the Lord gives so freely and you begin to know who you are in Christ, things will begin to change. First you will start to imagine everything the Lord says about you. When you can see it, then you will start to believe it. I am not saying it will be easy. In fact, you will face many challenges. You have been best friends with the devil a long time and, if so, he will not want to let you go without a fight. But when you have an end in mind, you can overcome anything that tries to block your victory. Take a moment and meditate in the words of the song, “Imagine Me,” by Kirk Franklin.59 On his website, Kirk Franklin tells his listeners, “This song is dedicated to people like me, those that struggle with insecurities, acceptance, and even self esteem, you never felt good enough, you never felt pretty enough but imagine God whispering in your ear letting you know that everything that has happened is now gone, gone, it’s gone, all gone!”60

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BATTLE FOR THE MIND ishop Noel Jones, author of The Battle for the Mind, writes, “It is in the mind where the journey begins. It is the last frontier, and if we can conquer the mind, we can find our uniqueness and begin to express our original self without the restraint of preconceived opinions and judgments.”61 It is critical for us as Christian believers and those who are not believers to understand that it is in the mind where the imprints of positive and negative experiences are embedded. And when you don’t erase the negative experiences from the mind, it can lead to mental and emotional disorders. Jones says, “Satan realizes that if he can leave an indelible imprint on the mind, he can use your past experiences and mistakes to make you feel guilty in order to cripple your future.” Yes, Satan is always trying to leave imprints of negative issues in your mind, and Paul warns us: “For what the Law could not do, through the flesh, God did: sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh” (Romans 8:3). God wants you to have a spiritual mind so you can commune with Him. We must, therefore, comprehend that the transformation from the flesh, which is the natural man to the spiritual man, takes place in the mind. Consequently, you must win the battle in your mind.”61 Jones is a scholar, prolific orator, and pastor of the 17,000 member City of Refuge Church in Gardena, California. In his book, Jones shares his practical and powerful life-changing principles

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in winning the battle in your mind. I want to share some of his thoughts with you. (If you have not read his book, please do so—it will change your life). He writes, “It is critical for us to recognize that the flesh and the Spirit are in constant conflict because the mind of sinful flesh sets its desires against the mind of the Spirit. Thus, the mind becomes the battleground of:     

Grace against law. God against Satan. Revelation against situation. Spirit against flesh. Word against the world.61

When opposite forces battle within the mind, you must understand that whoever controls your mind controls you. You are essentially the mind. Thus, when the Christian believer begins to battle between the desires of the flesh and the will of the Spirit, it must be clear that satanic forces are trying to control your thinking through your flesh, which is connected to your five senses. At the same time, your faith in the word of God is fighting the sensual perception of your situation. This is the battle that goes on in the mind. Paul understands the struggle between flesh and Spirit, and in this test the apostle doesn’t mince words; he goes straight to the conclusion and opens with: “Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:1a). The Greek word for condemnation—katakrima—means to speak against your experiences. Condemnation (katakrima) makes the believer feel negative about self in the midst of what God is doing for him in the struggle.62 Self-condemnatory thinking actually causes you to aid and abet the negative satanic forces that are working through your sensual perceptions in order to defeat your faith; guilt and faith are opposing forces. Paul admonishes us to realize that these opposing forces have nothing to do with where you are in Christ. If you are a believer, 118

Battle for the Mind you are now “in Christ” and the Holy Spirit is guiding you through and out of the flesh. He also reminds us that we are not to despair or become discouraged while the Spirit is fighting to subdue the flesh. Jones continues to explain that it’s in the mind: “The Mind is the only part of man (who is made in Yahweh’s [God’s] Image or Yahweh Himself ) where the emotion, the character, the attitude, the spirit, the control, the reasoning, the creativity (by design or a plan), and where the intent of the heart takes place. These are all evidences of the condition of the spirit (whether Holy or not) that resides within our mind:     

Your life. Your soul. Your appetite. Your person. YOU-the total person.61

Furthermore, in Hebrew, the etymological root of nephesh is to breathe, or refresh one’s self.63 This is evident in the creation of man, because when God made man He made a panoply (covering) of flesh from the dust of the ground, which was not alive until God blew breath into man. Thus, the life of the man is housed within that panoply of flesh, and what is housed in the panoply of flesh is nephesh—the mind. This means the mind, which is his life, his person, his appetite, and his creature, is directly linked to God’s breath. It is now God’s breath inside this panoply of flesh. In other words, the soul (nephesh) of a man is connected to the very breath (nephesh) of God; and as soon as you become a living soul, your spirit and mind are connected to God. Likewise, when the Lord visited Adam in the cool of the day, He didn’t visit his physicality, because his physicality was already given to Eve. God came to visit Adam’s mind, which is also nephesh. He came to deal with what He had breathed (nephesh) into the man. Thus, any time the mind (nephesh) does not have the shackles of 119

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the flesh it reaches for God. The writer says in Psalm 42: “As the deer pants for the water brooks, so my soul pants [nephesh] for you, O God” (Psalm 42:1). Human beings have a natural knowledge of God; and John Calvin said, “There is within the human mind, and indeed by natural instinct, an awareness of divinity . . . God himself has planted in all men a certain understanding of his divine majesty. Not only has God sowed in men’s mind that seed of religion, but has revealed himself and daily discloses himself in the whole workmanship of the universe.”64 The Greek concept of “mind” is from the word phroneo, and it means to set one’s mind on a thing.65 The Lord says, “Set your mind on the things above, not on the things that are on earth” (Colossians 3:2). We must set our mind on things above, because the mind is seeking to operate in the realm of its natural environment and not be controlled by the limitation of sinful flesh. Thus, the intent of the Spirit in its war against the flesh is to free your mind from being suffocated by the flesh.

REVELATION FROM THE REDEEMER In addition to pleasant and unpleasant circumstances leaving imprints on your mind, Satan will also attempt to insert thoughts of sexual impurity, lust, and mental sexual fantasies in your mind. It is during these times when you might wish that God would just disconnect your flesh. You might even say, “Lord, if this sinful flesh was not here, I wouldn’t have these sensual feelings and desires to get into trouble; so I wish You would just shut down the desires of my flesh.” But God does not remove or shut down the desire of the flesh, because these are natural, God-given feelings. Instead, He wants us to overcome, to manage, and to maintain control over our sensual feelings and desire. He wants us to learn to control our fleshly and sensual nature and bring it into subjection to the will of God.

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Battle for the Mind Thus when it seems that God is not helping us through the situation, He is actually sending the Word (Rhema) from His Spirit to each believer’s spirit.66 At this point, the Spirit of Christ is seeking to control your mind. In other words, God doesn’t always change your situation; He changes your mind. If God would change your situation while your mind remains unchanged, then you would still be attached to your mind and your mind attached to the situation. What God wants the believer to know is that if He changes your mind, then you can change your situation. Your understanding of God’s position in relationship to your faith is crucial to how you think, because when you are in the right relationship with God, your mind feeds on the Word and Spirit of Christ. And when you feed on His Word, God gives you critical revelation on how to change and control your mind. Furthermore, when God wants to renew your vision, He gives you revelation as He communicates to your mind—through faith in the Word. It is essential for you to understand that you are built in the image and likeness of God. God is Spirit and He expresses His thoughts by communicating—His Spirit to your spirit and mind through the Word.

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CHAPTER 18

CHANGE FROM THE INSIDE ave you felt trapped in a situation, somewhere you did not want to be, and then all of a sudden you broke free by the power of your own intuition, by the power of your connection with God? There is nothing more liberating than standing on your own two feet with your security in your faith in God, knowing that the Spirit of Christ is flowing through you. He has liberated you from conforming to the sinful desire of a carnal mind, so that Satan and his demons no longer have dominion over your mind. And as God is flowing through you, He wants to glorify Himself in you. Now that you are transformed and have a new mind, you can dictate to your environment. God has created you to have dominion over your environment. However, God wants each one of us to have control over self before having dominion over the environment. We have been transformed by the renewing of our mind, and God’s Spirit (breath) is flowing into our spirit so that we can maintain control over our carnal and sinful desire of the flesh so that our mind can become more and more like Christ Jesus. In order for transformation to take place, however, a change must occur. The word change has a variety of meanings. Some dictionaries define change as something to the effect of, “to become different or undergo alternation; to undergo transformation or transition; to go from one phase to another to make different in form; to transform, to give and take reciprocally; to become different.”67

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GIVE THANKS There is power in thanksgiving. With thanksgiving you begin to know what the Lord has done for you. Merriam-Webster Dictionary describes thanksgiving as an expression of gratitude and appreciation, and an acknowledgment or celebration of divine goodness.68 It is not simply an emotion which involves a pleasant feeling that can occur when we receive a favor or benefit from another person, but rather the combination of a state of being and an emotion, often accompanied by a desire to thank them, or to reciprocate for a favor they have done for us, “Enter His gates with thanksgiving, and His courts with praise: give thanks to Him, bless His name” (Psalm 100:4). As you can see, we are commanded first of all to enter His gates with thanksgiving. We are to have an attitude of thankfulness before we even come before God. Before we go any further, I should establish just what it means to be thankful, “At that time Jesus said, “I praise You, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that You have hidden these things from the wise and intelligent and have revealed them to infants” (Matthew 11:25). The root meaning of the word thank in this verse comes from the Greek word Exomologeo, which means to acknowledge and agree fully. This word in turn comes from two Greek words, Ek or Ex, which denotes the origin or beginning of action, and Homologeo, which means to give thanks.69 So as you can see, thanksgiving is not passive, it is an action. We are to show our thankfulness to the world for all that God has done in our lives. We should be happy that we even have breath in our body and acknowledge that the only reason we do is because it is part of God’s plan. His plan is to give Him glory! Paul encourages us to give thanks with everything and in everything: Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice! Let your gentle spirit be known to all men. The Lord is near. Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with

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thanksgiving let your request be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, will guard your hearts and your mind in Christ Jesus (Philippians 4:4-7).

Faith without the action of thanksgiving is no faith at all. How can you have faith if you do not agree fully with what God is doing in your life? You cannot! Let us use Jesus as an example. Jesus gave thanks to God at both ends of the scale. He gave thanks for the wisdom of God, acknowledging that His plan was right and good. He agreed fully with God’s plans for His life, even though it meant that He would have to die on the cross. And in numerous verses in the Bible Jesus gave thanks to God for the everyday things, like food. Jesus is the example of how we are to live, so we must give thanks to our Lord in all things even when facing death.

THERE IS A CYCLE OF BLESSINGS AND THANKS 

God blesses.  We give thanks.  God “appreciates” or increases in value.  God loads us up with more blessings.  We bless others with the over abundance of blessings.  The cycle replicates because those that we bless begin to thank God. Remember where God took you from, and put Him in remembrance with thanksgiving and praise, “Speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody with your heart to the Lord” (Ephesians 5:19). Even though we cannot know what God’s complete plan is for us, we must be happy about it. We must see his plan by faith and give Him thanks in advance, “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen” (Hebrews 11:1).

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CHAPTER 19

REUNITED WITH GOD ishop Noel Jones, author of The Battle of the Mind, states, “The mind longs to reunite with God and we have to think through our circumstances as we think ourselves out of the bondage of our situations. Where the Spirit (nephesh) of the Lord is, there is liberty; and the mind (nephesh) longs to be free. “You have to now say, ‘Get the shackles off me. I am getting ready to break out because I am a child of God.’ You are coming out of the box of your sinful flesh and removing the shackles of your mind. You are coming out of the box because you want to know the will of God for your own life. You are coming out of the box, and you don’t want limits or parameters set around your mind. You are an original; and you cannot be duplicated, cannot be imitated and cannot be destroyed.”61

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THE SINNER’S NEED OF CHRIST Man was originally endowed with noble powers and a wellbalanced mind. He was perfect in his being, and in harmony with God. His thoughts were pure; his aims holy. But through disobedience, his powers were perverted and selfishness took the place of love. His nature became so weakened through transgression that it was impossible for him, in his own strength, to resist the power of evil. He was made captive by Satan, and would have remained so forever had not God specially interposed.

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It is impossible for us, of ourselves, to escape from the pit of sin into which we are sunken. Our hearts are evil, and we cannot change them. Who can make the clean out of the unclean? Not one (Job 14:4). Because the mind set on the flesh is hostile toward God; for it does not subject itself to the law of God, for it is not even able to do so (Romans 8:7).

Education, culture, the exercise of the will, human effort, all have their proper sphere, but here they are powerless. They may produce an outward correctness of behavior, but they cannot change the heart; they cannot purify the spring of life. There must be a power working from within—a new life from above—before men can be changed from sin to holiness. That power is Christ. His grace alone can quicken the lifeless faculties of the soul, and attract it to God and to holiness. The Savior said: “Unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God” (John 3:3). Unless a person shall receive a new heart, new desires, purposes, and motives, leading to a new life, he will not see God’s kingdom. The idea that it is necessary only to develop the good that exists in man by nature is a fatal deception. But a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised (I Corinthians 2:14). Do not be amazed that I said to you, “You must be born again” (John 3:7). In Him was life; and the life was the light of me (John 1:4). For there is no other name under heaven that has been given among men by which we must be saved (Acts 4:12).

It is not enough to perceive the loving-kindness of God, to see His benevolence, fatherly tenderness, and character. It is not

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Reunited With God enough to discern the wisdom and justice of His law, to see that it is founded upon the eternal principle of love. Paul the apostle saw all this when he exclaimed in the bitterness of his soul-anguish and despair: “But if I do the very thing I do not want to do, I agree with the Law, confessing that the Law is good. So now, no longer am I the one doing it, but sin which dwells in me” (Romans 7:16-17). Paul longed for the purity and the righteousness, which in himself he was powerless to attain! He cried out, “O wretched man that I am! Who will set me free from the body of this death?” (Romans 7:24). Such is the cry that has gone up from burdened hearts in all lands and in all ages. To all, there is but one answer: “Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world” (John 1:29). Oh, let us contemplate the amazing sacrifice that has been made for us! Let us try to appreciate the labor and energy that heaven is expending to reclaim the lost and bring them back to the Father’s house. Motives stronger and agencies more powerful could never be brought into operation. The exceeding rewards for right-doing, the enjoyment of heaven, the society of the angels, the communion and love of God and His son, the elevation and extension of all our powers throughout eternal ages—are these not mighty incentives and encouragement to urge us to give heart’s loving service to our Creator and Redeemer?

THE TEST OF DISCIPLESHIP Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come (II Corinthians 5:17).

A person may not be able to tell the exact time or place or trace all the chain of circumstances in the process of conversion; but this does not prove him to be uncovered. Christ said to Nicodemus: “The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear the sound of it, but do not know where it comes from and where it is going; so is everyone that is born of the Spirit” (John 3:8).

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The Spirit of God is like the wind, which is invisible and yet its effects are plainly seen and felt. God’s Spirit is at work upon the human heart. That regenerating power, which no human eye can see, begets a new life in the soul; it creates a new being in the image of God. While the work of the Spirit is silent and imperceptible, its effects are manifest. If the Spirit of God has renewed the heart, the life will bear witness to the fact. While we cannot do anything to change our heart or to bring ourselves into harmony with God, we must not trust our good works. Our lives reveal whether the grace of God is dwelling within us. A change will be seen in the character, the habits, and the pursuits. The contrast will be clear and decided between what our character was before and what it is today. The character is revealed, not by an occasional good deed or an occasional misdeed, but by the tendency of the habitual words and act. It is true that there may be an outward correctness of deportment without the renewing power of Christ. The love of influence and the desire for the esteem of others may produce a well-ordered life. Self-respect may lead us to avoid the appearance of evil. A selfish heart may perform generous actions. By what means, then, shall we determine whose side we are on? Those who become new creatures in Christ Jesus will bring forth the fruit of the Spirit: “ . . . love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faith, gentleness, self-control (Galatians 5:22, 23). They will no longer fashion themselves according to the former lusts, but by faith in the Son of God they will follow in His steps, reflect His character, and purify themselves even as He is pure. There is no evidence of genuine repentance unless it works reformation. The loveliness of the character of Christ will be seen in His followers. It was His delight to do the will of God. Love for God and zeal for His glory was the controlling power in our Savior’s life. Love beautified and ennobled all His actions. Love is of God. The unconsecrated heart cannot originate or produce it. It is found only in the heart where Jesus reigns, “We love, because He first loved us” (I John 4:19).

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Reunited With God In the heart renewed by divine grace, love is the principle of action. It modifies the character, governs the impulses, controls the passions, subdues enmity, and ennobles the affections. There are two errors against which the children of God—particularly those who have just come to trust in His grace—especially need to guard. The first, already dwelt upon, is that of looking to their own works, trusting to anything they can do, to bring themselves into harmony with God. He who is trying to become holy by his own works in keeping the law is attempting impossibility. All that man can do without Christ is polluted with selfishness and sin. It is the grace of Christ alone, through faith, which makes us holy. We do not earn salvation by our obedience, for salvation is the free gift of God, to be received by faith. But obedience is the fruit of faith.

THE PRIVILEGE OF PRAYER Through nature, revelation, and the Holy Spirit’s providence and influence, God speaks to us. But these are not enough; we need also to pour out our hearts to Him. In order to have spiritual life and energy, we must have an actual relationship with the one we call “Heavenly Father.” Our minds may be drawn out toward Him and we may meditate upon His works, His mercies, His blessings— but this is not, in the fullest sense, communing with Him. In order to commune with God, we must have something to say to Him concerning our actual life. Prayer is the opening of the heart to God as to a friend. Not that we need prayer in order for God to know what we are, but we need prayer to enable us to receive Him. Prayer does not bring God down to us, but brings us up to Him. When Jesus was upon the earth, He taught His disciples how to pray. He directed them to present their daily needs before God, and to cast all their care upon Him—and the assurance He gave them that their petitions would be heard, is assurance also to us.

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There are certain conditions upon which we may expect that God will hear and answer our prayers. One of the first of these is that we feel our need of help from Him. He has promised: “I will pour out water on the thirsty land, and streams on the dry ground” (Isaiah 44:3). Those who hunger and thirst after righteousness and long after God may be sure that they will be filled. The heart must be open to the Spirit’s influence or God’s blessing cannot be received. Our great need is itself an argument and pleads most eloquently on our behalf. But the Lord is to be sought if we want Him to do these things for us. He says: “Ask, and it will be given you” (Matthew 7:7); “He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him over for us all, how will He not also with Him freely give us all things?” (Romans 8:32). If we regard iniquity in our hearts, if we cling to any known sin, the Lord will not hear us. But the prayer of the penitent, contrite soul is always accepted. When all known wrongs are righted, we may believe that God will answer our petitions. Our own merit will never commend us to the favor of God; it is the worthiness of Jesus that will save us and His blood that will cleanse us. Yet we have a work to do in complying with the conditions of acceptance. The assurance is broad and unlimited and He is faithful who has promised. When we do not receive the very things we asked for at the time we ask, we are still to believe that the Lord hears and that He will answer our prayers. We are so erring and shortsighted that we sometimes ask for things that would not be a blessing to us and our heavenly Father in love answers our prayers by giving us that which will be for our highest good—that which we ourselves would desire if, with vision divinely enlightened, we could see all things as they really are. When our prayers do not seem to be answered, we are to cling to the promise; for the time of answering will surely come and we shall receive the blessing we need most. But to claim that prayer will always be answered in the very way and for the particular thing

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Reunited With God that we desire is presumption. God is too wise to err and too good to withhold any good thing from them that walk uprightly. Do not fear to trust Him even though you do not see the immediate answer to your prayers. Rely upon His sure promise that if you ask, it shall be given to you. When we come to ask mercy and blessing from God we should have a spirit of love and forgiveness in our own hearts. How can we pray, “And forgive us our debt, as we also have forgiven our debtors” (Matthew 6:12), and yet indulge an unforgiving spirit? If we expect our own prayer to be heard, we must forgive others in the same manner and to the same extent as we hope to be forgiven. We should pray in the family circle and, above all, we must not neglect secret prayer for this is the life of the soul. It is impossible for the soul to flourish while prayer is neglected. Family or public prayer alone is not sufficient. In solitude let the soul be laid open to the inspecting eye of God. Secret prayer is to be heard only by the prayer-hearing God. No curious ear is to receive the burden of such petitions. In secret prayer the soul is free from surrounding influences, free from exterior excitements and enticements. Calmly, yet fervently, the soul reaches out after God and sweet and abiding will be the influence emanating from Him who sees us in secret and whose ear is open to hear the soul that holds communion with God. Such prayer gathers to its soul rays of divine light to strengthen and sustain it in the conflict with Satan. God is our tower of strength. There is no time or place in which it is inappropriate to offer up a petition to God. There is nothing that can prevent us from lifting up our hearts in the spirit of earnest prayer. In our journey on the street, in the midst of a business engagement, we may send up a petition to God and plead for divine guidance, as did Nehemiah when he made his request before King Artexerxes (Nehemiah 2:4-5). A closet of communion with the Lord may be found wherever we are. We should have the door of the heart open continually and our invitation going up that Jesus may come and abide as a heavenly guest in the soul.

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Bring your wants, joys, sorrows, cares, and fears before God. You cannot burden Him. You cannot weary Him. He who numbers the hair of your head is not indifferent to the wants of His children.

WHAT TO DO WITH DOUBT Many, especially those who are young in the Christian life, are at times troubled with the suggestions of skepticism. There are many things in the Bible which they cannot explain or even understand, and Satan employs these to shake their faith in the Scriptures as a revelation from God. They ask, “How shall I know the right way? If the Bible is indeed the word of God, how can I be free from these doubts and perplexities?” God never asks us to believe without giving sufficient evidence upon which to base our faith. His existences, His character, and the truthfulness of His word are all established by testimony that appeals to our reason; and this testimony is abundant. Yet God has never removed the possibility of doubt. Our faith must rest upon evidence, not demonstration. Those who wish to doubt will have opportunity; while those who really desire to know what is true will find plenty of evidence on which to rest their faith. It is impossible for finite minds fully to comprehend the character of the works of the Infinite One. To the keenest intellect, the most highly educated mind, that Holy Being must ever remain clothed in mystery: “Can you discover the depths of God? Can you discover the limits of the Almighty? They are high as the heavens, what can you do? Deeper than Sheol, what can you know?” (Job 11:7-8); “Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgment, and unfathomable His ways!” (Romans 11:33); ” . . . clouds and thick darkness surround Him, Righteousness and justice are the foundation of His throne” (Psalm 97:2).

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Reunited With God We can but so far comprehend His motives and his dealings with us so that we may discern boundless love and mercy united to infinite power. We can understand as much of His purposes as it is for our good to know and beyond this we must still trust the hand that is omnipotent and the heart that is full of love. If it were possible for a created being to attain a full understanding of God and His works, then there would be for them no further discovery of truth, no growth in knowledge, no further development of mind or heart. God would no longer be supreme and man, having reached the limit of knowledge and attainment, would cease to advance. Let us thank God that it is not so. God is infinite. In Him are all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge (Colossians 2:3). And to all eternity men may be ever searching, ever learning, and yet never exhaust the treasures of His wisdom, goodness, and power.

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PART THREE

THE CALL OF LIGHTHOUSE COVENANT INTERNATIONAL

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CHAPTER 20

THE TRANSFORMATION OF PHILADELPHIA e are all called to be part of the transformation of Philadelphia. Each of our assignments may be different, but the outcome to help rebuilding this city and put it on a path of prosperity for all its citizens is the same. The following scripture taken from Isaiah sixty-one denotes the purpose and call of Lighthouse Covenant International, a new humanitarian organization and ministry the Lord is emerging into Philadelphia:

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The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, Because the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the afflicted; He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to captives And freedom to prisoners; To proclaim the favorable year of the Lord. And the day of vengeance of our God; To comfort all who mourn, To grant those who mourn in Zion, Giving them a garland instead of ashes, The oil of gladness instead of ashes, The oil of gladness instead of mourning, The mantle of praise instead of a spirit of fainting. So they will be called oaks of righteousness, The planting of the Lord, that He may be glorified. Then they will rebuild the ancient ruins, They will raise up the former devastations; And they will repair the ruined cities, The desolations of many generations (Isaiah 61:1-4).

Lighthouse Covenant International is a faith-based, Christcentered, humanitarian organization that excels in the belief that we can advance human dignity, build civil societies, and transform our world to be a better place. How? We can empower the individual 137

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and community at the grassroots level by working together, regardless of a person’s race, religion, or nationality. We are dedicated to building strong civil societies by helping to meet the humanitarian and developmental needs of the most vulnerable members of society. Often the ones in greatest need are the poor, children, orphans, elderly, disabled, war refugees, and victims of disasters. The call to action requires that we subpoena the consciousness of global leaders to reinstall the moral rudder of days gone by and to bring forth greater prosperity for all mankind.87

CORE VALUES Lighthouse Covenant International has the following set of core values: We believe in the intrinsic value and dignity of human life. We are awed by human resilience and believe in the ability of all people to thrive, not just exist. Our spiritual and humanitarian values compel us to act.87

PARTNERSHIPS One of Lighthouse Covenant International’s strategic objectives is to invest in knowledge and partnerships. Our goal in working with partners is to broaden our reach, reduce evaluation overload for countries, and increase opportunities for dissemination of lessons learned. Partners allow Lighthouse Covenant International to expand its frontiers in terms of experience, resources, and outreach. In contrast to pure trust funds, partnerships involve a collaborative relationship toward mutual objectives, seeking synergies through joint endeavors.

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The Transformation of Philadelphia The changing landscape of development assistance emphasizes sector-wide approaches and development programs require collaborative, multi-donor assistance with common objectives. Effective evaluation in this context requires greater donor collaboration and increased city participation in learning to improve development effectiveness.87 .

CHALLENGES Our focus is to assist the city of Philadelphia and its people to reach their goals by working with partners to alleviate poverty. We concentrate on building the climate for investments, jobs, and sustainable growth so the economy will grow through investing in and empowering poor people to participate in development. Philadelphians have to realize themselves that for their city to grow and to attract business and jobs they must actively seek to: Strengthen their government and educate their government officials. Develop their financial system–robust enough to support endeavors from micro credit to financing larger corporate ventures. Combat corruption so that what is done will remain effective.87

DEVELOPMENT GOALS Lighthouse Covenant International’s developmental goals for Philadelphia are to: Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger. Achieve universal primary education. Promote gender equality and empower women. Reduce child mortality. Combat HIV/AIDS and other diseases. 139

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Ensure environmental sustainability. Develop a global partnership for development.87

PERSPECTIVES While researching poverty in Philadelphia, I came to realize that poverty is more than just a person’s economic status in society. We need to take the eloquently written words and make them relevant to the lives of the people. It’s one thing to come up with a philosophy or assumption about poverty, but to lay out the practical causes and effects takes a humbling approach and a less selfrighteous and stereotypical idea. We have to remove our own opinions and look directly at the facts. The plan of Lighthouse Covenant International is not to reinvent the wheel, but rather we are here to add and improve the way the wheel has been driven. We are not The Lone Ranger riding in on a white horse, coming to save the day by “showing up” all that has failed in the system.87 We do understand that the government alone cannot solve the crises of our communities. It will take all entities from the government, private sectors, grass-roots organizations, churches, and most importantly the people themselves with the same agenda, purpose, and goals to bring about realistic solutions to the problems that face our society: Therefore if there is any encouragement in Christ, if there is any consolation of love, if there is any fellowship of the Spirit, if any, make my joy complete by being of the same mind, maintaining the same love, united in spirit, intent on one purpose. Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind regard one another as more important than yourselves; do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others. Have this attitude in yourselves, which was also in Christ Jesus. Who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant and being made in the likeness of man (Philippians 2:1-7).

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The Transformation of Philadelphia Consider the crisis we watched on television during hurricane Katrina. “The systemic realities exposed in light of Katrina are not newly present, newly discovered, newly studied, newly impacted—nor newly important. Poverty, racism, violence, governmental irresponsibility and disregard, and all the other system-level realities that can be recognized in this disaster have been brought into the general consciousness of the American public, in vivid Technicolor, through Katrina’s focusing mirror. Their interrelatedness to the larger ills of society and the need for an integrated systematic approach are also vividly clear: 45 million people have no health insurance; 3 million jobs have been eliminated in New York City since 9/11; soup kitchen visits are up 150 percent; and child homelessness is at an all time high. What are people of conscience to do in the face of growing poverty, homelessness, and misery?”70 As we look back on the past years of unimaginable loss, we must prepare for the challenges that the future holds. Each day that a person dies before their time is another tragedy, a new disaster. Lighthouse Covenant International understands and has learned that communities recovering from war or social upheaval must be the agents of their own transformation for change to endure. It’s only when communities set their own agendas, raise their own resources, and implement programs themselves, that their first successes result in the renewed hope, confidence, and skill to continue development. Each newfound freedom comes with responsibilities. Under slavery (and sin is slavery) our talents and gifts were exploited. Now that we are free, we must use those gifts and talents to build our lives. It’s time to grow up, work with what we have, take that soil and transform it into substance for our families. Whatever you put your hands to, The Lord said, I will bless it. Prosperity is a journey out of poverty, but don’t expect it to happen overnight—prosperity is a process of faith, “For I am confident of this very thing, that He

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who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Jesus Christ” (Philippians 1:6). Transformation takes on many forms—transformation of the physical environment and transformation of the individual self. I believe the transforming of oneself is the most challenging, because it requires being honest and looking at your personal failures in life with the goal of overcoming those failures. Most difficult of all is knowing who you are and what is your place in your community and family. I truly believe that a great deal of the problems in our culture have to do with men in our society not knowing their place in the family and in the community. As a result, men have found themselves displaced and dysfunctional in the most important role of their lives—fatherhood. Looking back at history can help us identify the mistakes of the past to hopefully bring about correction for the future. It’s not about blaming anyone. If we as a society are honest with ourselves, there is enough blame to go around. But we are a progressive people and we are taking the lessons learned to move forward.

MOBILIZING THE MEDIA Our city is going through a silent transformation at the grass roots level. What is required today to give a voice to this silent revolution is to bring their stories of struggle and success into the homes and minds of civil society, professionals, academia, and policymakers. It is time for the media to make an objective assessment of the contribution this new generation of leaders has been making in the communities. Lighthouse Covenant International is committed to supporting and encouraging the press to prominently report the success stories of these local leaders.

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THE HUMAN SPIRIT Lighthouse Covenant International recognizes that in addition to survival needs, every human being has a fundamental need to lead a life of dignity, meaning, and purpose—to know that our lives make a difference.

INTERCONNECTEDNESS Our actions are shaped by and affect all other people and our natural environment. Our responsibility extends beyond our immediate lives and families to the entire human family. Issues of poverty are not problems of one country or another but are global issues, and we must solve them as global citizens.

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POVERTY: A KEY FACTOR he specific circumstances in the city of Philadelphia make it a prime target for the work of Lighthouse Covenant International. The United States of America is one of the richest countries in the world, yet many of its citizens live in extreme poverty and injustice. In particular, across several social and economic indicators, Census 2000 reveals that Philadelphia confronts significant challenges in creating opportunity and prosperity for its residents. The Philadelphia region continues to decentralize, to begin with, further separating inner-city residents from employment and economic activity. While the population of Center City revived in the 1990s, population loss elsewhere in the city of Philadelphia was widespread. To be sure, Philadelphia actually gained black, Asian, and Hispanic residents in the last decade, many of them new immigrants from abroad. But at the same time it lost 180,000 white residents. Jobs also continued to shift outward in the metro area, and today fewer than thirty percent of the region’s workers are employed in the central city.71 As the economic strength of the urban core dissipated in the 1990s, Philadelphia’s residents struggled economically as well. Household incomes dropped significantly, and the size of the city’s middle class declined. Poverty arose, and Philadelphia now has the highest Hispanic poverty rate among major cities today. These economic challenges are rooted in the city’s low rates of higher educational attainment and adult labor force participation. One area in which Philadelphia remains unique is the high number of residents who own their homes. Unfortunately, the city’s

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Poverty: A Key Factor homeownership rate declined significantly over the last decade. At the same time, over 100,000 city households—most with low incomes—struggle to afford rent and the other necessities of life. Concerning neighborhood poverty, mortality rates, and excess deaths among African Americans (Philadelphia, 1999-2001), Jessica M. Robbins, PhD, and David A. Webb, PhD, write: “We used vital statistics and census data to determine whether mortality rates in Philadelphia were associated with neighborhood poverty, and to what extent excess mortality among African Americans was associated with neighborhood poverty. Gender-specific, age-adjusted mortality rates for 1999-2001 were strongly associated with neighborhood poverty among both women and men overall, and among both African Americans and non-Hispanic whites. The actual number of deaths among African Americans was 5,305 higher than it would have been if African Americans had had the same gender and age-specific mortality rates as the average for non-Hispanic whites in Philadelphia, and 1,944 higher than if African Americans had had the same gender and age-specific rates as non-Hispanic whites in the same neighborhood poverty categories.”71 The excess mortality associated with neighborhood poverty and the socioeconomic factors that force large numbers of African Americans into poverty and high-poverty neighborhoods appear to be major factors in excess mortality among African Americans. Key words: African Americans, ethnic groups, mortality, Philadelphia, poverty, poverty areas, residence characteristics, socioeconomic factors. Mortality rates are consistently associated with socioeconomic status (SES), with populations of lower SES experiencing higher death rates in virtually all times and places. In the United States, mortality rates also vary substantially between different racial/ethnic groups, with particularly high rates for African Americans. The transformation of Philadelphia from a majority-white city in 1990 to a “majority-minority” city in 2000 was fueled by modest increases in the city’s black, Hispanic, and Asian populations, and a

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dramatic 180,000-person decline in white residents. International immigrants also contributed to the changing profile of the city and region. The number of foreign-born living in Philadelphia increased by 34,000 in the 1990s, and more than twice as many settled in the suburbs over the same period. Nearly half of Philadelphia’s foreignborn are U.S. citizens, and they hail from a variety of world regions, including Southeast Asia, Eastern Europe, and the Caribbean. Still, people of different races and ethnicities tend to live in very separate parts of Philadelphia; the city ranks highest in the nation on segregation between whites and Hispanics.71 Philadelphia’s population is aging. In most of the twenty-three major cities of the United States, people in their twenties and early thirties represent the largest age groups. Philadelphia, by contrast, has nearly as many thirty-five to forty-four-year-olds as it does members of younger age groups. In addition, Philadelphia is second only to Miami among the twenty-three most populous cities in the proportion of residents who are age sixty-five and over. The aging of Philadelphia’s population reflects in part the city’s limited success in attracting newcomers—the number of twenty-five to thirtyfour-year-old residents dropped 19% during the 1990s. Meanwhile, the city’s children are also growing up in more disadvantaged environments, as today most Philadelphia households with children are single-parent families.71 Philadelphia residents have relatively low educational attainment, and participate only weakly in the labor market. Only 56 percent of working-age adults in Philadelphia were employed or looking for work in 2000—the fourth-lowest percentage among the 100 largest cities in the U.S. These low levels of work may reflect not only a growing distance between inner-city Philadelphia residents and job opportunities elsewhere in the region, but also the low education levels of Philadelphia’s population. Only 18 percent of Philadelphia adults hold a college degree, one of the lowest levels among large U.S. cities. Indeed, below-average rates of educa-

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Poverty: A Key Factor tional attainment cut across racial and ethnic lines in Philadelphia, affecting whites, blacks, and Hispanics. Household incomes in Philadelphia dropped during the 1990s and the middle class shrank. Low and moderate-income households increased in number in Philadelphia during the 1990s, but the number of middle- and upper-middle-income households (earning $34,000 to $81,000) declined. As a result, the city’s median household income dropped over the decade, and ranked in the bottom quarter of large U.S. cities in 2000. In several neighborhoods, more than 40 percent of all residents live in poverty, and Philadelphia has the highest Hispanic poverty rate among the twenty-three Living Cities. Philadelphia remains a high-homeownership city, although the rate declined significantly over the decade. Nearly 60 percent of Philadelphia households owned their own homes in 2000, the second-highest rate among the Living Cities. Yet this rate dropped considerably during the 1990s, in contrast to the trend of rising homeownership in cities and the nation over the decade. The weak housing market in many inner-city Philadelphia neighborhoods may also have limited the economic benefits of homeownership. And while rent prices in Philadelphia actually declined over the decade, 100,000 Philadelphia renters have incomes low enough that they pay more than 30 percent of their income on housing.71 Ed Schwartz, from Civic Idealist, wrote a memo to the Delaware Valley legislators on The Public Cost of Poverty, indicating that, according to both the census data and the County Board of Assistance, there are roughly 60,000 households supporting 200,000 people in Philadelphia living in poverty. That’s one in five. They pay no taxes, but must receive basic City services. Additionally, they benefit from government spending for welfare, food stamp, Medicaid, public housing, public subsidized private housing, and education.72

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In 1993 all levels of government combined spent $2 billion annually to keep 60,000 households alive—at least half of it from the Commonwealth. The components of this expenditure are as follows: Income, Medicaid, Food Stamps Health & Social Services Public Housing (PHA) Community Development Homeless Expenditure Education Total

$ 1 billion $400 million $150 million $100 million $ 15 million $200 million $ 2 billion72

Schwartz writes, “It’s obvious that government programs for the poor account for more State, Federal, and Local funds spent in the County of Philadelphia than any other public activity. It is very unlikely that the City of Philadelphia will achieve the broad economic recovery that it is seeking unless it finds a way to absorb the City’s low-income residents in the process. The result will be the continued flight of the middle-class from the City, with a steady erosion of both its economy and the overall quality of life. Convention Center and Avenue of the Arts notwithstanding, middle-class households will move rather than put up with the wages tax, crime, homeless men and women panhandling all over major commercial corridors, and a school system overwhelmed by the social problems facing many of its students. These conditions are all symptoms of one basic disease: Poverty—and the inability of the poor to escape it.”72 The Profile from Census 2000 and Ed Schwartz’s letter to the Delaware Valley legislators on the price of poverty in Philadelphia seeks to give readers a better sense of where Philadelphia and its residents stand in relation to their peers and how the 1990s altered the city, its neighborhoods, and the entire Philadelphia region. The hope is that this information will prompt a fruitful dialogue among city and community leaders about the direction Philadelphia should take in the coming decade. 148

Poverty: A Key Factor Too often, people living in poverty are isolated, marginalized, and exploited. Mobilizing communities and building local organizations is critically important, both to sustain the work we are about to do, and to get more out of our precious resources and efforts. When people come together to work, a kind of social capital is created that can compensate for the lack of financial capital in rural areas.

A MORAL IMPERATIVE AND PRACTICAL NECESSITY These statistics have shown that ending poverty is not only a moral imperative, but also a practical necessity. Ending poverty is central to resolving an entire nexus of issues such as population growth, civil unrest, and environmental destruction, which will increasingly threaten the quality of life for everyone. This is a human issue. Today, ending poverty is not primarily a technical or a production issue. It is a human issue. Poverty persists because we, as human beings, have failed to organize our societies in ways that assure every person the chance to live a healthy and productive life. There are limits to the conventional approach. Ending poverty is a highly complex challenge. It is increasingly clear that charitable responses and traditional bureaucratic programs, as useful as they may be, are insufficient to carry the day. More importantly, people increasingly recognize that conventional approaches are based on a framework of thinking that is inconsistent with what actually must be done to achieve the end of poverty on a sustainable basis.

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STRATEGIC PLANNING IN ACTION— A METHODOLOGY FOR ACCOMPLISHMENT, FOCUS, AND BREAKTHROUGH o meet the challenge of ending poverty requires a methodology that will break up old patterns of action, foster new ways of thinking, and empower people to achieve concrete breakthroughs in health, education, nutrition, food production, incomes, and the empowerment of women. The methodology developed by the Hunger Project, a worldwide organization to end hunger, is a well thought out and implemented strategic plan-in-action, which we believe at Lighthouse Covenant International can be duplicated with great success in solving the poverty crisis in Philadelphia.73

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STRATEGIC PLANNING IN ACTION Wherever Lighthouse Covenant International works, from the villages to the highest policy levels, we apply this methodology: 

Mobilize and empower committed indigenous leadership: The first step in our work is always to enlist the leadership of individuals of great commitment and complete integrity to help us end poverty. Leadership for action in a city must come from 150

Strategic Planning in Action . . . that city; leadership for action in a nation must come from that nation. These individuals must be committed and completely clear about utilizing the principles and methodology of the plan in action to overcome poverty. 

Bring together all sectors of society: Government by itself cannot end poverty. We bring together leadership from all key sectors—business, academia, and government agencies—forming councils to create and lead our strategies in co-equal partnership.



Build a shared understanding: For people to work together effectively, they must achieve a comprehensive shared understanding of the prevailing conditions, the effectiveness of existing programs, and the priority areas where action is required. Bringing all the information together and making it clear, finite, and controllable has to be one of the most empowering contributions of reconstruction.



Commit to achieving a strategic intent: Individuals working with this project must develop a powerfully articulated, unifying, and achievable vision. We must never be content with helping a few, but rather commit ourselves to transform conditions throughout society so that all people can build lives free from poverty.



Commit to playing a strategic, catalytic role: Once people are committed to actually achieving the goal, they must then recognize the possibility of taking catalytic, high-leverage action that can affect the “big picture.” We must break through bottlenecks to progress, improve existing programs, mobilize and

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make better use of resources, and effect structural changes in society that can unleash the creativity and productivity of people in poverty. 

Identify what's missing: Our work is always guided by the questions, What’s missing? What one thing can we provide that would allow for a breakthrough? This is very different, and far more powerful, than the more common questions, What’s wrong? Why isn’t it working? These latter questions tend to call forth blame and paralysis, not action and cooperation. Lighthouse Covenant International respects the work of other organizations—by focusing on what’s missing, we avoid duplicating work being done by others.



Take immediate action: Find out what’s missing and provide it. Take action first where it can succeed and produce near-term results.



Create a momentum of accomplishment: One must constantly assess and sharpen the strategy. Each accomplishment gives a new landscape: new leadership, new obstacles, and new openings for catalytic action. Each failure can lead to a deeper understanding of the nature of the challenge.72

We seek to create and sustain this style of work, unleash the human spirit, and break the mind-set of resigning ourselves as hopeless. The commitment to eradicate poverty from our city is a commitment to the end of poverty. This means that we are committed to empowering people to create permanent, society-wide solutions to the problem and not content ourselves with charitable actions that only benefit a few. We are committed to identifying and utilizing an accurate framework of thinking, and pioneering strategies and

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Strategic Planning in Action . . . actions that will enable humanity to create a new future—a future free from poverty.74

EMPOWERING MEN AND WOMEN TO END THEIR OWN POVERTY Top-down approaches treat people as passive beneficiaries who are dependent on government handouts. After decades, people internalize this belief. As promises of assistance fail to materialize, people are left in deep resignation. The first step to these strategies is to awaken people to a new possibility—the possibility of not waiting to be rescued, but taking action now to meet basic needs. This is achieved through vision, commitment, and action.

VISION, COMMITMENT, AND ACTION Part of the plan of action is to launch projects based entirely on local resources. In achieving this first success, a person’s initial inspiration develops into self-confidence. There are other vital steps in mobilization. It is key to train local volunteer leaders who then become the spark plugs for local action. As people take more substantial action, we provide training in literacy and local laws. We organize people into self-help groups to gain a stronger voice. Success builds on success.

CREATING A NEW FUTURE Ending poverty requires a true break with the status quo. It will not happen in the course of business as usual. To resolve humanity’s oldest and most pernicious problem requires four essential ingredients:

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1. Vision: As human beings, we must be able to see a future that can be achieved and is worth achieving— the vision that calls forth a sustainable future for humanity and a future in which all people have the opportunity to live healthy and productive lives in harmony with nature. We call this “the end of poverty.” 2. Commitment: Commitment is what allows individuals to encounter obstacles, frustrations, and failures on the pathway to achievement and still keep going. It is increasingly clear that achieving the future we envision will not just happen. It must be made to happen, and this will require extraordinary commitment. Calling forth that commitment and keeping it focused and sustained to fulfill the vision is a vital responsibility of Lighthouse Covenant International. 3. Leadership: Leadership is critical to every great human achievement. Ending poverty requires committed leadership at all levels of society—from the city to the counties, state, and nation—that can call forth vision and commitment and mobilize people to take effective action. 4. Strategy and Action: Meeting a challenge as complex and daunting as poverty in a world of finite resources requires brilliant strategy and high-leverage action. It requires inquiry, analysis, and allocation of resources consistent with achieving the goal. Every action must be designed to take a quantum leap forward towards the goal. There must also be extraordinary flexibility of action. One must move down a pathway to make progress, yet be willing at every moment to let go of one approach to take a better pathway.

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A PARADIGM FOR SUCCESS Lighthouse Covenant International recognizes that creating truly effective strategies and actions for the end of poverty requires a new framework of thinking—a new paradigm—a paradigm consistent with the end of poverty. The key elements of that new paradigm are: 

Self-reliance: Conventional approaches have treated people in poverty as the problem instead of the solution, as beneficiaries rather than the primary actors working for their own self-reliance. All individuals have the right and the responsibility to be the authors of their own lives and their own development. The work of ending poverty must build from people’s own creativity—their own skills, resources, and decision-making.



Enabling Environment: The ability to express self-reliance is a function of the opportunities provided by society. The work of ending poverty is therefore not feeding people and providing them with monthly checks. It is the work of creating an enabling environment in which people have the opportunity and empowerment they need to build lives of self-reliance.



Empowerment of women: Women and children are the most affected by poverty. Traditionally, women bear the primary responsibilities in the most relevant areas—food production, nutrition, family planning, primary health, and education. Yet most development inputs continue to go to men. A central component of effective strategy must be the empowerment of women in ways that enable them

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to achieve improvements in all key areas that affect their lives and those of their families. 

Global responsibility, partnership and investment: Poverty is a global issue. All of us have the responsibility to stand in partnership with people living in poverty, being committed to their success. The achievement of this goal represents a new future, not only for those who are in poverty but also for all people. Realizing this new future for all humanity requires investment, not charity.

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OUR CALL TO ACTION ighthouse Covenant International offers the following set of programs and services to begin the process of transformation in the city of Philadelphia. Many aspects have been considered from business and community development to finance, education, and housing. These are initial ideas to catalyze a more comprehensive approach, which can be achieved through the involvement and commitment of partnerships on all levels of government and community agents.

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MICROFINANCE PROGRAM The focus on Commerce and Business Development by Lighthouse Covenant International is grounded in a clear and unequivocal understanding of the need for raising up the spiritual, social, economic, and political status of the impoverished in our societies. We are passionate and dedicated to help increase economic opportunities for minority populations interested in pursuing business enterprises. We will target commerce and business communities in the United States as well as those communities abroad, seeking and executing ways to accelerate growth and prosperity. Small business is one of America’s most powerful engines of opportunity and economic growth. Starting a business is a great opportunity to turn a dream into reality, at least in America. Minority business enterprises are a rapidly growing and increasingly important segment of the United States and global economy.

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From 1997-2002, the total number of U.S. companies increased by two million and over 50% of this increase was due to minorityowned firms. Minority-owned businesses are diverse, participating in a wide variety of industries—financial services, health care, construction, transportation, and other services. However, despite impressive growth in the number of U.S. minority firms, barriers still prevent many individuals here in America and abroad from having the opportunity to realize their business ownership dreams. Minority business enterprises, at the very least, must increase the size, scale, and economic viability of their firms if they are to compete effectively in the global economy. To accomplish this, minority business enterprises must be assertive, innovative competitors who will not fear or retreat from globalization. Microfinance institutions such as financial cooperatives, financial non-governmental organizations, and rural banks can provide poor people with small amounts of credit at reasonable interest rates. Although credit is an important part of microfinance, it is just one of the diverse financial services that poor people need to improve their lives. Poor people also need saving services— basic insurance options and affordable remittance systems to best manage their assets and generate income. While the microfinance sector continues to grow, microfinance programs are not serving at least 400 million poor and low-income people. Although not the panacea for poverty reduction, providing financial services to poor people is clearly an important means to help reach our goal to reduce poverty. Studies have shown that people with access to financial services are able to improve their standard of living and are more likely to send their children to school and keep them there longer. In addition to financial services, some microfinance institutions provide other useful services to their clients such as health insurance.

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BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT MENTORING PROGRAM One of the ways we will help generate success for companies is through our commitment to the creation of a Business Development Mentoring Program. As a cornerstone program for helping businesses launch most successfully and have the ability to sustain themselves, our Mentoring Program strives to reach those sectors of the population currently underserved, including ethnic populations and women, in both urban and rural areas. We will provide necessary assistance both by working in an advisory capacity as well as shoulder-to-shoulder in the many aspects of business development. Our ultimate goal is to provide millions of people with steady jobs and create wealth in minority communities as well as become advocates for other programs that leverage public and private resources to serve these diverse communities. The mentoring program will focus on building the foundational skills and knowledge essential for small companies to be successful as well as more advanced expertise for growth expansion of medium and larger companies. Through a variety of educational venues, the program will bridge the skills and/or credibility gaps in such areas as viability of business models, corporate structure, business formation, strategic planning, marketing, risk management, technology, and e-commerce, just to name a few. More and more, developing strategic alliances and partnerships is becoming increasingly critical for a company’s success, and through the mentoring program we will help promote networking within and across industries for mutual success. Basic financial services like credit, savings, and insurance give people an opportunity to borrow, save, invest, and protect their families against risk. But with little income or collateral, poor people are seldom able to borrow money from banks and other formal financial institutions. Even when they do have income or collateral, the amounts they require are often too small to appeal to banks. Instead, poor people tend to rely on informal financial rela-

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tionships, like moneylenders, that usually come at a very high cost to borrowers. Obtaining sources of financing and greater access to the marketplace is equally important. We support microfinance programs that enable the poor, mostly  women, to lift themselves out of poverty and make better lives for their families. To do this, we partner with a worldwide network of microfinance institutions that work on the front lines daily, meeting the needs of clients and reaching out to others who can benefit from microfinance. Support is provided in the form of funding, technical assistance, training, and new technology. The financial division of Lighthouse Covenant is a capital markets group that will seek to harness the vast resources of local and international capital markets to bring new financial resources to our microfinance institution partners.   With more than 400 million poor people cut off from financial services, there is a huge, unmet need for microfinance.  To reach them, microfinance institutions need capital beyond the traditional philanthropic support to rapidly expand their operations and increase outreach. New ideas and innovative thinking will drive the expansion and  effectiveness of microfinance.  Knowledge sharing is an important component of our work. To have the greatest impact on global poverty, we are committed to sharing ideas and innovations with the wider microfinance community. We hope this open-sourcing of information will guide other organizations in improving the industry’s outreach to the more than one billion people living in abject poverty. The financial arm of Lighthouse Covenant International aims to harness the vast resources of the world’s financial markets to support the rapid expansion of outreach to poor families by leading poverty-focused microfinance institutions (MFIs). Microfinance is a solution scaleable to the size of the problem of global poverty. However, its potential remains largely unrealized. Resources provided by the international donor community and private philanthropists, traditional sources of funds for microfinance meet only a small proportion of the market demand.

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MICROFINANCE PROGRAM SUPPORT Building strong institutions is a key goal—ranging in size from just a few hundred clients to hundreds of thousands, our partner microfinance institutions are the bedrock of our outreach to the poor. Our success is intricately tied to their impact and performance. As the demand for microfinance  increases, these front-line institutions must be able to adapt to the changing needs of the communities they serve. To help them operate more efficiently and  be more effective,  we will provide each partner with  financial products and services that are tailored to meet their needs. Drawing on the skills and expertise of our in-house professionals and a pool of consultants, we work with individual MFIs to develop a comprehensive technical assistance package including:   

Financing strategies that foster smart growth Training and capacity-building programs that help to expand and strengthen day-to-day operations Outreach initiatives that increase their visibility both in local and international communities

To be more effective, microfinance institutions must also know how their products and services are helping their clients to escape poverty. Lighthouse Covenant International will help them measure their social performance with our Progress Out of Poverty Index. This index allows the microfinance institutions (MFIs) to better determine their clients’ needs, which programs work best, how quickly clients leave poverty, and what helps them to most quickly move out of poverty. It builds on previous efforts within the industry to measure and manage social performance and is available to Lighthouse Covenant International’s partner MFIs, as well as those outside the network.

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HOUSING DEVELOPMENT The humble will inherit the land and will delight themselves in abundant prosperity (Psalm 37:11).

his is the promise of God to His people—owning our own home is our inherited right. No one should be living on the streets homeless. We live in one of the wealthiest countries in the world, yet so many of its citizens are homeless. This number is especially high among children and women. This is disgraceful. Lighthouse Covenant International’s Housing and Real Estate division’s goal is to help families reach home ownership. We realize that families coming out of homeless shelters or substandard living conditions need not only a healthy living environment but also intensive support to move to permanent housing and self-sufficient living. Lighthouse Covenant International’s Housing Division plans to develop housing from abandoned homes and vacant lots that are located close to the services and the resources needed by our client families. Housing development activities not only will help these families but also help the neighborhoods where the homes are located to be healthy and safe environments for whole communities by replacing unsafe, dilapidated, condemned houses with new homes.

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HOMELESSNESS Even in the face of the 1990s economic prosperity, homeless statistics showed the number of homeless remained stubbornly high. Today, more than 500,000 people are considered homeless at any given time—meaning that they are living without a “permanent, safe, decent, affordable place to live.” Homelessness in America persists in part because many urban areas remain economically depressed, housing costs have risen rapidly in the past decade, and wages for lower skilled workers have remained stable.75

HOMELESS STATISTICS Poverty is the most proximate cause of homelessness in America. Statistics show between twenty and thirty percent of homeless families surveyed in 1996 said they had gone without food for part of the previous month. The homeless also face persistent deprivation and constant threat of harm. They spend more time in the hospital and in jail than their poor counterparts. The majority are victims of violent crimes, and one-fourth lack needed medical care. The National Alliance to End Homelessness reports that children in homeless families do worse in school and have lower attendance and more long-term absences. Although single men constitute about sixty percent of the homeless population, families constitute about one third of all homeless and are the fastest-growing group of homeless persons. The homeless elderly will also be an important group as America ages in the next decades. Seventy percent of the homeless live in central cities; rural homelessness is a hidden problem. The rural homeless are more likely to be families that are homeless for shorter periods of time, often as a result of domestic violence. One of the hardest groups to reach, however, is the one fourth of homeless who have been homeless for at least five years.76

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AMERICA’S HOMELESS CHILDREN According to the National Center on family, homeless children are the fastest growing members of our society. At least 1.35 million children are homeless during a year’s time. On any given day 800,000 people are homeless in the United States, including 200,000 children in homeless families. Families with children are among the fastest growing segment of the homeless population. Most children living with homeless parents are very young (42% are under the age of six years). Family homelessness is increasing. Requests for emergency shelter by families have increased every year since 1985, with an average increase of 20% in 2002.75

HOMELESSNESS MAKES CHILDREN SICK Homelessness children get sick twice as often as other children. They have: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

Twice as many ear infections Four times as many asthma attacks Five times more stomach problems Six times as many speech problems Twice as many hospitalizations.

Homeless children go hungry twice as often as other children and 25% of homeless children report eating less after becoming homeless.75

HOMELESSNESS WOUNDS CHILDREN Every day, homeless children are confronted with stressful, traumatic events. With in a single year: 1. 97% of homeless children move, many up to three times 164

Housing Development 2. 22% are separated from their families to be put in foster care or to live with relatives 3. 25% have witnessed acts of violence within their families75

HOMELESS CHILDREN AND MENTAL HEALTH More than 20% of homeless preschoolers have emotional problems serious enough to require professional care and 47% of homeless children school-age children have problems such as anxiety, depression, or withdrawal, compared to 18% of other children.75

HOMELESS CHILDREN STRUGGLE IN SCHOOL Approximately 87% of school-age homeless children and youth are enrolled in school, although only about 77% attend school regularly. Some schools don’t allow homeless children to register without school and medical records. Others will not enroll children without a home address and there is often no transportation available to get children from shelters to school. The vast majority of homeless children and youth live in shelters, doubled up with friends or relatives or in situations such as motels and campgrounds. Homeless children who are able to attend have more problems learning in school. Compared with other children, homeless children are: 1. Four times as likely to have developmental delays 2. Twice as likely to have learning disabilities 3. Twice as likely to repeat a grade, most often due to frequent absences and moves to new schools (28% of homeless children go to three or more schools in a single year)77

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HOMELESS CHILDREN ARE NOT RECEIVING THE SERVICES THEY NEED Despite their multiple and complex needs, homeless children are not receiving the services they need. For example: 1. Nearly 20% of all homeless children lack a regular source of medical care and 15% rely solely on hospital emergency rooms. 2. Less than 1/3 of homeless children who need help for their emotional problems are receiving it. 3. Only 50-60% of homeless families are enrolled in Medicare, although most are eligible. 4. Only 71% of the homeless families received food stamps or WIC, although most are eligible. 5. Only 37% of homeless children receive services that help them with enrollment, attendance, and success in school. 6. Only 15% of homeless children are in preschool programs, less than half the rate of all children nationally.75

THE CAUSE: POVERTY AMIDST PLENTY Housing is not affordable for many low-income families. The US economy has caused rent rates to soar, putting housing out of reach for the poorest American. Nearly 28 million households– one in four—reported spending more than 30% of their income on housing. Renters’ households in forty of the fifty states face a Housing Wage (the wage a full time worker must earn to afford fair market rent) of more than the prevailing minimum wage earners working 40 hours a week, 52 weeks a year. The supply of affordable housing is declining while the demand remains high. 66% of metropolitan statistical areas have housing wages of at least twice the prevailing minimum wage. The number 166

Housing Development of rental units affordable to families with extremely low income declined by over 370,000 units between 1991 and 1997. The average waiting period for public housing units rose from ten to eleven months between 1996 and 1998. As extreme poverty among families and children continues to grow, seventeen percent of the children less than eighteen years were living below the poverty level. Ten percent of all families and eighteen percent of families with no husband present had incomes below the poverty level. Moreover, there has been an increase in the number of children living in extreme poverty. The number of families living in poverty went up by more than 300,000 in 2002 to 7 million from 6.1 million in 2001. The number of children in poverty rose by more than 600,000 during the same period up to 12.2 million. From the late 1970s to the late 1990s, the average income of the lowest income families fell by over six percent after adjustment for inflation. Another key factor contributing to family homelessness is health care. Health care costs rose by 1.4 million to 41.2 million, putting them at extreme risk of homelessness. An injury or serious illness can quickly wipe out a family’s income causing them to lose their housing and become homeless. Domestic violence is another reason women and children become homeless when they are forced to flee their homes to escape violence.75

THE CHANGING FACE OF HOMELESSNESS Cities around the country are reporting record numbers of homeless people entering shelters or sleeping on the streets. The face of homelessness has drastically changed throughout the years. In the 1980s, thousands of individuals from the nation’s public psychiatric hospitals were discharged, leaving many of the mentally ill without homes. This gave rise to a popular misconception, however, that led many to think all homeless people were mentally ill or suffering from drug or alcohol abuse problems. Oftentimes, homeless people

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were portrayed as lazy and unclean. But today, more working and middle class families face the prospect of living on the streets.75

ABANDONING MEN For the past several years, advocates for the homeless have sought public support by drawing attention to the number of homeless families on the streets. That is an understandable tactic, for Americans respond to social issues on the basis of sympathy for the innocent or deserving—those whose blamelessness touches the heart and whom we deem unable to care for themselves. Families and women with children obviously fit this bill. Peter Marin, a freelance writer in Santa Barbara, California examined the plight of homeless men in America and eloquently expressed the truth about the abandoned men in our society. Marin reported that the fact remains, beyond propaganda, that the problem of homelessness is essentially a problem of single adult men. Far more men than women, and far more single adults than families end up homeless. Until we understand how and why that happens, nothing we try to do about homelessness will have much of an impact. “Most figures pertaining to the homeless come from limited studies or educated guesses,” states Marin, “which dissolve, when examined, in one’s hand.”78 The most convincing statistics I know can be found in James Wright’s small book, Address Unknown, the Homeless in America.79 According to Wright, out of every 1,000 homeless people in America, 100 or so are adults with children and another 100 are the children themselves. The rest are single adults. Out of that total, 150 are single women, and 650 are single men. Breaking that down into percentages one finds that out of all single homeless adults, 80% are men; out of all homeless adults, 70% are single men; out of all homeless people—adults or children—65% are single men.

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Housing Development The question one should be asking is: why do so many more men than women end up on the streets? First, the simplest answer, according to Marin is that life on the streets, as dangerous as it is for men, is even more dangerous for women. While many men in trouble drift almost naturally onto the streets, women do anything they can to avoid it. Second, there are proportionally far more private and public shelters and services available to women. Third, women are accustomed to asking for help while men are not and women make better use of available resources. Fourth, poor families in economic extremes seem to practice a form of triage. Men are released into the streets more readily while women are kept at home even in the worst of circumstances. Fifth, there are cultural and perhaps genetic factors at work. There is some evidence that men—especially in adolescence—are more aggressive and openly rebellious than women and harder to socialize. Or it may be that men are allowed to live out impulses that women are taught to suppress, and they therefore end up more often in trouble. A more important consideration may be the question of work. Traditionally, the kinds of work associated with transient or marginal life have been reserved for men. They brought in crops, worked on ships and docks, built roads and railroads, logged, and mined. Such labor granted them a place in the economy while allowing them to remain on society’s edges, which is an option rarely available to women save through prostitution. And society always seemed to intentionally produce the men for this work. Obviously, poverty and joblessness forced men into marginality, but there was more to it than that. Schools produced failures and dropouts; family life produced runaways and throwaways; wars rendered men incapable of settled life; small-town boredom led them to look elsewhere for larger worlds. Now, of course, the nature of work has changed and society has little need for such men. But like a mad engine that cannot be shut

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down, society goes right on producing them. Its institutions function as they always did—the schools hum, the families collapse, the wars churn out their victims. But what is there for them to do? The low-paying service-sector jobs that have replaced manual labor go mainly to women and docile high-school kids, not to the men who once did the nation’s roughest work. Everywhere in America, moneyless men have become ghostlovers, ghost-fathers, one step ahead of welfare workers they fear will disqualify others for having a male around. In many ghettos or housing projects throughout the nation you now find women and children in their deteriorating welfare apartments and their companions and fathers in even worse condition on the streets: in gutted apartments and junked cars, denied even the minimal help given to the opposite sex. Is it surprising in this context that many African-Americans see welfare as an extension of slavery that destroys families, isolates women, and humiliates men? Or is it accidental that in many poor communities family structure collapses and more than half the children are born outside marriage at precisely the same time that disenfranchised men are flooding the streets? I do not think so. Before judging men and their failures, one must understand that their social roles are in no way sustained by the institutions and policies that in small ways make female roles sustainable. To put it simply, men are not supposed to be or allowed to be dependent. They are expected to take care of others and themselves. And when they cannot or will not do it, then the assumption at the heart of the culture is that they are somehow less than men and therefore unworthy of help. An irony asserts itself: by being in need of help, men forfeit the right to it. Then there is our fear. When we see homeless or idle men we invariably sense or imagine danger—as if beyond the pale, they are also beyond social control and therefore are to be avoided or suppressed rather than helped. It is here, too, that work plays a role. In his memoirs, Hamlin Garland describes the transient farm workers who passed through his

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Housing Development childhood village each year at harvest time. In good years, when there were crops to bring in, the men were welcomed, housed, and fed. But in bad years, when they weren’t needed, they were forced to stay outside of town or to pass on unaided. They were seen then as threats to peace and order—barbarians at the gates! The same attitude is with us still. When men work (or when they go to war—work’s most brutal form), we grant them a right to exist. But when work is scarce or when men are of no economic use, then they become in our eyes not only superfluous but also a danger. We feel compelled to exile them, to drive them away to fend for themselves. We are so used to thinking of ours as a male-dominated society that we lose track of the ways in which some men are perhaps more oppressed than most women. But race and class as well as gender play roles in oppression. And while it is true, in general, that man dominates both society and women, in practice it is only certain men who are dominant. Others, usually those from the working class and often darker-skinned, suffer endlessly from forms of isolation and contempt which exceed what many women experience. The irony at work is that what you find among homeless men and what lies at the heart of their troubles is precisely what our cultural myths deny them—helplessness they cannot overcome on their own. You find vulnerability and senses of injury, betrayal, and despair equal to what we accept without question in women. Of course, economics plays a part in this. But more often than not, something else is at work. For decades now, sociologists have pointed to rents in our private social fabric as well as our public safety nets and to those they injure: abused kids, battered women, isolated adults, alcoholics, and addicts. Why is it so hard for us to see homeless men in this context? Why do we find it difficult to see that grown men as well as women can be damaged by childhood and they often end up on the edges of society, unable to fulfill expected roles?

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Do not forget the greatest violence done to men—the tyrannous demands made upon them when young by older and more powerful males, that they kill and die in war. Long before the war in Vietnam had crowded our streets with vets, almost half the men on America’s skid rows had seen service in one war or another—a much higher percentage than in the regular population. Many men never recover fully from war, having seen too much of death to ever again do much with life. Finally, whatever particular griefs men may have experienced on their way to homelessness, there is one last devastating kind of sorrow all of them share—their sense of betrayal at society’s refusal to recognize their need. Most of us—both men as well as women— grow up expecting, deep in our hearts, that when things go terribly wrong someone from somewhere will step forward to help us. What if this rescue does not happen? Watching indifferently from the shore as, in isolation, we struggle to swim and then sink, is perhaps the most terrible discovery that anyone in society can make. When troubled men realize this, as they all do sooner or later, then hope vanishes completely. Despair rings them around and they become what they need not have been—the homeless men we see everywhere around us.75 Beyond all this, there remains the problem with which we began: the prejudices at work in society which prevent even the attempt to provide solutions. Suggestions such as those I have made will remain merely utopian notions without an examination and renovation of our attitudes towards men. Over the past several years we have slowly, laboriously, begun to confront our prejudices and oppressive practices in relation to women. Unless we now undertake the same kind of project in relation to men in general and homeless men in particular, nothing whatsoever is going to change. That’s as sure as death and taxes and the endless, hidden sorrows of men.75

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HOUSING OPTIONS artha Burt, principal research associate in the Urban Institute’s Center on Labor, Human Services and Population, is a leading expert on homelessness in America. As the author of Helping American Homeless, Burt believes the important thing to know is that we currently do not have any recent data. There have been only two national studies and the Urban Institute took part in both. The first was in 1987, which pertained to only two big cities. The second, in 1996, included every part of the country— urban, suburban, and rural. According to Martha, the 1996 national study estimated that between 446,000 to 840,000 people are homeless at any given time. It was also projected that one in ten “poor” people experience at least one night of homelessness in the course of a year, and that includes “poor” children. You do not get one in ten persons becoming homeless as a matter of personal vulnerability alone.81

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TRANSITIONAL AND SUPPORTIVE HOUSING Such a high rate of homelessness definitely speaks to structural problems. Homelessness is not going to be solved without addressing those structural problems. With this fact in mind, Lighthouse Covenant International will implement and support a variety of housing options for the homeless we will assist. Despite their diversity, almost all homeless people are extremely poor and lack decent affordable housing and an adequate income.

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Regardless of their other difficulties, practitioners must address their basic tangible needs for material resources. Transitional housing provides a temporary place for the homeless to live for one or more years while they wait for a permanent home to become available. It also provides shelter for the homeless who are not yet able to live in permanent housing (for example, those with a severe substance abuse problem). Services in transitional housing can include education, job training, home ownership, and employment counseling. In addition to shelter, research has shown that supportive housing often provides treatment for the mentally ill and substance abusers. Clients have access to in-house or off-site services such as medical and psychological care and substance abuse treatment. Supportive housing is crucial, as about half of all homeless adults have issues with alcohol and one-third with other drugs. Veterans, who are among the most honored citizens in our society, appear in substantial numbers among the homeless, as do former criminal offenders and illegal immigrants. Each of these groups experience distinctive forms of adversity resulting from both societal structures and personal vulnerabilities—and each group has unique service needs. All, however, experience extreme poverty, lack of housing, and a mixture of internally impaired or externally inhibited functional capabilities. Attention to the distinctive characteristics of subgroups of the homeless is important in facilitating service delivery and program planning, as said by Robert Rosenheck M.D., and Ellen Bassuk, M.D., but may also diffuse attention away from shared fundamental needs and generate unproductive policy debate about deserving versus undeserving homeless people.80 Although the proportion of older persons in the total homeless population has declined in recent years, the number of homeless elders, aged fifty and older, has increased. While still a relatively small subpopulation, those numbers are likely to escalate as homelessness continues unabated, baby boomers reach older adulthood, and the demand for affordable housing continues to outstrip supply.

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Housing Options Elderly homeless persons are of special concern because of their vulnerability to victimization (both in shelters and on the streets), their frailty (due to poor mental and physical health), and the reluctance of traditional senior service systems to incorporate them into ongoing programs. Homelessness uniquely challenges elderly persons. Not only does their vulnerability make meeting basic human needs for food, shelter, and safety more problematic, but it interferes with resolving the later developmental tasks of the lifecycle: the opportunity to reflect on one’s life, consolidate personal integrity, and experience completeness rather than despair. The research on homeless elders remains limited. With the declining age of the homeless population, studies have primarily addressed the needs of younger individuals and families. Previous research that contained samples of older men among the single adult population focused on alcoholism or “skid row” lifestyles rather than their age or life cycle challenges. The declining rates of poverty among the elderly, a federally mandated system of targeted benefits and programs for older Americans, coupled with the stigmatization of this subgroup, has made the elderly of limited concern to policy makers. Factors that have been identified as contributing to the presence of elderly persons among the homeless include deinstitutionalization (the release of elderly from institutional care), poverty (especially among elderly women), and the lack of affordable housing. Limited access to affordable housing and supportive services is especially problematic for minority elders. Elder homeless need a complex and coordinated system of care that includes:      

Specialized outreach Help in meeting basic needs Help in meeting routine activities of daily living Twenty-four hour crisis assistance Health and mental health care Transportation services 175

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Assistance with the development of social relationships and social ties A range of housing options with easy access to services

Studies indicate that some elders do not trust service providers and fear limitations to their independence and the possibility of being forced into institutional care. For homeless elders in hospitals, drug treatment programs, or nursing homes, policies must ensure that they are discharged only when adequate residential services are secured and that they are never discharged to shelters or the street.

GENDER ISSUES Since the mid-1980s, many more women have become homeless with the ratio of men to women approaching three to two. Women now comprise more than one-fifth of the overall homeless population according to Martha Burt of Urban Institute, and US Conference of Mayors, 1991.77 In part, the transformation of homelessness of women reflects the feminization of poverty. Many extremely poor women have limited earning power, job skills, and education and are overwhelmed by childcare responsibilities. If they are raising children alone, these burdens are compounded. Female heads of households are generally poorer than two-parent families because of the presence of a single income and the cost of childcare. Despite these facts, most poor women do not have a realistic place in the current labor market, which is designed to support nuclear families with male breadwinners. For example, the gap between women’s and men’s income remains wide and occupational and gender-related discrimination is rampant. Women earn less over their lifetime than men and the economic burden of divorce often falls on their shoulders. Service sector

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Housing Options jobs do not pay a livable wage or provide essential benefits and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) benefits, which were discontinued as a result of the passing of the 1996 Welfare Reform Legislation, thus not allowing women to be able to climb out of poverty. Surveys conducted over the past two decades have demonstrated that homeless Americans are exceptionally diverse and include representatives from all segments of society—the old and the young; men and women; single people and families; city dwellers and rural residents; whites and people of color; and ablebodied workers and people with serious health problems. For women with limited education and job skills, the picture is even bleaker. Improved technology coupled with job competition from third world countries have led to reduced wages and higher unemployment for these women. The availability of fewer jobs paying decent wages has particularly affected the standard of living of young adults and minority group members. Although pathways into homelessness may be different for homeless men and women, each has unique service needs that require innovative programming. Studies have shown that homeless women suffer disproportionately from every catastrophe specific to their gender and race. The problems they experience mirror those of low-income women and are further compounded for women of color. Although pathways into homelessness are somewhat different for homeless men, they too suffer inordinately and require comprehensive programming to address their complex service needs.

RACIAL AND ETHNOCULTURAL SUBGROUPS Charles Tilley is a psychologist who did a study in 1998 that showed racial and ethnocultural minorities have long been at a serious disadvantage in the United States. In a trenchant analysis of the ways in which inter-group patterns of social interaction become institutionalized, Charles Tilley has described the process through

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which “durable inequality” emerges from exploitation of categorically defined subgroups. Through this process, persistent disadvantage becomes institutionalized, appearing inevitable, intrinsic, and deserved—a basic fact of the way things are. Perhaps the destructiveness of this process and its ability to shape social perception has contributed to our inattention of homelessness among minority groups—as if it were expectable and, therefore, in some sense, acceptable. Thus, although minorities are at dramatically greater risk for homelessness than other Americans, there has been virtually no specific study of minority pathways into homelessness. Studies that address minority issues have been, almost exclusively, sub-analyses of other, and more general surveys. “For this reason alone, it is important that a report on subgroups of homeless people does not overlook the importance of race and ethnocultural group identity,” says Tilley.82 Blacks and Latinos in America are far more likely than other Americans to be poor and, therefore, more likely to be homeless. In 1980, as the numbers of homelessness began to grow, thirty percent of African Americans and twenty-three percent of Hispanics lived in poverty as compared to only nine percent of non-Hispanic whites. A government study released in 1998, based on a careful analysis that included government and job-related benefits, found the gap between rich and poor, black and white, to be increasing, even as the stock market soared. Consistent with these income statistics, surveys conducted in the 1980s all show that about half of all homeless people were black, almost five times their representation in the general population. Hispanics, ironically, were not over-represented among the homeless in most localities, and were under-represented in some. Therefore, we must consider the specific circumstances of minority groups separately.

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HOMELESSNESS AMONG AFRICAN AMERICANS It is important to note, at the outset, that poverty alone does not account for the high risk of homelessness among blacks. A systematic comparison of the proportion of blacks among the homeless and among domiciled people living in poverty in US cities with populations of 100,000 or more, showed that poor blacks living in urban settings were twice as likely to be homeless as poor whites in the same cities.78 Several factors showed by R.A. Rosenheck may explain this additional difference: (1) Wealth is likely to be more important than income in the etiology of homelessness. (2) The flight and the departure of middle class blacks to the suburbs have left pockets of concentrated poverty and reduced job opportunities in urban areas. (3) Extreme segregation of housing by race and class seriously augments the adverse effects of other types of economic disadvantage. Differences in wealth reflect differences in the long-term accumulation of assets in families. The major asset of non-Hispanic whites is their personal home, an asset whose value has increased markedly since the end of World War II. Blacks, however, had little chance of owning a home in the immediate post-war period; this partially explains why the wealth gap has yet to be narrowed. Racial differences in wealth are important because, while income reflects resource availability in an average week or month, wealth (savings) is what allows people to survive periods of adversity such as job loss or recession. Thus, the much larger gap between blacks and whites in wealth can be expected to result in far greater vulnerability among blacks to residential displacement during economic downturns and lower levels of resource buffering capacity in their social networks.

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Secondly, as documented by William Julius Wilson, author of the article, When Work Disappears, the loss of jobs in inner cities has dramatically reduced employment opportunities for black men.84 This loss has been compounded as upwardly blacks have followed whites to more prosperous communities in the suburbs. Thus, many inner-city communities have lost their internal cultural strength. Third, housing segregation has contributed substantially to the exceptionally high risk of homelessness among blacks. As chronicled by Massey and Denton, “Redlining,” the official government policy during the 1930s that kept blacks from moving into white neighborhoods, and continuing patterns of de facto discrimination in the housing market, have kept blacks and whites separate.85 The separation is increasing and it seriously compounds problems associated with poverty and limited employment opportunity. In a racially and socio-economically integrated community, even though the disadvantaged suffer disproportionately, especially during economic downturns, neighborhood institutions have little effect because of the contributions of better off residents. In contrast, in segregated communities, when poor people experience an economic downturn or a reduction in public support, their communities suffer devastating losses of material resources, infrastructure, and institutional capital. Although briefly sketched, factors operating at the community level are likely to account substantially for the increased risk for homelessness among blacks beyond income differences. Although not conclusive, this data suggest that depletion of community social and economic resources may require additional interventions at both the community and individual levels. These issues are presented at length for two reasons. First, they suggest that interventions seeking to address homelessness among African Americans may require special consideration of institutional and structural contexts. Second, they demonstrate that examination of the specific needs of subgroups of homeless people must not stop at descriptions of individual susceptibilities, but must also examine group-specific social issues. 180

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NATIVE AMERICANS AMONG THE HOMELESS Although Blacks and Latinos are the most numerous minority groups in this country, they are not the only ones that face adverse circumstances. The presence of other subgroups among the homeless and the documentation of their needs have received minimal attention. We note, however, a large national study of homelessness among Native American veterans, because it further illustrates many of the themes we have been exploring. A study of almost 50,000 homeless veterans demonstrated that Native Americans are substantially over represented among homeless veterans (even without considering the prevalence of homelessness on reservations), and that unlike other groups, they suffer overwhelmingly from alcohol abuse, with far lower rates of diagnosed psychiatric disorders.

ADVANTAGES OF EVALUATING DIFFERENCES Examining differences among subgroups of homeless people is very important and has some clear advantages. First, each subgroup has unique service needs and identifying these needs is critical for program planning and design. Detoxification programs, for example, are of little relevance for programs assisting homeless children, and job counseling has limited value for people with severe addictions. Even psychosocial characteristics, such as demoralization, lack of self-confidence or self-esteem may have distinct roots for people with different backgrounds. Secondly, identifying subgroup needs can guide the hiring of staff with skills that are matched to the client’s needs. Programs serving people with mental illness need access to clinicians with expertise in treating these disorders, while programs serving Latinos and other minorities must hire a linguistically and culturally competent staff.

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Finally, identifying group-specific service needs can provide crucial information to guide development of responsive inter-organizational service networks. Homeless people typically need assistance in multiple areas, often involving distinct agencies. Building alliances among agencies with different missions, goals, and values can be complex and time consuming, and it is important that these efforts are appropriately targeted.

HOME OWNERSHIP EDUCATION To ensure longevity and accountability to our client family, Lighthouse Covenant International Housing Division will require that all families participate in the homeowner education program, through which potential homebuyers learn how to responsibly buy and maintain a home. Participants will learn about the home buying process, shopping for a home, repairing or building their credit, budgeting, obtaining a mortgage, qualifying for a mortgage, closing, and life as a homeowner (including financial management, seasonal inspections, conservation measures, repairs, maintenance, and preventing foreclosure). Additionally, leadership classes, interactive workshops, and seminars will be provided. This is to support the efforts of increasing the quality of life for the applicants and residents by changing their thought process towards life and building self-esteem, character, and self-discipline for the parents as well as the family. The goal of our educational program is to help low income, formerly homeless, single parent families to develop new skills to improve the quality of their lives and reach true, lasting, self-sufficiency. The ultimate goal of Lighthouse Covenant International is to provide training so that people gain the skills and leadership to work together for change. The result is self-reliance, rather than dependence on external aid. In his message, Dr. Peters of World Neighbors explained, “I talked about the things I’ve seen, but I spoke mostly about the things I felt:

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Housing Options that the gulf between the rich and the wretched was intolerable; that we were brothers to, not keepers of, the world’s needy; that we must learn to do things with, not to—or even for—others; that they must share in electing priorities and procedures.”86 True transformation comes from taking authority and responsibility for one’s life.

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EDUCATION t is said that if you give a child an education, you will change a child’s future forever. Children are entitled to a free, quality, basic education. Recognizing this entitlement, Lighthouse Covenant International will make the achievement of universal primary education one of our Development Goals. Lighthouse Covenant International Endowment for Inner-City Education will provide needy children with access to high-quality education.87 The endowment provides tuition scholarships to low-income children so they may attend high-performing elementary (grades pre-K-8) and secondary (grades 9-12) schools in the Philadelphia and surrounding areas. The endowment also provides financial support directly to the schools through grants for academic programs to ensure that a stable and permanent source of periodic funding will be available to the inner city elementary and secondary schools. The endowment’s main focus is providing tuition scholarships for low-income children. We believe we must ensure that every child has the opportunity to receive the best possible education, regardless of need. Our scholarships will provide the next generation of leaders with the tools to break the cycle of poverty—an excellent education, a sense of strong values, and a belief that they can be successful in life. Educational attainment is becoming an increasingly important factor for economic success. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, one in five jobs today require a four-year college education.

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Education That share is expected to creep up to a higher percentage due to continued growth of the economy’s “college-intensive” sectors, such as health care, education, and computer-based industries. Of course, this means that about four in five jobs still don’t require a college education. And, increasingly, these jobs are not good ones. “There probably is a modest increase in the skill levels needed in most industries,” explains Dan Hecker, a labor economist in the Office of Employment Projections at the Bureau of Labor Statistics. “It is not a case of there not being jobs for people who have minimal job skills and education; there are lots of those kinds of jobs. But very, very few of those jobs come with pay that is much above the minimum wage.”88 Work effort has little to do with income. “The main reason for the rise in the working poor is a decline in real earnings,” says Rebecca Blank, professor of economics and director of the Joint Center for Poverty Research at Northwestern University. “This loss of earnings is more striking among men than women and is highest among high-school dropouts.”89 Blank’s findings echo federal statistics regarding the link between education and success in today’s economy. “Men who are high school dropouts and full-time, year-round workers saw a twenty percent decline in real weekly earnings from 1975 to 1997,” Blank says, “For those with a high school degree, there was a ten percent drop in real earnings during this period. Nearly four in ten parents in working-poor families do not have high school diplomas. Another thirty-five percent have a high school degree, but no college experience.”89 “Since 1973, the economy has shifted from one that was relatively independent of international trends to a global economy where our fate is increasingly linked to that of other countries,” says Douglas Massey, professor of sociology at the University of Pennsylvania.90 Massey divides the labor market into at least two classes of people who will benefit differentially from economic globalization. One

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group includes the owners of capital, who always have done very well because capital is in scarce supply. Another group includes workers with the training and abilities that make this economy run.

THE HISTORY OF A PHILADELPHIA SCHOOL Saul Sack states in his book, Public School, that the key to the understanding of the present problem lies hidden in the recesses of the past. The social structure rests upon the foundation which former generations have erected and reflects in large measure the strengths and the weaknesses of its underpinning. We can neither shake off nor shrug away our origins, for change occurs not in a vacuum but arises from that which has gone before.91 Historical investigation is the instrument which unlocks the secrets of the past, offers a means for interpreting the present, and supplies a base upon which the course of rational social action may be predicated. Although history cannot offer definitive solutions to current problems it can shed light upon the nature of their origins and provide a base from which rational answers may be derived. Pennsylvania has a rich and storied history. This history began with Benjamin Franklin’s founding of the University of Pennsylvania as a European-styled school and America’s first university. Today’s Philadelphia region is home to nearly 300,000 college, private, parochial, and secondary school students. The School District of Philadelphia is a school district based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, that includes all public schools in the city of Philadelphia. Established in 1818, it is the eighth largest school district in the nation. The School Board was created in 1850 to oversee the district. The five-member School Reform Commission governs the School District of Philadelphia. The commission was established in December 2001, when oversight of the district was taken over by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. The Governor of Pennsylvania appoints three of the members and the Mayor of Philadelphia appoints two members of the commission.

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Education By the way of contract, the initiative for educational progress in the United States is largely outside of the system. Democracy marks itself off from aristocracy, not only in government itself but through an agent of its own choosing. It goes far outside official lines in self-governance. In this sense we govern ourselves by the Child Labor Society, the Consumers League, The Civic Federation or the Education Association, etc. Philadelphia has had many such organizations, not the least effective have been those associated with citizens whose purpose has been an active interest in education programs, such as the Public Education Association, organized in 1880 to improve the school of Philadelphia.92

ENROLLMENT There are 184,560 students enrolled in The School District of Philadelphia as of mid-October 2005, including early childhood programs as submitted to the Pennsylvania Department of Education. The state takeover of the district had its roots in the chronic low-test scores of district students and a history of inequitable financing which left the District with substantial and perpetual deficits. In 1975, Pennsylvania provided 55% of school funding statewide, however, in 2001 it provided less than 36%. An analysis determined that increased district spending was limited by a state system which relies heavily on property taxes for local school funding. As a result, wealthier school districts with proportionately more property owners and more expensive real estate have more funds for schools. This results in great disparities in school system expenditures per student. In 2000, the Philadelphia school district spent $6,969 a year per student. Seventy percent of Philadelphia’s students are at or near the poverty line. This contrasts with expenditures per student in wealthier suburban school districts: Jenkintown, $12,076; Radnor, $13,288; and Upper Merion, $13,139.93

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THE LONG ROAD AHEAD Philadelphia, with about 200,000 pupils and 270 schools, has a long road ahead. Overall scores remain low compared with state averages and some worry that the district’s momentum will slip for various reasons. “One is the money,” said Eva Gold, a principal with Research for Action, a nonprofit education group. “The district has spent all but $50 million of a $300 million bond issue floated in May 2002 to rebound from near bankruptcy and fund educational improvements, such as smaller class sizes and extra programs. While Mr. Vallas, former head of the School District, said he had stabilized the district’s finances, the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers blasted the district’s current budget for “deep cuts” in personnel and programs that threaten progress.”94 Philadelphia . . . by the close of the eighteenth century the commonwealth had spent considerable public money on the endowment of secondary schools and colleges, but in the matter of providing education for the poor she was lagging and is still lagging far behind other states and behind the spirit of William Penn and the authors of her Constitution. In spite of the existence of some excellent private or charity school under religious or other auspices, the great majority of Pennsylvania residents are illiterate and her future citizens are growing up equally devoid of the rudiments of learning. The United States is slipping behind other developed countries in the proportion of persons who earn a degree. There are stubborn gaps, based on family income, in who goes to college and earns a four-year degree.

HEAD START FOR POOR CHILDREN Twenty-two years after the creation of the Preschool Program for Low-income Children, its cofounder, Edward Zigler, acknowledged,

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Education “We simply cannot inoculate children in one year against the ravages of a life of deprivation.”95 Nevertheless, Zigler remains confident that Head Start brings some benefits to the children it serves. On average, poor children enter school with far fewer vocabulary, literacy, math, and social skills than their middle-class peers. They start off a step behind and never catch up; the gap in academic proficiency follows them to the end of their schooling. Since 1965, taxpayers have spent more than $6.6 billion on Head Start to provide comprehensive health, social, educational, and mental health services to poor children. Currently, the $6.6 billion program enrolls more than 900,000 three- and four-year-olds at a cost of roughly $7,000 per pupil. The federal Department of Health and Human Services directly funds the program’s 19,000 centers, which are operated by community and faith-based organizations and local public schools. Evidence suggests that the program provides short-term cognitive benefits for poor children who might otherwise enter school even further behind.95

ACHIEVEMENT GAP PERSISTS Since 1965, Head Start has enrolled over twenty-one million children. Recommended by a panel of child development experts in 1964, the program was initially an eight-week summer program run by the Office of Economic Opportunity with a goal of meeting the social, educational, emotional, health, and nutritional needs of preschool children. Four years after its inception, the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (now the Department of Health and Human Services) took over the implementation of the program. Most programs now serve children for a half-day or school day eight or nine months of the year. A quarter of the programs operate full-day, year-round programs. Today, nearly four decades since Head Start was launched, the school readiness gap between poor children and their middle-class

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peers remains stubbornly large. On average, low-income children enter kindergarten with a vocabulary a fraction of the size of their middle-class peers. They are also less likely to know the letters of the alphabet or even how to follow words left to right across the printed page. Nicholas Zill, Vice president of a research firm called Westat, notes, “Poor kids make gains in most of the elementary schools that they go to. The gains are parallel to those of more advantaged kids, but the gap still remains.”96 This achievement gap persists into high school. On the National Assessment of Educational Progress (known as “The Nation’s Report Card”) poor students score substantially lower than their middle and upper income peers, at all three grades—fourth, eighth, and twelfth—in all subjects. In math, science, and history, three to four times as many middle- and upper-income students receive “proficient” scores when compared with poor students, who are much more likely to be rated as “below basic,” the lowest level on the tests. A few studies indicated that Head Start participants were less likely to be enrolled in special education or to be held back a grade. Head Start students also received more dental and health screenings.95

EDUCATING POOR CHILDREN In an ideal world, primary education would be universal and publicly financed and all children would be able to attend school regardless of their parents’ ability or willingness to pay. The reason is simple: when any child fails to acquire the basic skills needed to function as a productive, responsible member of society, then society as a whole—not to mention the individual child—loses. The cost of educating children is far outweighed by the cost of not educating them. Adults who lack basic skills have greater difficulty finding well-paying jobs and escaping poverty. Education for girls has particularly striking social benefits. The educated woman not

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Education only has a higher income, but the maternal and infant mortality rates are lower and they have more personal freedom in making choices. Despite considerable progress over the past two decades, however, school attendance in the world’s poorest countries is by no means universal. According to the United Nations Development Program, about 113,000,000 children worldwide were not enrolled in school at the end of 2003. Because basic education is a recognized entitlement and society benefits when children are educated, the state should bear the cost, especially for poor children. In many poor countries, however, the state does not fulfill this obligation. The government may not have the resources to provide a free education for all, either because there is a large, untaxed shadow economy and the tax base is small, or because tax administration and collection are ineffective. In many counties (often the same ones), the state does a poor job with the resources it has. Funds are badly managed, and inefficiency or outright corruption may prevent resources from reaching schools. The political will to provide universal education may also be absent in undemocratic societies, if ruling elites fear that an educated population will be better equipped to challenge them. Although correcting these deficiencies is clearly a priority, it will take time. Equally disheartening are the disparities in educational attainment between different groups within counties and regions. Sadly, but not surprisingly, in most low-income counties, children from poor families are much less likely to be in school than children from more affluent families.97

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COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM ommunity development, informally called community building, is a broad term applied to the practices and academic disciplines of civic leaders, activists, involved citizens, and professionals to improve various aspects of local communities. Community Development Corporations (CDCs) are called such because of their community-based leadership with primary work and emphasis on housing and/or job creation. Although this is typical, the needs of communities have caused CDCs to expand their horizons to include social, health, youth and human services to its residents. Lighthouse Covenant International’s community development program seeks to empower individuals and groups of people by providing these groups with the skills they need to affect change in their own communities. These skills are often concentrated around building political power through the formation of large social groups working for a common agenda. Community developers must understand both how to work with individuals and how to affect communities’ positions within the context of larger social institutions.87

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COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT PRACTICE Community development practitioners are involved in organizing meetings and conducting searches within a community to identify

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Community Development Program problems, identify assets, locate resources, analyze local power structures, assess human needs, and investigate other concerns that comprise the community’s character. These practitioners, sometimes called social activists, use social resources to get the economic and political leverage that a community uses to meet their needs. Often, the social resources within the community are found to be adequate to meet these needs if individuals work collectively through techniques like cooperation and volunteerism. A form of community development that links academic resources to community problems in a reciprocally beneficial manner is communitybased participatory research (CBPR), a form of research which engages a community fully in the process of problem definition/ issue selection, research design, conducting research, and interpreting the results. One of the principal ways in which CPBR differs from traditional research is that instead of creating knowledge for the advancement of a field or for knowledge’s sake, CBPR is an iterative process, incorporating research, reflection, and action in a cyclical process.91 Wikipedia lists a valid number of different approaches to community development that can be recognized, including:         

Community economic development (CED) Community capacity building Social capital formation Political participatory development Nonviolent direct action Asset-based community development Community practice social work Ecologically sustainable development Community-based participatory research (CBPR)99

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THE HISTORY OF COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT Community Development aims to achieve, through collective effort, a better life. In the eighteenth century the work of the early socialist thinker Robert Owen (1771-1851) sought to create the perfect community through community planning. At New Lanark and at later utopian communities such as Oneida in the USA and the New Australia Movement in Australia, groups of people came together to create intentional utopian communities—with mixed success. Such community planning techniques became important in the 1920s and 1930s in East Africa, where community development proposals were seen as a way of helping local people improve their own lives with indirect assistance from colonial authorities.100 Mohondas K. Gandhi adopted African community development ideals as a basis of his South African Ashram and then introduced it as a part of the Indian Swaraj movement, aiming at establishing economic interdependence at village level throughout India. With Indian independence, despite the continuing work of Vinoba Bhave in encouraging grassroots land reform, India, under its first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru adopted a centralist heavy industry approach, antithetical to self-help community development ideas.101 Community development in Canada has roots in the development of co-operatives, credit unions, and caisses popularizes. The “Antigonish Movement” which started in the 1920s in Nova Scotia, through the work of Doctor Moses M. Coady and Father Jimmy Tompkins, has been particularly influential in the subsequent expansion of community economic development work across Canada.102

COMMUNITY BUILDING AND ORGANIZING Community organizing is a process by which people are brought together to act in common self-interest. While organizing describes any activity involving people interacting with one another in a

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Community Development Program formal manner, much community organizing is in the pursuit of a common agenda. Many groups seek populist goals and the ideal of participatory democracy. Community organizers create social movements by building a base of concerned people, mobilizing these community members to act, and developing leadership from and relationships among the people involved. Community Development Statistics were researched and captured in a 2002 report written by Christopher Walker of the Urban Institute Metropolitan Housing and Communities Policy Center, Washington, DC. He found that Community Development Corporations (CDCs) have increased their ability to influence neighborhood markets as well as respond to their needs. The withdrawal of private funding or capital is the result of deteriorating and “eye-sore” properties, which are often abandoned by owners. Economic changes, therefore, supported the loss of inner-city employment. High unemployment rates, unfortunately, lead to a type of social isolation that affects the minds and self-esteem of a community’s residents as poverty is in a class all by itself and brings isolation too easy to settle into.98 Although a revitalized community infrastructure improves the quality of neighborhoods, it shouldn’t stop there. Physical revitalization to its citizens is necessary as well. Learning new job skills, introduction of business development plans and workforce programs should be included in the entire infrastructure plan to help citizens not only take advantage of economic opportunities but train and prepare them to do so. Additionally, it has been reported that families with children were in immediate and most often emergency need of support with programs for education, after-school supervision, health, etc., that would contribute to the health and stabilization of the family. In 1998 the NCCED conducted a national census of CDCs and concluded there are 3,600 CDCs across the United States that have produced some 247,000 private sector jobs and 550,000 units of affordable housing.102

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Although this number seems impressive, a great number of communities across the United States (with the exception of those communities destroyed by weather disasters) are raising the neardeath toll of communities. Emergency-type revitalization plans have become necessary for communities to thrive economically and socially in order for its citizens to do the same. The Lighthouse Covenant International Development Project has been developed to assist as a catalyst for change within communities in dire need of revitalization before extinction. Community Development Corporations were birthed as an alternative model and methodology to the government administration of community programs. Because CDCs are local, they can respond more quickly to development opportunities and assemble and coordinate necessary programs to respond to neighborhood programs more effectively than the government. Experimental analysis supports the fact that CDC efforts do lead to improved quality of neighborhoods that the business market does recognize. However, in order for a CDC to be effective and have a continued success rate, it must rely on support of the broader community development system of which they are a part. Since the early 1990s, CDCs have become more diversified in their mission to broaden their capacity of community leadership to include expanding commercial, workforce, and youth development, as well as intensifying community facilities programs. Production systems were put in place to better the relationships among people and institutions that regulate the use of land and capital for community development. Statistics have shown that Community Development Corporations have made very strong gains in the ability to influence neighborhoods and enhance their capacity to address the neighborhood needs. CDCs have produced more housing facilities, commercial square footage, and community facilities. Many neighborhoods have formed additional groups to take on a comprehensive redevelopment plan.

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Community Development Program A strong and effective Community Development Corporation structures itself with: (1) A strategic model or plan that is in a large sense, duplicative in almost any city or neighborhood in the country. (2) An examination of the CDC industry success and failures against itself and projected plan to know and understand what will work and what will not work in any particular city or neighborhood. (3) Development of a production system for relationship enhancement (where applicable). (4) A development capacity-building model or system (where applicable). (5) Development of a leadership model or system.98 CDCs are not a replacement to public or for-profit developmental efforts or organizations, but rather an alternative. The newly formed Lighthouse Covenant International Community Development Project will greatly contribute to the economic and health improvements of minority communities by promoting economic growth, high-quality health and customer service care, and leadership and entrepreneurship training—all adding to a secure socioeconomic improvement foundation.

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MEDICAL PROGRAM overty, social exclusion, poor housing and poor health systems are among the main social causes of ill health. Differences in the quality of life within and among countries affect how long people live. A child born in Japan has a chance of living forty-three years longer than a child born in Sierra Leone. The probability of a man dying between the ages of 15 and 60 is 8.2% in Sweden, 48.5% in the Russian Federation, and 84.5% in Lesotho. In Australia, there is a twenty-year gap in life expectancy between Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. Low and middle-income countries account for 85% of the world’s road deaths. In 2002, nearly 11 million children died before reaching their fifth birthday—98% of these deaths were in developing countries. Inequality in income is increasing in countries that account for more than 80% of the world’s population. Few governments have explicit policies for tackling socially determined health inequalities. Some forty-one million Americans—most of them in working families—have no health insurance. Additionally, cultural, geographic, and language barriers block access to basic health care for many individuals and families. They postpone or forego needed care, miss time at work or school, and end up caught in a vicious cycle of poor health and lost productivity.103

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HEALTH STATUS OF PHILADELPHIANS We don’t have to travel the world to see the injustices of the health care system. Right here in our back yard is the evidence. West Philadelphia contains within its boundaries several very poor communities and it is recognized that there is a direct correlation between poverty and poor health. As is the case nationally, Philadelphia in general and West Philadelphia in particular, have a disproportionately high number of women and children who live in poverty. This contributes to large numbers of low birth weight infants, high infant mortality rates, and a high rate of teen pregnancy. Adequate pre-natal and other preventive care programs are essential. The elderly poor also need an array of health services. West Philadelphia has a large number of quality institutional health providers that serve publicly and privately insured individuals. However, there is a dearth of quality private primary care providers for low-income residents. This results in an excessive and costly over-reliance on hospitals, and particularly hospital emergency rooms.103 West Philadelphians exceed the citywide death rates for diseases of the heart; malignant neoplasm (cancers), and cerebral vascular disease—the two leading causes of death among Philadelphians. Citywide infant mortality rates generally exceed national norms and the rates for 1990 in West Philadelphia were almost 24% above citywide rates and more than double national rates, which are among the worst in the Western Hemisphere. The glimmer of hope in these shocking statistics is that the infant mortality rate in Philadelphia has shown a steady decline from 1960 through 1990. There are various ways to measure morbidity (the incidence and prevalence of disease). Diseases reported to the Pennsylvania Department of Health (specifically lead poisoning, tuberculosis, syphilis, and gonorrhea) are one measure. And for each of these, West Philadelphia exceeded the citywide average. HIV and AIDS are serious problems in West Philadelphia, as in the rest of the city. To date, over 900 West Philadelphians have developed full-blown 199

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AIDS. The number of infections in West Philadelphia is 41 per 10,000 residents, higher than the 35 per 10,000 residents citywide. Another approach is to ask residents about their subjective sense of well-being. In 1983, the Philadelphia Health Management Corporation (PHMC) conducted a survey, and 41% of the elderly in West Philadelphia, and 20% of West Philadelphians at large, believed themselves to be in poor or fair health. Among West Philadelphia adolescents whom PHMC surveyed in 1987, 64% reported at least one primary health problem, about average for the city.104

FOCUS ON NEEDIEST COMMUNITIES West Philadelphia contains both well-to-do and very poor neighborhoods with diverse health characteristics and needs. University City is largely populated by University employees and students who are comparatively healthy. In contrast, nearby Mantua is one of the poorest communities in the city and its inhabitants have a much higher incidence of health problems. It is important that the city direct its resources to the areas of greatest need.103

SPECIAL POPULATIONS HAVE DISCRETE HEALTH NEEDS At least in part because of their poverty, several West Philadelphia neighborhoods have discrete populations that are especially at risk for health problems. Teenage pregnancy coupled with inadequate health care lead to poor health for mothers and their babies. Other social problems, such as drugs and AIDS, increasingly affect adolescents and adults of both sexes. In addition to targeting the neediest communities, the city must develop programs that focus on those groups most at risk.103

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BARRIERS TO CARE Despite the extensive array of quality health care facilities and providers in West Philadelphia, all West Philadelphians do not have equal or adequate access to care. Health care is expensive. Many low-income working families have inadequate or no health insurance and thus have no regular source of care. There are also language and cultural barriers. West Philadelphia has a very diverse population, with a number of recent Southeast Asian and African refugees and immigrants. These communities frequently are unable to find health care providers with whom they can communicate or who understand their cultures and concerns.103

PREVENTION Prevention will, in the long run, provide the greatest payoff for the city and the residents of West Philadelphia and low-income citizens citywide. There are many levels of prevention, all of which are needed in West Philadelphia. First of all, citizens in general need a safe and healthy environment—clean air and water, crime-free neighborhoods, and safe and sanitary housing. Secondly, individuals must be helped to improve their health through healthy life styles—adequate nutrition, moderating their intake of alcohol, and avoiding harmful drugs, including cigarettes. Finally, the government must provide programs that prevent disease or identify problems early, such as pre-natal care, regular health screening, and immunizations.103 Lighthouse Covenant International’s Medical Program works to ensure that the poorest of the poor and most vulnerable in our world and those affected by humanitarian crises have access to the fundamental needs and right of life. Lighthouse Covenant International’s goal is to work alongside many thousands of local staff in the implementation of a variety of services to address

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humanitarian needs in different countries. Lighthouse Covenant International’s Medical Program will include country directors, a program manager, accountant, doctors, nutritionists, administrative personnel, and engineers. Lighthouse Covenant International will also work with partner organizations and missionary groups who have similar objectives. The program will provide training for healthcare workers; focus on healthcare, water, sanitation, and infrastructure rehabilitation; and promote improved agricultural production, emergency preparedness activities, and HIV-AIDS programs. The Medical Program will also focus on community health, access to water, and education.

HOSPITAL AND CLINIC FACILITIES In support of Lighthouse Covenant International Medical Program’s long-term social ministry plans, the board envisions the construction and establishment of hospitals and clinics throughout the world. In an effort to influence people’s value of good health, medical services provided through the hospitals will not be free. For patients to invest in themselves, Lighthouse Covenant International believes that it is important to charge for medical services. Patients will be charged a small fee for services—consultations, medicines, and surgery—based upon their ability to pay. However, no patient will be turned away, because of his or her personal economic condition or inability to pay. Lighthouse Covenant International’s health care facilities will: 

Incorporate service to the poor in their planning and budgeting process to include targeting a minimum percentage of total net operating revenues for service and medical care of the poor.

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Identify health care needs of the poor in their service areas or populations, especially the following vulnerable areas or needs which require special attention: o Rural areas o Elderly o High poverty/unemployment areas o Inadequate physician coverage o Physicians who do not accept medical assistance. Serve those groups whose access to care is limited, for example, women of childbearing age, the mentally ill, and the homeless. Incorporate commitment to the poor into orientation and education programs for board members, management staff, physicians, employees, and the local community.

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ENVIRONMENTAL PROGRAM ighthouse Covenant International is committed to bring about changes not only in the lives of our people, but also to our environment. Why are we interested in global warming? We are concerned because of the looming effect on our future and the world as we know it. According to some, humanity is sitting on a volatile time bomb, one that could send the entire planet into a tailspin of epic destruction with detonation not far in the future. According to the National Academy of Sciences, the average surface temperature of the earth has risen by one degree Fahrenheit (1°F) during the past 100 years, with accelerated warming occurring within the past twenty years. NASA climatologists state that 2005 was the warmest year in a century, with 1998, 2002, 2003, and 2004 next in line.  Few dispute that the earth is growing warmer and that there are signs identifying this. The debate lies in the seriousness of this warming trend, who or what is to blame, and whether there is a direct connection to hurricane frequency and intensity.105 The term “global warming” is at the forefront of many minds for several reasons. Should we be concerned?

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GREENHOUSE GASES The earth’s climate and weather are driven by energy from the sun. This energy heats the planet, which in turn radiates that heat back into space. However, much of this heat is retained by various greenhouse gases in our atmosphere—such as carbon dioxide (CO2),

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Environmental Program methane, and nitrous oxide—and this is a good thing. Without such gases contributing to this natural greenhouse effect, life as we know it would not exist. Temperatures would be similar to our airless moon, ranging wildly from 225°F during the day to -243°F at night. Obviously, this would not be an environment conducive for life. But due to greenhouse gases, the earth’s average temperature is a hospitable 60°F. However, problems arise when the concentration of these gases increase. Fossil fuels burned to power cars and trucks, heat homes and businesses, and power factories are responsible for about 98% of US CO2 emissions. Also contributing a significant share of emissions are increased agriculture, deforestation, landfills, industrial production, and mining. In 1997, the United States discharged roughly one-fifth of the world’s total greenhouse gases.106 Estimating how much of these gases will be emitted in the future is difficult as it depends on demographic, economic, technological policy, and institutional developments. Based on differing projections of these principal factors, several scenarios have been developed. For example, in the absence of emissions control policies, by the year 2100, CO2 concentrations are projected to be 30% to 150% higher than today’s levels. However, even if human beings were to cease emitting heat-trapping gases into the atmosphere, the climate still would not stabilize for quite some time, as the gases that are already there will remain for decades, even centuries. Regardless of our beliefs and positions on this issue, what has become clear is that business and commercial activity must be undertaken with respect for the fragility of our land, air, and water. A healthy environment and a healthy economy can no longer be exclusive pursuits. Sustainable development practices are crucial if the earth is to continue supporting life, as we know it. In the blind rush towards economic prosperity, mankind has placed a tremendous strain on our environment. The process of production and consumption, especially in the industrialized world, causes much of this environment deterioration.

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THE EFFECT OF POVERTY ON THE ENVIRONMENT Until very recently, the problems of environmental degradation and poverty were viewed as unrelated. Each was seen as a localized problem with little if any global impact. Water pollution in a particular area was not seen as impacting the wider realm of health care—all was assumed to be a localized problem. Increasingly, however, irrefutable evidence has mounted that there is an intricate interdependence between both the world economy and the world ecology. Seemingly local problems are now known to have global effects. Pollution in one locality can affect an enormous area. The loss of soil fertility in one country can cause a worldwide impact on food prices and availability. Poverty and lack of basic human needs being met can create the potential for enormous social upheaval with global impact of far-reaching dimensions. Concern for the global environment must necessarily encompass compassion for all of the human inhabitants of our planet. Attempts to protect the earth’s environment without addressing the human element of life on our planet will be doomed to failure. There is equilibrium in the balance of nature that must be sought—an equilibrium which must embrace the entire natural world, including humanity. In order to successfully confront the challenges of environmental destruction, the root causes of poverty, poor health, over-consumption, and population growth must be addressed with the same intensity and concern as global warming.107

THE EFFECT OF GLOBAL WARMING Global warming will also lead to warmer temperatures worldwide.  This will affect weather patterns and agriculture around the world. Places like Kansas, where they grow winter wheat in cold, freezing temperatures, warmer winters would be bad for farmers. Also, it would mean warmer summers too. In Kansas, if the days become warmer, it would be bad to farm because the soil would be dry. It

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Environmental Program could lose up to 10% of its moisture. Warmer temperatures could help oceans heat up. Coral reefs like cold water and need it to survive. If the oceans warm, reefs would die because the water is too warm for them. If the reefs die, than the little fish that live there will die if they don’t find another home. If those little fish die, then the big fish who eat them will die because they have nothing to eat. Not only will the ocean temperatures change, but the water circulation will change as well. This can impact the fish and change how they live and what they prey on. It can also affect the layers of the ocean by its temperature changing. This is bad because the fish and plants sometimes can only live in a certain water temperature, like the coral reefs. If the fish and plants die, then we lose a food source and the biodiversity we are trying to preserve.105

WHAT CAN WE DO? There are many things one can do to reduce the effect of global warming, from planting trees to turning off lights. Here are a few things that can be done to change the impact of global warming: Recycle products that are recyclable. Plant trees in your community because trees clean the air by taking out carbon dioxide.  In rooms that are not in use, turn off the lights so you save energy. Do not leave the computer on if it is not being used; turn it off so you save energy. Instead of using a car, you can walk, bike, or use public transportation to reduce the amount of greenhouse gasses. At home you can put on more layers instead of turning up the heat.

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When you use the dishwasher, only run it if it’s full so you do not waste water. Encourage your senior friends to buy newer, energyefficient products. Buy products at the store that have been made from recycled materials or that are recyclable. Notify the government by writing a letter about global warming.

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THE WORK AND THE LIFE od is the source of life and light and joy to the universe. Like rays of light from the sun, like the streams of water bursting from a living spring, blessings flow out from Him to all His creatures. And wherever the life of God is in the hearts of men, it will flow out to others in love and blessings. Our Savior’s joy was in the uplifting and redemption of fallen men. For this He counted not His life dear unto Himself, but endured the cross, despising the shame. So angels are ever engaged in working for the happiness of others. When the love of Christ is enshrined in the heart, like sweet fragrance it cannot be hidden. All with whom we come in contact will feel its holy influence. Love to Jesus will be manifested in a desire to work as He worked for the blessing and uplifting of humanity. It will lead to love, tenderness, and sympathy toward all the creatures of our heavenly Father’s care. The Savior’s life on earth was not a life of ease and devotion to Himself, but He toiled with persistent, earnest, untiring efforts for the salvation of lost mankind. So those who are the partakers of the grace of Christ will be ready to make any sacrifice that others for whom He died may share the heavenly gift. They will do all they can to make the world better for their stay in it. This spirit is the sure out growth of a soul truly converted. The efforts to bless others will reciprocate in blessings coming upon us. This was the purpose of God in giving us a part to act in the plan of redemption. He has granted men the privilege of becoming partaker of the divine nature and, in their turn, of diffusing blessings to their fellow men. This is the highest honor, the greatest joy

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that it is possible for God to bestow upon men. Those who thus become participants in labors of love are brought nearest to their Creator. God might have committed the message of the gospel and all the work of loving ministry to the heavenly angels. He might have employed other means for accomplishing His purpose. But in His infinite love He chose to make us co-workers with Himself, with Christ and the angels, that we might share the blessing, the joy, the spiritual uplifting, which result from this unselfish ministry. Those who endeavor to maintain Christian life by passively accepting the blessings that come through the means of grace and do nothing for Christ are simply trying to live by eating without working. And in the spiritual, as in the natural world, this always results in degeneration and decay. A man who would refuse to exercise his limbs would soon lose all power to use them. Thus, the Christian who will not exercise his God-given powers not only fails to grow up into Christ, but he loses the strength that he already had. We need not go to a distant land or even leave the narrow circle of the home, if it is there that our duty lies, in order to work for Christ. We can do this in the home circle, in the church, and among those with whom we associate and do business. One morning at an intercessory prayer service I attended, the facilitator, Dr. Daily, was talking about how the Lord was dealing with him about going out and saving souls. He knew he had to start doing more than what he had been doing. He decided to take time out of his schedule and go to different areas of the city giving out tracts that explained salvation through faith in Jesus Christ. As he was speaking to us, the Lord began to speak to me about doing the same thing, except the Lord’s choice about where I should start was different. He said, Go to Broad and Olney. I thought, Broad and Olney! What happened to the international ministry you have been showing me? I have come to realize the Lord always starts us in our own Jerusalem. 210

The Work and the Life The greater part of our Savior’s life on earth was spent in patient toil in the carpenter’s shop at Nazareth. Ministering angels attended the Lord of life as He walked side by side with peasants and laborers, unrecognized and out of the spotlight. He was faithfully fulfilling His mission while working at His humble trade as He healed the sick or walked upon the storm-tossed waves of Galilee. So, in the humblest duties and lowliest positions of life, we may walk and work with Jesus. You are not to wait for great occasions or to expect extraordinary abilities before you go to work for God. You need not have a thought of what the world will think of you. If your daily life is a testimony to the purity and sincerity of your faith and others are convinced that you desire to benefit them, your efforts will not be wholly lost. The humblest and poorest of the disciples of Jesus can be a blessing to others. They may not realize that they are doing any special good, but by their unconscious influence they may start waves of blessings that will widen and deepen and the blessed result is that they may never know what they accomplished in this humble work until the day of final reward. They do not feel or know that they are doing anything great. They are not required to weary themselves with anxiety about success. They have only to go forward quietly, doing faithfully the work that God’s providence assigns, and their life will not be in vain. Their own souls will be growing more and more into the likeness of Christ; they are workers together with God in this life and are thus fitting for the higher work and the unshadowed joy of the life to come. The transformation of Philadelphia is a process that will take time and the diligent effort of the city’s entire people. The problems of Philadelphia did not happen overnight and it will not be solved overnight. The Lord has laid out the blueprint for us to follow. It is a big task, but it can be done—it has to be done, for our future and the future of our children. The will and the grace of God is on our side and we cannot and will not lose this war. Philadelphia is God’s witness.

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Bring out the people, who are blind, Even though they have eyes. And the deaf, even though they have ears. All the nations have gathered together So that the people may be assembled. Who among them can declare this And proclaim to us the former things? Let them present their witnesses That they may be justified. Or let them hear and say, “It is true.” “You are My witnesses,” declares the Lord, And My servant, whom I have chosen, So that you may know and believe Me And understand that I am He. Before Me there was no God formed, And there will be none after Me. I, even I, am the Lord, And there is no savior besides Me. “It is I who have declared and saved and proclaimed, And there was no strange god among you; So you are My witnesses,” declares the Lord, And I am God. “Even from eternity I am He, And there is none who can deliver Out of My hand; I act and who can reverse it?” (Isaiah 43:8-13).

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ENDNOTES 1. “PENNSYLVANIA, Offenses Known to Law Enforcement,” U.S. Department of Justice. Crime in the United States: 2007, http://www.fbi.gov/ ucr/cius2007/data/table_08_pa.html. 2. Gerard Hughes, Routledge Philosophy Guidebook to Aristotle on Ethics (New York: Routledge, 2001), 168. 3. Joan Hunter, Healing the Whole Man (New Kensington, PA: Whitaker House, 2007). 4. Troy Bright, “That’s Just the Way the Father Is,” sung by Kurt Carr Singers in Awesome Wonder, Gospocentric compact disc B00004YLO5. 5. I call what I experienced a “vision.” I was not in some sort of trance when this occurred, but simply began to see a scene in my mind’s eye, which I knew did not originate from my imagination. 6. Chuck Pierce and Dutch Sheets, Releasing the Prophetic Destiny of a Nation, (Shippensburg, PA: Destiny Image, 2005). 7. Proverbs 28:19, New International Version (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing Company, 1978). 8. “grope.” Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, http://www.merriamwebster.com/dictionary/grope. 9. “restoration.” Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, http://www. merriam-webster.com/dictionary/restoration. 10. “process.” Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, http://www.merriamwebster.com/dictionary/process. 11. Dr. Peggy Scaborough, Healing Through Spiritual Warfare (Shippensburg, PA: Destiny Image, 1994). 12. “Rhema,” and “Logos,” Studying the Word of God, http://www. biblestudying.net/index.html. 13. Dr. Fred Broko, “Kingdom Dominion Through Your Works,” New Covenant Church of Philadelphia, July 15, 2007. 14. “metanoia.” Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, http://www. merriam-webster.com/dictionary/metanoia. 15. “Repentance,” sermon on Internet, source unknown. 213

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16. C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (New York: Macmillan Publishing Co., Inc., 1952), 59. 17. Ellen G. White, Steps to Christ (Hagerstown, MD: Review and Herald Publishing Association, 1973), 19. 18. Job 38:12-15; Ephesians 1:11, The Message by Eugene H. Peterson (Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress, 2004). 19. John Alexander Williams, “West Virginia,” West Virginia Archives and History; History for Beginners (Charleston, West Virginia: Appalachian Editions, 1993). 20. Tuomi J. Forrest, “Walking Purchase,” Encylopedia Britannica Online (2008), www.brittanica.com/EBcheked/topic/634678/walking-purchase. 21. Rick Warren, The Purpose Driven Life (Grand Rapids, MI: ZONDERVAN, 2002). 22. “purpose.” Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, http://www.merriamwebster.com/dictionary/purpose. 23. Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest (Grand Rapids, MI: Discover House Publishers, 1992), October 25. 24. Jeremiah 17:7-8, New Living Translation (Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House Publishers, 2004). 25. Dr. Myles Munroe, The Principle of Fatherhood (Lanham, MD: Pneuma Life Publishing, 2001). 26. Kirk Franklin, “Looking for You,” Hero, Shaun Martin and Chris Godbey, Provident-Integrity Distribution compact disc B000AOJ9XA. 27. David Blankenhorn, Fatherless America: Confronting our Most Urgent Social Problem (New York: Basic Book, 1993). 28. “Parent in prison and their minors,” Bureau of Justice Statistics, US Department of Justice (Washington, DC), [email protected]/bjsl. 29. Source unknown. 30. Margaret Mead, Male and Female: A Study of the Sexes in a Changing World (New York: Harper Collins, 2001). 31. Mark. M. Alexander, “Fatherless in America,” Patriot Post Volume 5, # 24 (2005). 32. U.S. Senator Phil Gramm, citation unknown.

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Endnotes 33. Michael E. Ross, “Grim Forecast for Young Black Men--Race and Ethnicity,” MSN.com, http://www.MSN.com. 34. U.S. Census Bureau, http://www.census.gov/. 35. Devah Pager, quoted by Bruce Western in Punishment and Inequality in America (NJ: Princeton University, 2008). 36. Harry Holzer, “Research Work Force Development as an Antipoverty Strategy: What do we know? What should we do?” (Washington, DC: Urban Institute, 2007). 37. “Fatherless Boys at Risk,” Fathermag.com, http://www.fathermag. com/809/sanfrancisco.shtml. 38. David A. Brent, et al, “Post-traumatic Stress Disorder in Peers of Adolescent Suicide Victims: Predisposing Factors and Phenomenology,” Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry 34 (1995). 39. Centers for Disease Control statistics, as quoted by Separated Parenting Access & Resource Center, http://deltabravo.net/. 40. Criminal Justice & Behavior, Volume 14, 1978: 403-26, as quoted by Separated Parenting Access & Resource Center, http://deltabravo.net/. 41. National Principals Association Report on the State of High Schools, as quoted by Separated Parenting Access & Resource Center, http:// deltabravo.net/. 42. US Department of Justice, Special Report, September 1988, as quoted by Separated Parenting Access & Resource Center, http://deltabravo.net/. 43. Fulton County Georgia jail populations, Texas Department of Corrections, 1992, as quoted by Separated Parenting Access & Resource Center, http://deltabravo.net/. 44. Reverend Malachi Walker, “Fatherless Boys Faced with Big Disadvantage,” INDYSTAR.COM, http://www.INDYSTAR.COM. 45. David Popenoe, Life Without Father: Compelling New Evidence That Fatherhood and Marriage Are Indispensable for the Good of Children and Society (Harvard University Press, 1999), 3, 4, 7, 8. 46. Carl Jung, Man and His Symbols (New York: Dell Publishing, 1968). 47. Hillary Rodham Clinton, It Takes a Village to Raise a Child, (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2006), 12.

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48. Jonetta Rose Barras, Whatever Happened to Daddy’s Little Girl (Ballantine Publishing Group, 2000). 49. Strom, Kevin J., “Profile of State Prisoners Under Age 18, 1985-1997, US Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics (Washington, DC: US Department of Justice, 2000), 6. 50. Elaine Ciulla Kamarck and William A. Galston, “Putting Children First: A Progressive Family Policy for the 1990s.” Democratic Leadership Council, Part 1 (1990): 1-2. 51. Jason Ziedenberg and Vincent Schiraldi, “The context of Juvenile Arrest in America,” The Justice Policy Institute Research in Brief (1998): 1. 52. Lowell Duckett, source unknown. 53. Marianne Williamson, A Woman’s Worth (New York: Ballantine Books, 1994), 7. 54. Susan A. Cohen, “Abortion and Women of Color: The Bigger Picture,” Guttmacher Policy Review, Volume 11, Number 3 (2008). 55. “Trends in Pregnancies and Pregnancy Rates by Outcome: Estimates for the United States, 1976-96,” National Center for Health Statistics, Volume 21, No. 56. (1999). 56. David Reardon, “Healing After Abortion,” Interview of David Reardon by Priests for Life, http://www.priestsforlife.org/media/interviewreardon. htm. 57. Dr. David Reardon, Project Rachel, http//www.projectrachel.net. 58. Andy Williams, “Where do I begin,” Love Story, Sony compact disc B0000024X3, 1990. 59. Kirk Franklin, “Imagine Me,” Hero, Shaun Martin and Chris Godbey, Provident-Integrity Distribution compact disc B000AOJ9XA. 60. Kirk Franklin, http://www.kirkfranklin.com. 61. Bishop Noel Jones, The Battle of the Mind (Shippensburg, PA: Destiny Image, 2006). 62. “katakrima,” Henry George Liddell and Robert Scott, An Intermediate Greek-English Lexicon, http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text.jsp?doc=P erseus:text:1999.04.0058:entry=a)po/krima. 63. “Nephesh,” Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia, http://en.wikipedia. org/wiki/Nephesh.

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Endnotes 64. John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, edited by John T. McNeill (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press; 1559 translation edition, 1960). 65. “phroneo,” quoted by Biblos.com: Parallel Bible from Strong’s Greek Dictionary, http://strongsnumbers.com/greek/5426.htm. 66. “rhema,” quoted by Biblos.com: Parallel Bible from Noah Webster’s Dictionary, http://refbible.com/w/word.htm. 67. “change,” Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, http://www.merriamwebster.com/dictionary/change. 68. “thanksgiving,” Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, http://www. merriam-webster.com/dictionary/thanksgiving. 69. “exomologeo,” quoted by Biblos.com: Parallel Bible from Noah Webster’s Dictionary, http://refbible.com/t/thank.htm. 70. “Katrina: Race, Proverty, Ministry & Ethics: An Immersion Experience,” Poverty Immersion Experience, Union Theological Seminary, 2006. 71. “Philadelphia in Focus: A Profile from Census 2000,” The Brookings Institution, Executive Report 2003, http://www.brookings.edu/ reports/2003/11_livingcities_Philadelphia.aspx. 72. Ed Schwartz, “Memo to Delaware Valley Legislators, The Public Cost of Poverty,” (Philadelphia, PA: Institute for the Study of Civic Values, 1993). 73. Hunger Project, http://www.thp.org/. 74. Daniel Amnlus, “It’s Fatherhood That Makes Childhood,” Fathering Enterprise 1996-2002, http://www.fathermag.com/9607/fathercustody. 75. “Homelessness in America, Statistics and Prevention Program,” & “The Total Package: Housing and Serving Homeless Children Conference (July 2007),” The National Center on Family Homelessness, http://www. solutionsforamerica.org/thrivingneigh/homelessness.html. 76. Christopher Walker, “Community Development Statistics Report: 2002,” Urban Institute, Metropolitan Housing and Community Policy Center, Washington D.C. 77. U.S. Census Bureau, 1999, 2002, http://www.census.gov/; Children’s Defense Fund, 1999, http://www.childrensdefense.org/.

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78. Peter Marin, “Abandoning Men: Jill Gets Welfare–Jack Becomes Homeless,” APF Reporter, Volume 14 # 3, 1991, http://www.aliciapatterson. org/APF1403/Marin/Marin.html. 79. James Wright, Address Unknown: The Homeless in America (Piscataway, NJ: Aldine Transaction, 1989), 55-77. 80. Robert Rosenheck, M.D. and Ellen Bassuk, M.D., “A Study,” Advantage of Evaluating Differences, citation unknown. 81. Martha Burt, “What will it Take to End Homelessness?” Urban Institute Publication (Washington D.C.: The Urban Institute, 2001). 82. Bruce M. Stave, “A Conversation with Charles Tilley,” Journal of Urban History 24:184–225 (1998), http://juh.sagepub.com. 83. Robert Rosenheck M.D., et al, “Cost-effectiveness of Supported Housing for Homeless Persons with Mental Illness,” Archives of General Psychiatry 60:940-951 (2003), http://archpsyc.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/ full/60/9/940?maxtoshow=&HITS=10&hits=10&RESULTFORMAT=&ful ltext=Robert+Rosenheck&searchid=1&FIRSTINDEX=0&resourcetype=H WCIT. 84. William Julius Wilson, When Work Disappears: The World of the New Urban Poor (New York: Random House, 1996), 31, 38. 85. Douglas S. Massey and Nancy A. Denton, American Apartheid: Segregation and the Making of the Underclass (UK: Cambridge University Press, 1993). 86. Pastor Dr. John Peters, “Let’s Deal with the Basic Issue,” speech given at St. Luke United Methodist Church (Oklahoma City, April 22, 1951). 87. Maurine McFarlane, Lighthouse Covenant International (2009). 88. Dan Hecker, “Occupational Employment Projections to 2012,” Monthly Labor Review Online Volume 127, No. 2 (Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2004), http://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2004/02/contents.htm. 89. Jordan D. Matsudaira and Rebecca Blank, “The Impact of Earnings Disregards on the Behavior of Low-Income Families,” (Cambridge, MA: National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc., 2008), http://www.nber.org/ papers/w14038.pdf. 90. Douglas S. Massey, “Globalization and Inequality: Explaining American Exceptionalism,” Oxford Journals (Princeton, NJ: Office of Population Research, Princeton University, 2008).

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Endnotes 91. Saul Sack, “Public School,” History of Higher Education in Pennsylvania Volume 2 (Harrisburg, PA: Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission, 1963). 92. Joseph J. McCadden, Education in Pennyslyvania—1801-1835 and Its Debt to Robert Vaux (1969). 93. Charles R. Nash, History of Legislative and Administrative Changes Affecting the Philadelphia Public School 1869-1821 (1946). 94. Eva Gold, “Children and Family First: An Evaluation of the Philadelphia says Yes to Education Program,” (Philadelphia, PA: Research for Action, 2005). 95. Edward Zigler, quoted by Krista Kafer in “Districts Students Need Better Schools, Not More Schooling,” The Heritage Foundation: Leadership for America (2002), http://www.heritage.org/Research/Education/ test071702.cfm. 96. Nicholas Zill, Donna Morrison, and Mary Jo Coiro, “Long Term Effects of Parental Divorce on Parent-Child Relationships, Adjustment and Achievement in Young Adulthood,” Journal of Family Psychology 7 (Washington, D.C.: American Psychological Association, 1993). 97. Jeffrey J. Selingo and Sara Hebel, “Uneducated Candidate,” Chronicles of Higher Education Volume 55, # 10 (2008). 98. Christopher Walker, “Community Development Corporation and their Changing Systems,” Urban Institute Publication (Washington D.C.: The Urban Institute, 2002), http://www.urban.org/url.cfm?ID=410638. 99. “Community Development,” Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia, http:// en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community_development. 100. “Experiments with Utopia,” US History Online Textbook, http://www. ushistory.org/us/26b.asp. 101. “Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi,” Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghandi. 102. Anne Moore Odell, “NCCED Supports CDCs,” NCCED Sustainability Investment News, Social Funds 2002, http://www.socialfunds. com/news/article.cgi/903.html. 103. The Plan for West Philadelphia, “Health Care, Part Five, Communities Facilitating Service,” Philadelphia City Planning Commission (June 1994), http://www.philaplanning.org/.

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104. “History of Public Health,” Philadelphia Department of Public Health, 2007-2008, http://www.phila.gov/Health/. 105. “Global Warming and our Changing Climate,” National Academy of Sciences, article hosted by United States Environmental Protection Agency 1998, http://www.epa.gov/. 106. Encyclopedia Britannica Volume 5, 1998, “Greenhouse Effect.” 107. Daniel Sitarz, Agenda 21: The Earth Summit Strategy to Save our Planet (Flagstaff, AZ: Earth Press, 1993).

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LIGHTHOUSE COVENANT INTERNATIONAL (LCI) ighthouse Covenant International (LCI) is a faithbased, Christ-centered, humanitarian organization that is founded on the belief that we can advance human dignity, build civil societies, and transform our world to be a better place. We believe this can occur by empowering individuals and communities at the grassroots level to work together regardless of race, religion, or nationality. LCI believes that our world becomes a better place when we leverage our similarities and differences embracing our diversitiy. Our mission is to develop civil societies, promote self-sufficiency in local communities, and guide humanitarian relief efforts. We aim to bridge the gap between emergency help and long-term development by delivering material assistance and managing projects that help communities help themselves long after the supplemental aid disappears. We are dedicated to serving the most vulnerable members of society—those in greatest need such as the poor, children, orphans, elderly, disabled, war refugees, and victims of disasters. The call to action requires that we subpoena the consciousness of our leaders to reinstall the moral rudder of days gone by and to bring forth greater prosperity for all mankind. The following team of individuals have been integral to the birthing of Lighthouse Covenant International:

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Maurine McFarlane/Principal Carol Blacken/Principal Lillian Samuel/Principal Janie Drayton 221

Angela Sharp Terri Cooper-Smith Rose R. Dzatah Jackie Cannad

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LIGHTHOUSE COVENANT INTERNATIONAL PRINCIPALS The two Lighthouse Covenant International principals involved in writing and developing Release the Prophetic Destiny in Philadelphia—A City Under Reconstruction include Maurine McFarlane and Carol Blacken. Maurine McFarlane, Intercessor, Humanitarian and Community Activist governs her life by the Lord’s Commission to us, “Feed MY sheep” (John 21:17). Jesus has some extraordinarily peculiar sheep: some that are unkempt and dirty, some that are awkward or pushy, and some that have gone astray! But it is impossible to exhaust God’s love or Maurine’s love. Maurine is qualified in the areas of investment development, marketing, and fundraising. Maurine was involved in the formulation of financing for several large-scale projects and has served in a management capacity in both the restaurant and hotel businesses. Maurine is also a principal for Lighthouse Covenant International, an emerging faith-based, Christ-centered, humanitarian organization that excels in the belief that we can advance human dignity, build civil societies, and transform our world to be a better place. Maurine attended Temple University’s School of Business Administration in Marketing and currently studies at the Jameson School of Ministry and Theology. Maurine enjoys volunteering her time with children, the New Covenant Church of Philadelphia Prison Ministry and her own Hospitality Ministry. She resides in Philadelphia, PA, and is the mother of two children, Blake and Crystal.

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Lighthouse Covenant International Principals Carol Blacken has over twenty-five years of experience in the health and human services field providing leadership for enterprise-wide organizational, team, and individual development, in both profit and non-profit organizations. A mature Christian, Carol is regarded as a servant of the people and feels privileged to use her God-given gifts to help others. She is passionate about mentoring youths of all ages, having been a member of Twigs, Incorporated, for twenty plus years. Carol earned a bachelor’s degree in Psychology from George Washington University and a master’s degree in Psychology from Temple University. Carol is also a principal of Lighthouse Covenant International. She lives in Wyncote, PA, and is married to a supportive husband Paul with 2 children, Jillian and Kyle.

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RELEASE THE PROPHETIC DESTINY IN PHILADELPHIA WEB SITE To purchase additional copies of Release the Prophetic Destiny in Philadelphia—A City Under Reconstruction, go to www.LighthouseCovenantIntl.com or www.amazon.com.

LIGHTHOUSE COVENANT INTERNATIONAL ON THE WEB You can also find more information about Lighthouse Covenant International by visiting www.LighthouseCovenantIntl.com. LCI is a growing partnership of people who are eager to meet you! Our new friends come from diverse backgrounds, educations, and cultures with the same purpose—to come together to work for the greater good. As we grow, we look forward to the expansion of our team that will take us to the next level in our endeavors. Are you thinking about joining us? Do you have questions? Please email us at [email protected]. We’d love to hear from you!