[ Click here to go back to the main page ] An Open Letter
13 July 2005

Dear Members of the Assemblies of God Fellowship,

The Assemblies of God stands at a crossroads at the General Council of 2005. The scriptural question before our God-birthed fellowship is this: will we be the church of Laodicea to whom God said, “…I will spew thee out of my mouth. Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked.” To that same church he also said, “As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten: be zealous therefore and repent.” Or, are we going to be more like the church of Philadelphia to whom He wrote, “I know thy works: behold, I have set before thee an open door, and no man can shut it: for thou hast a little strength, and hast kept my word, and hast not denied my name.” And again to the church in Philadelphia He said, “Behold, I come quickly: hold that fast which thou hast, that no man take thy crown.”

These words from Revelations 3 have great significance for our Fellowship and the upcoming General Council for three reasons, each of increasing importance: 1) whether Central Bible College will continue to exist, 2) whether the leadership of the Assemblies is more concerned with Laodicean ambition or Philadelphian amour for the Holy God, and 3) the impact our leadership’s attitudes and actions will have on the spreading of the Pentecostal Gospel to a lost and dying world in our own country and abroad.

Those of you who read this will never be the same. You too will be at a crossroads. The question for you will be “Will I choose to stand up for what is right or will I do what is comfortable and secure?” For some, the right thing will include writing to your presbyters and expressing your concerns. For those who are licensed or ordained ministers, the right thing will be to attend General Council and vote (or to convince someone who is going to vote in your stead [we know that some cannot attend either for time or money reasons]). Of course, it is always the right thing to fast and seek God in prayer.

The lesson of the British revival of the late 1800s (which begat the Azusa Street revival, which begat the Assemblies of God), was that revival led to evangelism and not the other way around. As you read this letter, we pray that you’ll join the Philadelphian-minded members of the Assemblies of God and beseech God for revival at this General Council, revival at our headquarters, revival in our local churches and revival at Central Bible College.

The purpose of this letter is to appeal to you for action. As you may know, CBC is under attack from within the Assemblies of God. The upcoming General Presbyter and General Council meetings provide a venue for you to take a stand against at least two things: 1) the merger of the Springfield schools, and 2) a related but even larger issue of grabbing for power in our Fellowship.

Before I proceed with specific requests for action, let me share why I am concerned enough to take this rather bold step of writing to each of you. My family left the Lutheran church about 35 years ago because they had decided to merge their last bible college with a university decades before. The result: their university-trained pastors were preaching heresy from the pulpit: they questioned Jesus’ divine birth, the validity of Creation, the inerrancy of scripture and were openly dismissing some books of the Bible as fairy tales. What attracted my parents to the A/G was that every service was filled with supernatural evidence that God was alive and His Word was indeed true.

Also, lest anyone think that I am against Evangel University, my wife is a magna cum laude alumnus with two degrees, my oldest son is a summa cum laude alumnus in math and physics and my second son is the current, two-time student body president at EU. He is pre-med and at the top of his class. In all, I have had over 30 family members either attend or teach at Evangel dating back to 1963. I love Evangel! For training business professionals. It must not become the sole source for training ministers! This is what CBC is for!

Let me ask for action regarding the larger issue first since it appears to have a direct bearing on the merger issue. If you’ll look at your “Vision for Transformation” constitution and bylaws booklet, you’ll see that starting on page 55, whole sections relating to all the major ministry departments and the three Springfield schools are completely wiped from our bylaws. Then, on page 83 a very small, proposed paragraph places all of these departments and institutions under the A/G Organizational Manual. And finally, on page 84, the new language proposes that the Organizational Manual no longer be approved by the General Presbytery but the Executive Presbytery. Consequently, the voting members who can decide on every major department and institution of the A/G will effectively be reduced from over 3000 at General Council or 250 plus General Presbyters to only 17 men!

Please vote “No” to the entire set of changes! Our A/G forefathers put a system of checks and balances in place for the exact reason that our American forefathers did: to acknowledge man’s sinful tendency to grab for power and to avoid the abuses that come when too few people have too much power (like a king or a pope).

Failure to vote down these proposed changes will open wide the door to a merger of CBC into Evangel. The reason is simple: with newly found powers, the EPs won’t have to ask for a General Council vote in two years. CBC, Evangel and AGTS will all be under the Organizational Manual NOT the Bylaws. Therefore, the vote to merge or not merge is solely at the discretion of the EPs.

Please note that CBC is the single largest source of ministers and missionaries in the A/G. Further, all of the A/G bible colleges that converted to universities have noted a marked decline in ministerial courses offered, hours required and numbers of ministerial graduates. With CBC alumni constituting a full one third of all missionaries in the field and placing 85% of its graduates into full time ministry within six months of graduation (no other A/G school comes close to these statistics), WHY would our leadership continue to push for the merger of CBC into Evangel? WHY when CBC, at less than half the size of Evangel, turns out over three times the number of ordained ministers and seven times the number of licensed ministers (see George Wood’s Mar 18, 2005 memo to the presidents of COCHE schools)?


Finally, I would ask you to seriously consider the type of leadership we have at our helm in the Assemblies. Do you want the steady diet of secrecy culture, misleading information or lack thereof, and the sound of a power vacuum sucking everything into Boonville Avenue?

Who will stand for CBC? And even more importantly, who will stand for the larger issues that CBC represents such as a Bible-based anchor for our Fellowship and the Congregationalist cooperation that our forefathers envisioned to propagate the Pentecostal Gospel of Jesus Christ? I hope it will be you.

After all the miraculous things that God has done for CBC in the last two years, may He forbid that we not enter the “promised land” of advancement due to a sin of unbelief leading to fear for our own safety. I am reminded of Brother Leach’s sermon to CBC students only a short while ago warning them of the dangers of being a mature church body. We are there.

God, may we be so desperate to know You and Your Presence, that revival breaks out at General Council, our districts, our local churches and at CBC and Evangel.

We have discovered a web site if you’d like more related information: savetheag.com

For the Gospel’s Sake,


Michael W. Steffen
Vice President for Operations (now on involuntary paid administrative leave for taking a written and verbal stand against the merger and the larger power grabbing issues)
Central Bible College


[ Click here to go back to the main page ]