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AoG Superintendent Announces Soon Retirement
July 11, 2007

Greetings in the Name of Our Lord Jesus Christ,

Apparently the news broke in Springfield yesterday that our current General Superintendent announced his retirement effective six weeks after General Council. I believe the Assistant General Superintendent (Crabtree) may have announced his as well. Folks, this is no time to rejoice.

I have word that there are some senior leaders in our fellowship who covet this position as we speak. And further, that they would make our current Superintendent look like a well-behaved Sunday school boy.

We need to fast and pray for God to break loose in power at the General Council and that a David—not an Ahab or a Rehoboam—will be chosen. If this fellowship is to survive as one whose leaders and members will get to participate in Christ’s Second Coming, then we need a Superintendent who will be holy even as God is holy. Who will hate unrighteousness and will insist that the A/G have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness. A leader who will fill the office reluctantly and but with a servant’s heart. And wonder of wonders, a leader who will be accountable to his constituents and maybe even insist that his salary be cut in half and distributed amongst his employees—not on the headquarters BOA or any senior management positions—at headquarters. And one who will take no speaking fees but travel on travel expenses only that are reported to the employees and A/G at large. I could go on and on.

We don’t need a sequel of someone who flirted with the Catholic church, who enjoyed the power and prestige of our fellowship’s highest office (“Tell ‘em its Trask!” he said about 26 months ago to one of my parking attendants who was out of reserved parking places.), who enjoyed the salary (is it about $250,000 per year now?) and the speaking fees (another $250,000 per year?) and the million dollar home in southern Springfield, and who was so bent on having his way for the “Notre Dame of the Assemblies of God” that he was recorded on tape and script emphatically citing opposite rationale for the merger to the staff and faculty of the two main schools involved. We also don’t need a leader who tramples on his own people and at the same time will hide behind them when making a controversial call (“I didn’t decide to push for the merger; it was the decision of the Executive Presbytery.”). Yeah, right. And God didn’t hold Eli and Samuel accountable for their wicked sons did He? Wrong!

Know your Robert’s Rules of Order brothers and sisters! And realize that you’ll never really know if your new leader is God’s will unless you draw straws the biblical way. And finally, if we are all too lazy to fast and pray before this General Council, then we will get what we deserve.

First Kings 9, verses 6-9 says, “But if ye shall at all turn from following me, ye or your children, and will not keep my commandments and my statutes which I have set before you, but go an serve other gods, and worship them: Then will I cut off Israel out of the land which I have given them; and this house, which I have hallowed for my name, will I cast out of my sight; and Israel shall be a proverb and a byword among all people: And at this house, which is high, every one that passeth by it shall be astonished, and shall hiss; and they shall say, ‘Why hath the LORD done thus unto this land, and to this house?’ And they shall answer, ‘Because they forsook the LORD their God, who brought forth their fathers out of the land of Egypt, and have taken hold upon other gods, and have worshipped them, and served them: therefore hath the LORD brought upon them all this evil.’”

And only 12 chapters later, I Kings speaks of Ahab when God says through the prophet Elijah in verses 21 and 22, “Behold, I will bring evil upon thee, and will take away thy posterity, and will cut off from Ahab him that pisseth against the wall, and him that is shut up and left in Israel, and will make thine house like the house of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, and like the house of Baasha the son of Ahijah, for the provocation wherewith thou hast provoked me to anger, and made Israel to sin.” Substitute Assemblies of God for Israel and the General Superintendent for Ahab and you will see how serious God is about sin and disobedience.

Who is on the LORD’s side? Be strong and take courage. Fast and pray for a godly leader to serve our beloved, but sick fellowship.

Brother Mike

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