a. s. mathew (January 23, 2012)
real religion " Pure and undefiled religion....": James 1:27.
The Ministers should not live in poverty, they must have comfortable
place to live..food.transportation etc. If the Minister is living
in a posh 5 bed room house, and if the Church member is living in a two bed
room home with basic facilities of life, then the Pastor must show
generosity to the believer. The Church has a moral and spiritual
obligation to take care of the needy and poor believers in the
Church, also our next door neighbours of any religion who are really
struggling to survive. JESUS has repeatedly emphasized that we
should be generous and compassionate towards the poor, and at the
judgment seat, He will ask the final question in the indirect speech
"what you have done to the least of my brethren have all done unto me".

a. s. mathew (January 23, 2012)
BROTHER JACOBM: People of your caliber must speak out about the
current business mentality in the Church. I know one Church (not
Pentecostal) and the congregation is spending more than $ 80000.00
for keeping a Pastor straignt from Kerala, simply to conduct the
regular worship of Sunday repetition. The young people are leaving
the Church. The religious superiors will visit couple of times to
check the spiritual sugar level and blood pressure of the American
saints, and they fly in business class. There are financially suffering people in these Church, but they are totally ignored and
condemned as their fate. The tithe doctrine is not found anywhere in
the New Testament, but repeated quoting from the book of Malachi.
How and where the tithe was used in the Old Testament? It was used
for the helpless widows-orphans and aliens. The first book written
in the New Testament, the book of James tells very openly and

thepraize (January 23, 2012)
talking on poverty,this may read abstract but i am hopeful our valued readers will understand the content in the right spirit its intended to: i learned about our annual general body meeting been conducted in our church and one of the proposal was to increase the remuneration of our present full time minister from 56K to 90K. The person offering spiritual leadership is retired from USPS and is a pensionary,aged 45,his wife is a RN and has one son in the 7th grade and there were also a proposal for 401K.
Makes me wonder about poverty,ministers in countries like India/Africa,toil hard for a one time meal,deprived of basics in life and here we are....
@jacobm to your question,i doubt if we are doing enough or anything in a structured manner to support and sustain people who need a helping hand,however,we ensure that we give to people or projects where we are very sure that our names would be mentioned in some way at some point.

jacobm (January 23, 2012)
The question is what do Indian churches in North America do for the poor and needy.

a. s. mathew (December 31, 2011)
mr. thomas vemmelil: i do agree with you that many of the newly created programmes in the churches are not doing any spiritual growth among the believers, but they are purely turned as social gathering. how many of our young people are trained in reach out programmes? if a non-christian is approaching them and asking an open question; "my friend, i heard in the street that a preacher told about "born again" and how i can do it? the vast majority of the church prgrammes are simply to add more to the already comfort zone fun of life. the discouraged peter who went to the old-time fishing business, but when filled with the holy spirit, he caught 3000 people in the first net casting. but, now the american export called " power conference " is injecting the participants with "power", but no fish is caught. a whole lot of man-made prgrammes inside the church walls are identical operations.

thomas vemmelil (December 31, 2011)
To Mr.A S Mathew, The degree of our spiritual growth is always in proportion to the degree of our dealing with the world. The principle is to grow with the growth of God (Colossians 2: 19). It is absolutely a matter of life and that life is God Himself. A believer should be like a tree that is planted by the rivers of water. Yes, what we need is the spiritual food to grow with the growth of God. But now the denominations are deceitfully after many worldly programs thinking that they are good for the spiritual growth. No, never! It is life and life alone needs food and nothing else. Let it be any program however good it is, will help only the soul to grow and not the spirit.

a. s. mathew (December 30, 2011)
Brother SAM: Any program which is good
for the spiritual growth of the believers shouldn't be curtailed. I am
not pointing fingers specifically at any
denomination, but if there is a competitive
spirit to show the material affluence of their
congregations, that can create unnecessary
spending of money; that has to be
watched.

sam (December 28, 2011)
@a. s. mathew are you talking about programmes like " Musical Night by our our STAR singers in our churches" ?

johnson valliyil (December 26, 2011)
I have been reading your e-journal for some time. It is very concise, simple and articulate. Keep it up.

a. s. mathew (December 26, 2011)
Now in the richest country of the world, there is a third world emerging. 1.6 million children are in the streets or shelters, more than 25% of the school children are hungry every night. Even though, among the ethnic polulation the Indians have the highest per capita income, in some cities like NY, a very high percentage of the Indian people are in poverty level. Now we are indeed challenged by
God's word to share our material
blessings with the suffering people in our Church of community by avoiding many unecessary money blowing religious
programmes for our social entertainment
which is performed under the pretext of
spiritual growth.

sam (December 26, 2011)
@poor n needy You idea is excellent but which pentecostal church in USA does it? Everyone is worried about themselves and how to grow their wealth. This is the world of internet were the Pastors communicates to its members via e-mail only. What more do you expect from churches or its members? The churches are headed towards extinction. Pray for miracles to happen in these churches.

a. s. mathew (December 26, 2011)
POOR N NEEDY: Speak out loud about this topic, God bless you. Many suffering people may not reveal their financial problems, but each congregation must watch out for those families hurting financially through the lost job, sickness and other unexpected financial crisis. Indeed, many unwanted events are taking place for prestige and social entertainment, and many of them can be considerably curtailed.

poor n needy (December 26, 2011)
Under the present circumstances we must avoid unwanted celebrations and set out the money saved for the upliftment of the less privileged in the society; specially our brethren who are affected by the economical slow-down.

Thank you.