Holiness = Happiness

Topic: Holiness

There's a miracle happening in Rockford, Illinois.

Women and men who love Jesus are crossing color, class, culture, and denominational distinctions for worship at least once a month as Greater Rockford in Prayer and Praise (GRIPP).

Building upon a February 1995 vision entrusted to Dr. Bob Griffm, President of Rockford Renewal Ministries, that the appointed moment (kairos) has arrived for God's people to shed human fetters of racial, religious, and socioeconomic separations and come together for worship, service, and evangelism, GRIPP is hosted by churches committed to the Biblical call to unity (e.g., 2 Chronicles 7:14; John 17:20-23):

If 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 and will forgive their sin and heal their land...

I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me.

Actually, GRIPP has evolved from concerts of prayer which began in 1995 and culminated at the 25th City-Wide Concert of Prayer in Rockford's Coronado Theatre on 4 October 2002.

That last concert at the Coronado will be remembered as a bold step into the future as Dr. Griffm announced, "People of other faiths might not appreciate this, but we have this idea of crowning Jesus as King over Rockford at the place of coronation — the Coronado."

Predictably, a few non-Christians who think Christians will abandon their confession at the drop of a politically correct hat were offended by Dr. Griffin's authentic Christianity. They even wrote letters to local newspapers to declare their outrage. Amid the heat generated by light, I told Bob, "It's too bad we've reached that point in which assisting positive pluralism in the community means masking our individualities. Only when we have the integrity to say what we believe can we establish the kind of trust that will enable the pursuit of common goals."

Surprisingly, "Christians" joined the assault. One said he was "disappointed, appalled, frustrated, and shocked." Another chirped about "triumphalist Christian ideology." Dr. Griffin exposed their lukewarm religion to outright apostasy in a simple assessment: "The Bible itself says that the Bible is offensive to those that don't believe. I'm happy to take criticism for the truth which I embrace."