Top of the Week: COVID Is Spiritual Warfare, Chris Reed Succeeds Rick Joyner at Morningstar

Here are the top five stories featured this week on cn.mycharisma.com:

Shortly after the onset of the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic, Dr. Stella Immanuel knew in her heart that the coronavirus was not so much about a medical issue as it was a spiritual battle.

Once Immanuel and other physicians put together the American Frontline Doctors program and began refuting many aspects of what the medical field and the media were feeding people, Immanuel became convinced of one thing: the enemy, Satan, had taken a huge hand in perpetrating one of the biggest deceptions ever forced on the public.

The cancel culture that has viciously swept through America in recent months paid special attention to Dr. Immanuel and focused a great deal of its attacks on her because of her stance as a Christian doctor and her support of a protocol called hydroxychloroquine, which she said without hesitation is a “cure for COVID” and that will “stop COVID in its tracks.”

Spiritually, MorningStar Ministries Founder Rick Joyner connected with Pastor Chris Reed right from the start. From the time the two met in the Spring of 2020, both realized they had the same ministry vision and the same vision for what God was going to do worldwide in the near future.

It comes as little surprise then that Reed, lead pastor of Apostolic Revival Center in Peru, Indiana, has agreed to take over as his Joyner’s successor at MorningStar in Fort Mill, South Carolina, beginning at the end of June.

The two met through a mutual friend and Joyner knew immediately that Reed, who was chosen as the pastor at Apostolic Revival Center 12 years ago at the tender age of 25, was the man to hand the reins of his ministry to when he decided to step down.

All Nations International Founder Floyd Lee McClung Jr., global missions leader, bestselling author and international speaker, died on Saturday, May 29, in Cape Town, South Africa. He had battled an extended illness since 2016, which had left him incapacitated, hospitalized and unable to speak for more than five years. He was 75.

In his more than 50 years in full-time ministry, McClung lived in Africa, Asia, Europe and North America, worked on every continent except Antarctica, and authored 18 books, including the international bestseller The Father Heart of God.

A tireless traveler and speaker, McClung spoke and lectured on more than 100 college and university campuses, traveled to more than 190 countries, made dozens of TV appearances and saw his life and work featured in countless publications, including Time magazine and The New York Times.

One man who knows suffering from experience is Pastor Andrew Brunson, who was in prison for his faith in Turkey for two years on trumped-up terrorism and spying charges before being released in October 2018. Brunson believes persecution and harassment toward Christ-followers in America is about to intensify in many ways and that Christians—charismatics in particular—are not ready.

“Jesus said that it would happen,” Brunson says. “Just as the world hated him, that it will hate His followers.”

A missionary to Turkey for 25 years, Brunson told me when I interviewed him recently on my Strang Report podcast that American Christians must to be prepared for persecution in the coming days. He said the charismatic theology that God is a good God who cares for His children like a benevolent parent is part of the reason they won’t be ready when the persecution comes.