Vol. 44, No. 21 July 17, 2017

(Continued on page 2 - SPIRITUAL WARFARE)

I was asked to do this article on how we have been led over the years to do spiritual warfare. My first memories of spiritual warfare come from living in the Paulos’ household as a single woman. The Lord led us, even as a young community, to fight Satan’s hold in our lives. We would pray over each other daily and would gather as a community to pray around Faith Village. We would meet in each other’s homes to pray. Our Elders took spiritual warfare very seriously. The whole community would gather, from time to time, at what is now the O’Brien Center to pray over one an-other.

We learned along the way how to minister to one another and drive Satan from our midst. I cannot write an article on spiritual warfare without mentioning Dale Clark, Chuck Hunt and Chuck Hornsby; the Lord gave these men many gifts of wisdom, dis-cernment, words of knowledge, and prophesy to minister to all of us.

Over the years, we have grown in many spiritual gifts and the Lord has

Spiritual Warfare Revisited

By Theresa Dominey

always protected us. We are blessed in Alleluia to have one another to pray for us when it is needed. This should be happening in families, in sup-port groups, at men’s and women’s groups, prayer meetings, and, when needed, we can call on our ministry team. We should never feel alone in this spiritual battle – a brother or sis-ter is only a phone call away.

Some of the strongholds we con-tinue to fight against in our body are: Witchcraft, Mammon, Confusion, Re-bellion, and Acedia. There are many others (Chuck calls them “fleas”), and we can shoo them away in Jesus’ name. Forgiveness is essential to rid ourselves of demonic influence. We must constantly forgive one another.

The Lord has blessed us with many tools to use in this battle. One tool is our Prayer Watch — brothers and sisters who pray for us 24 hours a day; also the intercessor teams, in-cluding a spiritual warfare team. I have been very blessed to be part of the ministry team for many years. I have witnessed so many of us being

set free. The Lord has truly blessed us.

Another way our Lord blesses us is by bringing people into our midst to continue to teach us what we need to know about this spiritual battle. One person the Lord brought to us recently was Fr. Dennis McMannus, a Catholic priest teaching at George-town University and Boston College. He teaches on Catholic and Jewish Re-lations, specializing on the Holocaust; he also is an expert on spiritual war-fare. We were so blessed in Spiritual Direction School to have him with us.

There are a few areas we need to change on how we approach Spiritual Warfare. These are his suggestions from his many years of being in this battle:

—Demons have a hold on us be-cause we give it to them. When we keep things in the light, the dark king-dom loses some of its control.

—Evil can smell our wounds (in-ner healing is so important).

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(Continued from page 1 - SPIRITUAL WARFARE)

The Elders’ CornerKeeping you abreast of what’s happening

Loyalty—Don’t judge one another. —Repenting of our sins is very

important. If Catholic, go to confes-sion on a regular basis.

—Never, ever pray over someone alone!

—The devil goes after the young person. This is why demonic vid-eo games, using horoscopes, Ouija boards, demonic movies and books, also books with magic such as Harry Potter, and anything with magic spells needs to be taken out of your house and not used. He talked about Mk 5: The Gerasene Demoniac.

—Naming a demon is very impor-tant when doing deliverance, so we do need to pray for words of knowl-edge.

—Demons will always mock Je-sus; be prepared for mockery.

–Prayer is very important in this Spiritual battle. We must have a con-sistent prayer life.

—He encouraged us to hang holy objects in every room of our house, such as crosses, crucifixes, religious pictures, using holy water and blessed salt in our homes.

—He encouraged us to spend time in silence before the Lord, ask-ing the presence of the Holy Spirit to dwell with us.

Ways to protect ourselves: —Do not fear evil, but always

choose to avoid it. —Keep your mind on God, his

angels; if Catholic, also dwell on the Saints.

—Forgiveness, is so important! Don’t let anger and resentment open you to evil influence.

—If Catholic, pray the rosary, the Chaplet of Divine Mercy, go to Mass frequently and Adoration.

—We all need to read the Bible and good Christian books.

I will end this article with these words by Pattie Maguire Armstrong, a Catholic author who often writes for www.spiritualdirection.com:

“An ounce of protection is worth a pound of cure, this is especially true in the spiritual realm. The exorcism and deliverance ministry usually ad-dresses problems arising from a lack

Number 9 of the Elders’ “Prin-ciples of Relating” is LOYALTY. “We will be loyal to one another and will defend and protect and speak the best of one another at all times.”

Loyalty is a rare virtue today. Our culture seems to make sport of throwing each other “under the bus.” Gossip and slander take cen-ter stage very often, and now Face-book seems to be a medium that some use to attack others with a certain freedom and casualness.

All the Elders are very differ-ent. We all have differing ways of seeing, understanding and viewing situations. And added to that, we all have our own areas of wound-ed-ness, weakness and sin. Loyalty is what enables us to stay in unity without continually offending one another. It is what enables us to feel good about one another, even when we disagree. The Elders feel an assurance that, despite our idio-syncrasies, we can trust each other to speak positively and affirmative-ly about one another. Loyalty is that

virtue that allows all of us in Alle-luia to do the same for one another. When we sin, we have a method to deal with one another for that. But we don’t have a right to speak nega-tively about one another, nor throw our brothers and sisters “under the bus” to those outside our commu-nity life.

This doesn’t mean we can’t laugh with one another about our foibles. We don’t deny that sin and weakness exist among us, but we must always speak the best about one another (pastoral headship sometimes being an appropriate place to discuss difficulties) and never air another brother or sister’s sin and weakness to others unless as a last resort as Mt. 18 instructs.

Loyalty is the Holy Spirit’s glue that helps us maintain unity, and be a place of encouragement and love that heals one another. Loyalty is a big element in our life that en-ables others to say about us, “See how they love one another.”

Theresa Dominey is a stay-at-home mom who serves on the Ministry and Intercessor Teams. She and her husband, Bob, have been Full Covenant members of Alleluia Community since 1978. They have four adult children and six grand-children and attend St. Joseph Catholic Church in Augusta, Georgia.

Spiritual Warfare

of spiritual protection or someone purposely opening the door to evil.”

Alleluia Dove 3

Celebrating an Alleluia July 4th

Neither heat nor rain nor sleet can keep Alleluia Community from celebrating the birth of our country. Appropriately, it always begins with a patriotic prayer meeting a day or two before the 4th, often outdoors in Cen-ter Circle of Faith Village.

This year was slightly different when the weather forced the prayer meeting inside on the 3rd, but praise and worship along with prayers for our country, community and families were not dampened.

The 4th dawned hot and sunny, perfect for the water activities and games from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. followed by a time of transforming Center Cir-cle from a water park to a picnic area for the community picnic and enter-tainment before the bar-b-que grill opened for cooking at 5:30.

There are always lots of guests at the picnic with great fellowship. This year a group of Australians were visiting in addition to extended fam-ily. Sadly, the entertainment was cut short when an unexpected shower sent everyone scattering for cover. It did not, however, prevent the fire-works display from occuring later in the evening. Amen...Alleluia...Glory!

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© 2017 Alleluia Community, adm. by Alleluia Christian Service Center, Inc. P.O. Box 6805, Augusta, GA 30916-6805, (706) 798-1882. All rights reserved. Submit articles for the Dove to barbarah@yeslord.com.

The Dresser Support Group is a relatively new group in name, as headship of our support group passed from Craig Garner to Jimmy Dresser in March of 2017. Prior to this, Craig had been support group head for nearly nine years.

Though we are new in name, our relationships have quite a bit of his-tory, and we love being together! We are the Dresser family, the Garner family, Bea Visintainer, the Hall fam-ily, Lyndsey Maniccia, the Luis Suarez family, Nancy London, the James Sa-maha family, the Kenny Scott family, the Rafi Salazar family, the Alzheimer family, Jim and Jane Cordell, Pat Mc-Neely (associate), and the Bill Conk-right, Jr. family.

From adult meetings in Bea’s comfy living room to family prayers and dessert behind the Alzheimers in K-block, our group loves, serves, and prays for one another. I can re-member the meals, phone calls, and cards from not only Laurel’s adoption but also from James’ heart surgery — blessings galore during two hectic times in our family.

Our support group, through the leading of headship, really serves one another. Rafi and Natalie are the tal-ented musicians who keep us praising the Lord, along with Joyce who truly has the gift of laughter (particularly during music time — be sure to ask her about it). We love to share with one another, and no support group meeting would be complete without a hug and a kiss on the cheek from Bea Visintainer!

We have many school-age kids and younger (19!), and they really

The Dresser Support Group Serves One Another

love when they are included in fam-ily events and are able to share their own prayer intentions and join in the worship.

Another really great thing about our support group is the number of college-age kids we have who join us on occasion. It is so great to catch up with Chloe and Christopher Hall, with Stephen and Kat Garner, with Lucia and Billy Conkright, with Emily, Anna, Abe, and now the newly gradu-ated Ben Dresser as well as Hannah Joy Garner and Jenna Suarez. ACS bears good fruit — this bunch is truly evidence of that!

On the other end of the spectrum, just this past year we have added two sweet little babies, Davey Scott (son of Leslie and Kenny) and Joseph Salazar (son of Rafi and Natalie) with another Scott baby on the way! We are blessed!

By Kim Samaha

Ben and Jimmy Dresser repairing a ceiling fixture for Nancy London

The Support Group praying over Craig Garner before sending him into a pastoral coodinator position