sanjari (September 19, 2012)
churukee paranjaaal athmeeya vishayangaludey samvadam alla eee nallugalil,idhil ethrayo bedham aanu,bendecost enn abhimaanikaatha idhara samudaayanagal,atleast avar podhu vedhi galil valerey abhimanapoorvam aanu samvaadhikunnadh,chindikandiya vishayam,ethra samoohathey vimarshichalloom,namudey nithyadheyk ulla yatrekk oru vazhi mudakk aagararudhey - nammadey samvadhengal.Christheeya jeevidam vallerey pakkuwadhapoorvam aayee,logathin oru sathya vellicham aayee shobhikuvaan maanya vayanakaarey sradheekuga. Christuvinney ee vidham nammal pradhinidhi kareechal,nammalludey Christuveney aanu pradheekootil niruthannadh, nammulladey aathmeega pithaviney ee vidham kroosshikenno? adh namulladey aathmeega paaparathwam alley villich areekunnadh.Chindikuga,Ella anugrahengallum.

another ordained one (September 19, 2012)


senior pastors or self-made leaders from ipc, cog, ag etc. who visit gulf countries especially in saudi arabia, make fast bucks by 'laying on of hands' which has become the fashion of the day.



are they really authorised to do so? if not, those who undergo this so-called ordination are wasting their hard-earned money in the gulf ! i got an email from such a person claiming to have been "ordinated". this word is new to me and i think with frequent use of this miss-spelt word may find its place in the next edition of oxford dictionary! he he he.

an ordained one (September 18, 2012)
No spiritually sane believer will ever be against the ordination or laying on of hands, but we are against the short-cuts being used to obtain ordination by hook or crook by certain unwanted elements in the pentecostal society. It has become like a commodity on sale/purchase and like fake doctorate and other fake degree certificates. If anyone really wants to get ordained, let him follow the set rules and the established biblical principles. Circumventing these statutes and obtaining the ordination through any short-cuts will tantamount to the act mentioned in Psalms 125:5 - As for such as turn aside unto their crooked ways, the LORD shall lead them forth with the workers of iniquity. Hope you learned ministers and biblical scholars will agree with me.

a. s. mathew (September 15, 2012)
BRO. KOCHUMON: You have exposed a big truth about the ordination tradition. Many of the religious practices we practice routinely are not exactly Biblical based, but blindly following the traditions as divinely declared commandment of GOD. In the Acts of the Apostle 8, we see a personality who is in the ministry. Mr. Simon saw while Simon Peter and John laid their hands and prayed for the believers, the believers were filled with the Holy Ghost. Immediately Simon wanted that gift to make money. In the recent extra drive and passion to have "Rev" tag, there is some vested interests behind that. By the laying of hands, how many believers are being filled with the Holy Spirit today? If we are looking to the Bible as the sole foundation and guideline of the Churches, we will be forced to discard many of the blindly followed man-made tradtions, and many of them blindly adopted from many other sources.

valanja vazhi (September 15, 2012)


Valanja vazhikalilekku thiriyunnavare, Yahova dush-pravartthikkarodu koode pokumaaraakatte... Amen

kochumon (September 11, 2012)
dear all, please do a research and you can find that this ordinations original root is from episcopal church and at the end you can see catholic church priesthood. ie in a simple way, take an example of ipc oradained pastor , his ancestors got ordinations basically from pr. k e abraham, pr. k e abraham got ordination from pastor paul ceylon ((c)tpm chief), he was a former priest in csi, and csi evolved from anglican community and its evolved from catholic, so understand and get away from this type of ordination. local church should find someone who is eligible for ministry and pray for him and appointed him as their pastor. i think thats the biblical way, rest of the arrangments are man made. we have only one overseer/supdt/president/moderator/pope , that is jesus christ.

an ordained one (September 11, 2012)
continued (2)



there is now another kind of ordination rampant in the gulf where there are so many house-churches. the candidates from these gulf countries do not have any fellowship with cog, mulakuzha but they are getting ordination through the overseer of cog from a european country. there is an agency with wide network promoting this even in a more prohibited country in the gulf. so many people get this kind of ordination every month; specially those who are planning to migrate to canada and us thinking that this would be an additional qualification. i do not know what godly purpose this would serve.



in my opinion, ordination should be restricted to those who have undergone discipleship in any theological institution, has good testimony and good standing; has a certain number of experience as a pastor. if the present trend of ordaining people is not checked in time, i am afraid, in a few years they would outnumber the believers.

an ordained one (September 11, 2012)
I do not know the very purpose of secretly ordaining people. In earlier days, say even until the turn of the century, ordination was considered more seriously and servants of the Lord used to do the ordination after fasting and prayer to get the leading of the Holy Spirit whether or not to give ordination to the candidate. Now money power and muscle power has become the criteria coupled with recommendations of various kinds. There are many instances where simple prayer by laying of hands for other purpose too have been mis-quoted as ordination. Ordination is given to those who are called for doing God's ministry and has good testimony and good standing. If a certain organisation is not willing to give the ordination, the candidate will try to get it from somewhere else by hook or crook; even compromise with the established doctrines. They would even get it online from like Sidharth Mallya, the son of the *** king has got it. Pl see July 01 edition of Hallalujah magazine. ..2

samuel k j (September 6, 2012)
It is a fact that anybody can become a pastor in Pentecostal churches irrespective of divine call and proper theological education. How sad it is to know that those who have spent most of their life in secular job cunningly arrange pastoral positions to generate retirement income by means of tithes and other offering of poor believers. Since church has become an institution where people can generate money; people make every efforts to intrude into church positions. What we see in this ordination is also more or less the same. Church should discourage such attempts and reject those who enter through back door.

a. s. mathew (September 3, 2012)
Contd:2 Now, simply watch the colourful attachments of Rt and Most etc! In the Pentecostal denominations, it used to be Pastor, now that is an alien vocabulary. Can we find this "REV" anywhere in the New Testament or ever used by the Apostles? I know personally several "REV" simply got the title by laying the hands of another Pastor as if secretly attained. GOD has to send a great spiritual revival in all the Churches around the world, especially in Kerala because the Churches have been retreated beyond the reformation time; totally entraped man-made traditions and formalities on the one hand, and the worship of wealth on the other hand.

a. s. mathew (September 3, 2012)
brother doulos: great comment. thomas paine said " pen is mightier than the sword". we all must use our pens to make a change to these religious drama. c. s. lewis said " education without values, as useful as it is, seems rather to make a man more clever devil". how god can bring a person to the front row? "the more you care about the powerless, the more power you have-the more you serve those with no influence, the more influence god gives to you-the more you humble yourself, the more you are honored by others" mother tersesa. the books of psalms 111, it shows god's great works-his enduring righteousness-grace-compassion-provision-truth-jstice-redemption and his granding of wisdom to those who are truly trusting and following him. psalms 111:9 " holy and reverend is his name". the only verse in the entire bible where god is the only name to be qualified as "reverend".

doulos (September 3, 2012)
why the worthless ordinations: simple answer is, we malayalees have a mindset of rajyam, rajave, manthris,and servants. we still follow the pattern of old testment mahapurohithan and purohithan and forget the new testment for our convenience. it is good to follow the patterns of tpm church, who give ordination to really qualified and tested ministers. remember people gave respect to many brothers in ipc churches like v.m mathew, mathew p thomas without any ordination. it is good to remember the message of pastor p d johnson in florida pcnak long time ago. vili illatha saranmar nattikkunnu. ha kashtam. it is high time to follow the n.t. pattern of ordination(acts13:2-3).

a. s. mathew (September 2, 2012)
brother a. varghese: it is totally true what you have written that the churches of kerala have became political and social organizations; and the pentecostal denominations can't be exempted. the believers have been terribly misguided and blindfolded to see their delinquency. now the republican and democratic parties in the u.s. are fighting with tooth and nail to raise over 800 million dollars each before the election. is that for helping the needy? likewise, the believers of the various pentecostal denominations lavishly give money to their political candidates wearing religious outfits and titles. if they don't have money, none of them will and can play politics in churches. if we want to see a detour of this dangerous political game plans of the "rev. leaders", be highly cautious before sharing our money with them. give only to those who are genuinely serving the lord and doing the heavenly kingdom ministry.

a varghese (September 2, 2012)
Most of the penticost churches now became political organizations, IPC church is the worst in such bad politics. AG, COG, Sharon also has some corrupted leaders/believers , but they are far better than IPC leaders/believers.

a. s. mathew (September 2, 2012)
when i went for missioary trips, some of my friends in india showed great interest and printed rev. a. s. mathew, but i told them that i am not interested in any such titles and not a rev. at all; i rather be introduced as a brother in christ. the rev. title gives priority seats in the conventions; either in the pulpit or at the fron rows, besides many other man-made privileges. so, we can come to the easy conclusion that the hard-core drive among the ministers of the gospel to have "rev" is not due to their extra passion for the ministry, but only to have elevated respect and status in the churches. the pentecostal churches will have to set certain specific standards before giving ordinations as reverends. giving the rev. ordinations in secret by any x and y persons, far away from the recipient's local church is a paradox and questionable issue.

a. s. mathew (September 2, 2012)
Thepraize: Thank you for your kind words. George-Thepraize-reji@nj-M.S.Abraham-James. You are all actually touching a serious and cardinal crisis we are faced with in all the denominations. In the Episcopal Churches, now the Bishop selections have became a judicial encounter at the state's court system. Some of the old-time Bishops were great men of GOD, sacrificed their lives for the kingdom of GOD, suffered a lot in life. My mother told me that she was a witness of the prayer miracle by the Abraham Methropolitan of the Marthoma Church, which took place more than 90 years back. The river bank of Maramon was filled with water, the due date of the Maramon convention was approaching. The great Methropolitan went to the knee high water and raised his hands and prayed, the water began to deplete fast and the convention was conducted. Now, can we find one Bishop with that faith to pray for a miracle? contd:

james (September 2, 2012)
If all that is going on in the PENTECOSTAL CHURCHES is contrary to accepted norms of decent society why donot we beleivers start a momment of returning to our original churches . Those churches that we left for the sake of purity of the gospel and separation from the world have now come to accept many tenents of pentecostal faith like infilling of the holy spirit and speaking in tounges and they have a structured form of worship and administration . in all respect the wise decision to follow for the pentecostal believers is to go back to their orginal churches. lo.

m.s abraham, usa (September 1, 2012)
Br. Achenkunju Elanthoor is doing Lord's ministry in many ways than many of us. Ordination is in sale under IPC churches than any other Pentecostal churches. Whoever senior Pastors come to United States, they are allowed to give ordination to anyone. How many examples do u need? Why questioning Br. Achenkunju itself?? Make rules & regulations under IPC first!! Ordination should give under one Person [Thru Church top leader or Bishop only] in their church (not by any senior Pastors).

reji@nj (August 27, 2012)
I have seen in the past, church leaders took tons of money and gave ordinations. By-laws, church discipline or doctrines are below the money power. I witnessed a true man of God got ordination on his *** bed - even though he was a true man of God, didn't meet many of the above mentioned guidelines. Church leaders become business guys - there lies all the issues. Deepasthambpham mahacharyam namakkum kittanam panam - Kunchan Nambiar wrote this for Pentacostal Organization Leaders! Don't even compare these guys with the true pentacost. Some of these guys spend lakhs and lakhs to get elected and then "Daivam enna elppicha position" - Just bogus! You guys brought these positions with MONEY!

thepraize (August 27, 2012)
@ asm : greetings and good to see you after a short haitus thru this space,pentecostals create reverends every day and with it crooks and thieves,apart from few old timers, i doubt anybody is theologically sound,at least not that we see in their life style,there is a deeper and greater concern here, for the love of money,they even compromise their faith. Most of the reverends across PENTECOSTAL churches have been mired in,one of the 2 controversies,sexual or financial,and this is,true. How can they exhort common people to lead a holy life ?There is no greater joke than pentecostals presently,however God is raising people from different communities to fulfill the great commission and i hope they will stand true to the call.Sadly,present day Pentecostals are a great let down.

a. s. mathew (August 25, 2012)
This is a very sad reality we face more often recently. In the Episcopal and Catholic Church, to be a Reverend, it takes years of study. But, this shortcut reverend ordination easily delivered by simple laying of hands and prayer by some ministers, makes the whole situation very critical and confusing.

george (August 25, 2012)
the drawback of our community is many of our people who got ordination without a calling from god. now a days people take

ordination because of inferiority complex and for personal gain. they are like the sons of eli (wortheless men who did not know god 1 sam 3:12). woe to leaders who give ordination to these worthless people. blind man leads the blind man into the pits. let us have the mind of christ who felt compassion for people (matt 9:36).