Renowned Pentecostal Churches Announce Innovative Partnership
Congregations link at once-famous home of 'laughing revival'

[Ednote: We received an invitation from Pastors Randy and Paula White of "Without Walls" advertising their new adquired Partnership with the Carpenters Home Church in Lakeland. They are offering a "Festival Con Dios" featuring Karl Strader, Pastors Randy & Paula White, Benny Hinn, Bishop T.D. Jakes, Rev. Jessie Duplantis, Stephen Strang, Bishop Eddie Long, Mark Rutland and Matt & Lori Crouch. pure pop groups: Plue One, Souljahz, True Vibe, Plus Tree63, Mercy Me, Toby Mac, Out of Eden. Along with this invitation we received a comprehensive report about the history of Carpenter's Church which ended up wiped out. en of note].]

Described by leaders as a first of its kind venture in Christendom, a large Pentecostal church in Tampa, Fla., has agreed to an unusual partnership with what was once one of the largest churches in the world.

Under a cooperative arrangement announced earlier this month, Without Walls International Church (WWIC), a 14,000-strong, nondenominational urban congregation, will partner with Carpenter's Home Church (CHC) in suburban Lakeland, which is affiliated with the Assemblies of God.

Once boasting 5,000 members, Carpenter's Home now only has about 1,200 people in its 10,000-seat sanctuary on Sundays. The plan calls for WWIC to hold weekly services at CHC and possibly purchase the building, considered one of the largest sanctuaries in the world when it opened in 1985. Lakeland is located about 45 minutes east of Tampa.

Although the arrangement is not a merger and both churches intend to keep their own identities, leaders said the "Coalition of Compassion" plan allows the two congregations to "share facilities and pool their outreach and mission efforts to reap a greater harvest."

"Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their labor," Karl Strader, 72, CHC pastor for the last 35 years, said, quoting Ecclesiastes 4:9. "Promotion of the two entities working as one can become a phenomenon of end-time unity and of grace. [Our] coming together will be a non-legal, but cooperative, fellowship that will, in no way, be competitive, but will be complimentary."

Without Walls pastoral administrator Jennifer Mallan said the agreement will unfold in three phases. In the first phase, starting Aug. 3, WWIC pastors Randy and Paula White will conduct Saturday night services at CHC. Without Walls, which will remain open in Tampa, will also assist Carpenter's Home in evangelistic and community outreach programs, targeting urban and minority neighborhoods.

After about six months, WWIC hopes to purchase CHC's $13 million auditorium, and in the third phase, Carpenter's Home could decide to build a new, smaller 2,500-seat sanctuary on property near its Christian school and day care. http://www.charismanews.com/online/articledisplay.pl?ArticleID=6408

History:
Charisma Magazine out of Lake Wales, Florida owned and run by Stephen Strang a graduate of Oral Roberts University and close friends of the Straders of Carepenter's Home Church Inc. Lakeland, Florida, reported recently that Rodney Howard-Browne's Florida Church Growing Fast The River at Tampa Bay, which the evangelist started in December, plans Bible institute. It sated:

There's a new river flowing out of Tampa Bay that evangelists Rodney and Adonica Howard-Browne hope will flood America with revival. Called from their native South Africa as missionaries to America in 1987, the Howard-Brownes now have a local family of believers to shepherd as senior pastors of their new church, The River at Tampa Bay. The couple says the Lord
directed them in October to start a church in the Tampa-St. Petersburg area, where their Revival Ministries International has been based for three years. http://www.deceptioninthechurch.com/lewd.html

April was a bittersweet month for Strader. On Easter Sunday, he marked his 35th anniversary as pastor of Carpenter's Home Church. A week earlier, the latest appeal by his convicted son, Daniel, was denied. In the twilight of his career, Karl David Strader is a living alloy of tradition and progress, success and loss.

In one generation, he has seen his Pentecostal tradition grow in numbers and in acceptance. And by most accounts, he has been an innovator, freely associating with faith groups outside Pentecostalism and borrowing ideas from them. He built an empire at Carpenter's Home in North Lakeland that has at times included a 10,000-seat sanctuary, a national TV audience, a private school and a retirement home. But his innovations were not appreciated by everyone, and 11 years ago, strife decimated Carpenter's Home. Today, the cavernous sanctuary is perhaps a quarter full on Sundays, and the TV broadcasts have been cut way back.

Strader bears an even deeper wound. Those who know him say the scandal surrounding his son's arrest and 1995 conviction on fraud charges have affected him more deeply than any other setback. Yet at 72, Strader soldiers on, preaching and laying hands on people who come forward in hopes of a healing touch. He says he will remain as pastor of Carpenter's Home as long as his health is good. He tells his congregation, "I'm past the age scripture tells me is given to us of three score and 10. But God has given me a wonderful life of health and strength. I'm shooting for 100." http://www.wcie.net/chc/ledgerarticle.htm

God's Frauds RODNEY HOWARD BROWNE, PASTOR KARL STRADER, JIM BAKKER AND The Assemblies of God http://www.davidicke.net/religiousfrauds/pentecostal/godfraud.html