By Jim Brown
August 6, 2001

(AgapePress) - A Pentecostal church in Florida claims to offer worship services where charismatic beliefs and homosexuality can co-exist.

According to the St. Petersburg Times, Potter's House Fellowship Church in Tampa has all the ingredients of a Pentecostal service: the fervent prayers, the piano, the guitar and drums, and people speaking spontaneously in tongues. But most of the 75 members of Potter's House Fellowship Church in Tampa are open homosexuals -- and members of Potter's House often claim to receive a message from the Holy Spirit in tongues.

Terry Rayburn is district superintendent of the Assemblies of God Council in Lakeland, Florida. He says what is happening at Potter's House is definitely not of the Holy Spirit. "We feel very strongly that the Holy Sprit would only live in a human vessel that was sanctified by salvation," Rayburn says, "and inasmuch as homosexuality is a sin, then we would not concur that that would be the Holy Spirit."

Rayburn is also very clear that the Potter's House church is not an Assemblies of God church. "It's not a part of our fellowship here in the district, and we would not affiliate a church holding those social views," he says.

Although the Bible clearly condemns homosexuality, Potter's House pastor Robert Morgan claims his church "teaches a strict standard of morality."

The nation turned an ear toward Pentecostals this year when John Ashcroft was nominated for U.S. Attorney General. Ashcroft is the son and grandson of ministers in the Assemblies of God denomination, the largest Pentecostal denomination in the world.

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