Influence With the Gospel

I was once having lunch with Home equity line of credit associate pastor of my church. There's this place less than halfway between my church and my parents' house that we always meet at called Stop A-While and in such a short time I've never seen a restaurant go through so many owners and so many paint jobs as this diner.

But it was good and we provoked each other to a lot of thought on the average Christian's walk with God and I personally was left with several things to think about. We took notice of how much more passive the Canadian Church is and apathetic to the engulfing liberalism of the culture around us, versus how much more proactive the American Body of Christ is. Like for example, it's hard to come across a group that would do something like The Cause/The Call people were in front of the Supreme Court last months before this chat I was having, in order to demonstrate against abortion and pray for laws to be changed in the land, whereas in Canada, we'll vote in the people who gradually take our rights and money away. I am proud to be Canadian, don't you worry, but I really really fear more for the Canadian church than I do the American ones.

He and I got to talking about this, and how marginal of a part of the Church actually believes we are wall-to-wall conduits of the Holy Ghost, manifesting the kingdom of God either for good or bad everywhere we go. Has it dawned on people that the world was changed in many facets - immigration policy, security measures, a way of thinking - all because of 19 people [with a network larger than we know behind even them] automobile insurance quotes crashing airplanes into 3 buildings on Sept 11th 2001. Nineteen people? That's just a couple of pews in our church on Sunday morning, multiplied by millions of alleged Christians all across just our 2 countries, and multiply that by countries all around the world and all sorts of different cultures. So why the lack of impact for the Gospel?

Why can 1% of the Canadian population get the definition of the institution of marriage changed and the rest of the majority accommodates that? But a large percent (I know in the US 80% but I know in Canada it's less, but still substantial) that call themselves Christians do nothing, and don't even necessarily live any different than the world by and large - we can't get the world not to think we're irrelevant. Do we really believe we have the Spirit of God living in us - those of us that actually are His? Do we really live, act and believe like everything we can has eternal significance for good or bad?

It hit me one night, and I articulated this as best as I could for my pastor friend at that lunch meeting. I had been reading teachings out of my "big green book". Of course, I'm talking about The Complete Life Teachings of Smith Wigglesworth - I got Maria Woodworth Etter's and John G. Lake's as well, but it was Wigglesworth I was reading and it dawned on me: I'm reading material by somebody I've never met, and who lived, and finally died decades before I was even born, and he was a man just like I am a young man. Never ordained, he couldn't even read or write, and all he ever read Nefazodone he could was the Bible. This man who died in 1947 never wrote a single one of these teachings I'm now reading in 2008! People put to paper teachings of his, he never sat down to write anything to ever be published in a book of any kind, and people all over the western world who weren't alive in his day can read his teachings, be influenced by this apostle of faith as he's been dubbed, and do it themselves. What do you do with your life? Watch TV shows, go to church on Sunday morning, and entertain yourself and live no different than the world? Or do you live as though each step you take and every word you speak and every e-mail you write (or blog entry you write online for anyone to read) that you're treading on chords of eternity that will make a lasting impact on somebody somewhere?

I'm staggered at these thoughts, and I hope I could make you as well dear reader, whether reading today as I write this or decades from now after I've forgotten I wrote it...

Steve has been a missionary to Europe for over 2 years, and currently lives in Canada while preparing to move to Peru in early 2009. He is a contributing author on the Fire On Your Head Blog, which can be viewed at www.fireonyourhead.orgwww.fireonyourhead.org - and also co-hosts a bi-weekly podcast with another missionary, Fire On Your Head- The Podcast, at www.fireonyourhead.comwww.fireonyourhead.com

Both sites dwell richly in Pentecostal/Charismatic themes within Christianity.