Rot or Revival
by on March 22, 2008
Christianity is sinking into the Global South. For Americans, particularly myself, this is somewhat offsetting. We are an insular people. We enjoy thinking, talking, and studying ourselves. Most of the time, we are the subject of our sentences. Yet South America and Africa are exploding with revival while North America and Europe are declining in authentic faith. Having traveled throughout Europe, I can testify to this phenomenon and it seems to me like the church in America has a very important decision to make:
Either we revive or we rot.
Either we get on our knees and pray that God will spark another awakening in our land or we become irrelevant to global Christianity. One thing I’ve noticed about Christianity in our country is that we are absorbed with ourselves. This is expressed denominationally and post-denominationally. Yet the essence of the Gospel is the emphasis on others, not ourselves. We are here for one another. We are in this world to be light and salt in a dark and bland society. And twentysomethings are realizing this. The past reminds us that Christian cultures that obtained great prosperity became too comfortable and their faith disintegrated. But we are ready for a revolution.
The past is teaching us how to behave. We are going back in order to go forward, and we’re learning that it is costly to be a Christian. We are learning that true freedom comes from sacrifice and obedience is more important than success. The way up is the way down and darkness shows us Christ more than sunshine does. Instead of asking What would Jesus do? we are asking, What would Jesus have me do? And we are doing it. We are learning that God doesn’t make mistakes. He doesn’t call us to forget us. He doesn’t equip us to discard us.
And the God who pulls us to himself joins us for the journey.