WHAT THE CHURCH MAY NEED IS WHAT THE CHURCH DOES NOT WANT

We live in screwy times.  Maybe man has always lived there; but it doesn't seem so.

Born in '47, life began to fill my awareness tank in the early 50s as to pace and meaning and concern and direction.  The Cold War of the 60s was scary.  The hippies, to a Missouri farm boy, were silliness.  Church was for the good people and pool halls were for the bad.

Today feels much different.  We live high on the hog, have at our disposal the most elite technology, and communication happens instantly.  Yet.....something is cooking.  The political world feels to be in shambles and the religious culture is regarded with extreme suspicion.

Signals have subtly come along that seems to give reason to believe that the Christian segment of our society is targeted for possible trouble.  For now, it appears that many majority and minority groups can be given consideration from many poles; but not the Christian one.  Simultaneously, I wonder if the Christian element in America has grown fat and sassy.  Have we fallen into a dangerous religion of indifferent slumber?

Persecution may not be at our doorstep; but I do think it is traipsing up the sidewalk. This will never be the thing we want.  Yet, it may be the very thing needed to move us from our glut of mediocre indifference.

I look at past reports of China where God's kingdom was not welcomed.  I don't know, in modern times, of a place where greater explosion of His presence is coming about.  Philip Yancey wrote about God's movement in that country.

For several decades no one knew how the Chinese church was faring, especially in light of the leaked reports of social turmoil.  Had Madame Mao succeeded in her vow to destroy Christianity?  When China finally began to crack open its borders, some of these same missionaries returned to visit, astonished to find that the church had exploded in size.  Aikman estimates that the number of Christians today may exceed eighty million; others suggest a total of more than one hundred million.

Yancey's report is from 2010.  Just last week Roger Dickson informed us that one printing company in China is printing 100 million copies of Chinese Bibles.  This is in a country where some powerful people had pledged to drive Christianity from within its borders.  Charles Colson reported about eight years ago that he believed the Chinese Christians would take care of Iran's dictator and his regime.

Persecution is a fretful matter.  It is too big for me to give adequate emphasis. However, from the onset of the Jesus movement in Acts up to this moment in history, the persecuted nations are the places the church does what we wish it would do in the secure nations; explode.

Persecution; what the church may need is what the church does not want.  We will always have the call to take up our crosses, follow him, and die for our enemies.