In national emergencies like the tsunami in northeastern Japan, we can see and understand the urgency. Huge waves overturning three-story buildings have a way of getting our attention. But more subtle changes can sneak up on us. Are we sometimes like the frog in a kettle, who doesn’t notice that the water temperature is little-by-little rising to a boil?
It’s an important question these days. Some would say that tsunami-like waves are swelling around us. Families which formerly gathered to pray and worship now meet to play and pretend. And although we all believe in a healthy amount of tolerance, I cringe at the thought that we might bite our tongue rather than share the honest truth about our testimony and answered prayer.
We celebrate the exceptional churches and individuals who are choosing to stand strong in the midst of this cultural sea change. We pray for the ability to help sound a wake-up call. Waves of apathy are often followed by moldy inaction. May our generation not be remembered as people who had “The Book” but did nothing with it.
Your title grabbed my attention, but more so the last sentence: “May our generation not be remembered…etc.”.
I live in Singapore and have just come back from one month in Western Europe where I grew up. Europe has become so secular that Bible-believing Christians are an oddity, a remnant of the past, perceived as hopelessly out-of-date and irrelevant. In many ways your last sentence rings true for the church in Europe. They had and still have the book. But by and large, the church has had little or no impact on the changing culture around it. The picture is not totally bleak. Here and there you can find pockets of people or places where the light of Christ shines brightly. But they are the exception. Am I wrong to think that the church in North America is heading for the same spiritual desert-like state?