Today, Christendom seems more divided than ever. If you had a chance to talk to all the leaders from all the major Evangelical denominations and evangelical seminaries, what would you say?
Gabe Lyons, author and founder of Q Ideas says that the first thing he would do is encourage those leaders.
“I would remind them that we as the church have gone through so many different moments and that we are at our best when we’re not comfortable.”
Living the Christian life publicly is not comfortable, but maybe that’s the way it’s supposed to be.
“When we’re feeling a bit of pressure culturally, when we don’t have total control or power of where the world’s going, we find ourselves like the people in the New Testament.”
The context of our day is beginning to look much more like the context of New Testament times when the Gospel flourished.
“The New Testament was written to a persecuted minority, that is the entire context for the New Testament. Yet in American life, it feels like we’ve gotten very comfortable being Christian.”
“Now we find ourselves in a moment where almost half of Americans think that people of faith are part of the problem in our culture.”
The feeling of cultural pressure and social persecution is new for many evangelicals and leaders. However, it is not unique to our day.
“This is our moment to be on mission, to lead with love, to really engage our communities and the questions people have with a lot of grace but also thoughtfulness.”
God has called us to defend our faith and explain why we believe what we believe, without fear.
“We shouldn’t shrink back from that, we should walk forward and be confident that our faith does have something to say, it has something special to offer in a moment where a lot of people hate religion and think that the church and all these things have contributed to more of the problems than solutions.”
What can we do?
“We must become more unified, we must come together around the essentials of the Gospel, what is true and what Scripture tells us.”
According to Gabe, we need to be developing fully devoted followers of Jesus Christ.
“We’ve created a comfortable Christianity where people feel right at home, not really denying themselves anything, not having to sacrifice much, just showing up at church singing songs and believing that this is what it means to be a Christian.”
There is so much more to being a Christian then showing up at church to fulfill an obligation. Ask God to help you understand what it means to love Him with your mind, body, soul, and spirit.
