I really don’t know that I can adequately put into words all that I’ve experienced today. After a very challenging day getting down here and actually getting to the conference, I understood why things prior to the conference would come with such difficulty: God had some radical things to teach me that could make an incredible impact in the life of our church and opposition always precedes that.
Due to sheer exhaustion, it will have to suffice to say that my experience was characterized by heart-break over stuff I know that breaks the heart of God such as being confronted with the realities of things like human slavery, sex-trafficking (especially among children), poverty, starvation and other injustices our heads are so easily turned from. I am not only broken over them, I am determined to be a part of the solution and will lead our church in that direction. Just another part of “The Gathering Storm” I discussed two posts ago, I suppose. I am thankful that we have someone like Caleb Lange in our church who God has already placed a burden on to actively get involved with combating this through a new organization called sixty1 (I may have mentioned this in an earlier post, not sure). This is a direct way we can support combating this type of horrid injustice that the Church should be leading the charge on.
It seems as though the pieces of this gathering storm are starting to fall into place and I’m amazed at how God uses so many different things to bring about His good purpose. I want to encourage you to rethink how Christians have responded to social injustices in the past and, hopefully, come to the realization like I have that we have done a poor job of taking care of the least of these. I am encouraged by so many thousands who want to see feet put to solid theology. For far too long, we’ve worked to protect the doctrinal integrity of the Word (which is essential) to the detriment of fulfilling it’s mission. It is time we work to find balance between what Andy Stanley this morning called creed and deed. That is to say, we have to make sure we’re putting feet to what we say we believe and fulfill the priorities of Christ.
