Gospel.com Blog

Did you happen to catch Answers in Genesis’ “State of the Union” address last week? It presented some very interesting facts about why and when people leave the church and the Christian faith.

You can watch it online here. Answers in Genesis is a creationist ministry, and that worldview is certainly the centerpoint of their address; but no matter what beliefs you hold about evolution and creation, you’ll find some of the research results fascinating. Here’s a few bullet points, taken from Kent Shaffer’s excellent Church Relevance blog:

Among 20- to 29-year-old evangelicals:

• 95% attended church regularly during elementary school
• 95% attended church regularly during middle school
  
>> 40% first had doubts about the Bible in middle school
• 55% attended church regularly during high school
  
>> 43.7% first had doubts about the Bible in high school
• 11% attended church regularly during college

  >> 10% first had doubts about the Bible in college

Oddly, the study discovered that those who attended Sunday school (61%) are actually more likely than non-attendees (39%):

• to not believe that all the accounts and stories in the Bible are true
• to doubt the Bible because it was written by men
• to defend keeping abortion legal
• to accept the legalization of gay marriage
• to believe in evolution
• to believe that good people don’t need to go to church

The take-home point seems to be that America’s Sunday schools and church youth education programs are failing to address kids’ serious spiritual issues until it’s too late and they’ve already left the church. While most youth ministry seems to focus on high school and college students, the above data suggests that it’s in middle school that doubts and spiritual crises kick in. And clearly Sunday school isn’t helping resolve those crises.

Kent’s post has some good thoughts and questions about these numbers. What do you think? Are these numbers a surprise to you?

Where there’s political strife, there’s religious strife, and in Iran, the two are inextricably intertwined.

Ever since the Iranian elections a few weeks ago, the political climate there has been tenuous at best. There have been massive protests, violence on the streets and even some deaths. Here in the United States, we’ve been inundated with Youtube videos and round-the-clock reporting. It’s definitely a situation that will take months to unravel, and the turmoil is showing no signs of slowing down.

Mission Network News is—as always—dutifully reporting on the situation. A few days ago they published an article about Christians joining in on the social networking activity that’s been coming out of Iran:

Yet, Christians are joining the Twitter Revolution and using Facebook to get information out of Iran. Open Doors learned through its contacts that voters are frustrated and have lost trust in Iran’s democracy in other cities outside of Tehran.
…
In other districts of this southwest city of Shiraz, the situation is more grim as Daryush explains: “Friends told me that young people in Shiraz are being arrested and that they’ve seen young men and women being beaten, or worse. A friend who lives near the university and student dorms told me she heard screaming, shouting and gunfire in the early hours of the morning.

“The predominately young demonstrators are calling Ahmadinejad a dictator, and they yell chants like ‘Ma dolate zoor nemikhaim,’ meaning ‘We don’t want a government of force.’ They also yell at the security forces and call them traitors and vote-stealers. A friend said that within the security forces are pro-Mousavi followers, saying ‘beechareh shodim!’ or ‘We are without hope.’”

Daryush continues: “The majority of people I spoke with consider the elections a fraud and don’t accept the results at all. A friend of our family lives in Shahe Cheragh, which is a predominantly religious and conservative district of Shiraz. He said that even in that district, a huge numbers of votes went to Mousavi.”

And here’s an excerpt from a recent article about the church in Iran:

However, many Christians have fled Iran because of persecution. Those who commit the crime of apostasy, or leaving Islam for another religion, are often arrested and tried in court. These charges are of particular concern since a draft law proposed in early 2008 that would mandate the death penalty for apostasy has passed several stages of Iran’s legislative process.

Even so, Penner says there is a growing church in Iran. Recent years have seen a growing appetite for political reform among the Iranian people. There is also a growing openness to considering the claims of Christianity, especially among the young.

Prayer is needed. “The situation for Christians worsened under Ahmadinejad’s previous term of presidency. That’s certainly going to deteriorate in the middle of this political chaos. We certainly need to be remembering our brothers and sisters in prayer during this time.”

Please pray for Iran and the world as this situation progresses.

For more information on what’s happening here’s CNN’s page on the Iran Elections.

“The Will of God” is one of those phrases rife with theological, philosophical, and emotional implications. It’s not easily explained or easy to learn, but whether or not you’re “doing God’s will” is a question that every Christian confronts at some point in their faith journey.

Mart De Haan of RBC ministries recently wrote about it in a post called Knowing the Will of God on the Been Thinking About blog:

Our conversation moved to the conclusion that, according to the Bible, “the will of God” that we should be concerned about is not about being in the right place, but having the right attitude. From the Apostle Paul’s words to first century slaves and masters (Ephesians 6:5-9), we concluded that when the Bible urges us to do “the will of God” it is something we can do wherever we are if, from our hearts, it is our desire is to serve “our Lord Christ.”

Read the whole post.

What do you do to make sure you’re walking in the will of God? Do you think it’s purely based on your attitude in a situation? Or is it more complicated than that?

It’s the oldest question in the book: how can God allow suffering? Over the centuries, Christians have turned to the Bible and found answers to this dilemma; but the persistence of the question suggests that on some level, we’re just not able to wrap our minds around God’s reasons for allowing evil and suffering. We can firmly believe in God’s goodness and love, and yet still find our faith deeply challenged when tragedy strikes our own lives.

William Stuntz, a professor at Harvard, can speak about this with authority—because nine years ago, his life went from “normal” to “nightmare” in the course of just a few harrowing months.

From a crippling injury to chronic, constant pain to relationship breakdowns and finally to a cancer diagnosis, Stuntz has experienced suffering… and he’s written down some of his observations about living through suffering while believing in Jesus Christ. In his essay, he talks about some of the misconceptions Christians have about the purpose and nature of suffering. Here’s one of his points:

Christians err when we imagine that God is supposed to heal all our diseases. That is not promised to us, not in this life. More the opposite: Jesus said, “In this world you will have trouble” — not “might have,” but “will have.” But while God does not offer to take my cancer or my pain away, He offers something even better: that good will come from those illnesses, and that the good will be larger than the suffering it redeems. Romans 8:28 says that “in all things, God works for the good of those who love Him.” Cancer and chronic pain remain ugly, killing things, enemies of all who love life and beauty. But try as they might, those enemies do not get the last word. Our pain is not empty; we do not suffer in vain. When life strikes hard blows, what we do has value. God sees to it. That is an enormous mercy.

It’s an excellent essay, and makes a good companion read alongside Jim Watkins’ recent writings about suffering, which we highlighted last week.

Nate Butler over at the Comix35 Prayer blog is asking for prayer for their prison comics tract about an ex-offender:

Initially launched on a larger scale in late 2008, this project had to be revised due to the changes in our family health situations. We are now producing a 7-page mini-comic based on the life of an ex-offender who currently works in prisons. Information on the back ( page 8 ) will explain how a Christian inmate will have the opportunity to create a mini-comic of their own personal testimony.

We are already corresponding with some inmates and chaplains about possible productions. Please pray that the Lord would continue to connect us with all the right people – partnering ministries, chaplains, inmates – so that effective literature will be produced and distributed to inmates and “at risk” youth who are in danger of ending up in prisons. Thank you.

The comic is part of the Amazing True Life Stories project run by Crosswinds. You can read more about the project over at the Comix35 page: Christian Comics Tracts for Prison Inmates.

Some good news on the missionary front from Nepal: after serving 9 years in a Nepali prison, Manja Tamang, a Gospel for Asia native missionary, has been released! Manja was sent to prison in 2000 after being falsely accused of murder.

Here’s some of his story, from the Gospel for Asia website:

Manja’s saga began one day as he was out sharing the Gospel. As he walked along a river path, he saw a dead body and immediately contacted the police.

An anti-Christian extremist group who had opposed Manja’s ministry seized the opportunity to stop his work. They arranged for several false witnesses to testify against him, “framing” him for the murder. Manja was arrested, charged with the crime that he did not commit and beaten to near death.

Even though the widow of the deceased man testified to Manja’s innocence, the missionary was sentenced to 20 years in prison. His case was appealed all the way to the Nepali Supreme Court, where, citing the “evidence,” it was upheld.

According to the article, persecution of this sort was not uncommon under the Hindu government of the time. The political situation in Nepal is more open now and Christians have more freedom to worship openly, although challenges and dangers still remain.

It’s a cause for thanksgiving and rejoicing, and certainly the answer to many long years of prayer from around the world. Gospel for Asia has been tracking Manja’s case for years; to see the full story as it unfolded over the last decade, scroll to the bottom of the Gospel for Asia article and look through the list of archived stories, videos, and other information about Manja.

Missionary stories are almost always encouraging. They’re the tales of men and women making intentional choices to challenge themselves, to stretch themselves and to honor God’s calling. Missionaries are a lot who often find life to be difficult, but often find it to be joyful. Few find themselves regretting their decisions.

I personally like reading missionary stories because they remind me that missionaries are real people who have real fears and real successes.

The Beigerts are missionaries with BCM International who were recently featured in the the Spring edition of BCM World. They’re a young couple who have been in Peru just a few short months but have hit the ground running.

Here’s an excerpt from their article, Not My Home:

Still, landing in Peru was again a shock, physically and mentally. We’d flown from Florida where it was 45 degrees Fahrenheit to arrive in Lima at almost midnight to about 80 degrees and humid. We’d left English speakers to be surrounded by thousands of people jabbering what seemed to be the world’s fastest language, Spanish. As we left the airport, I looked at my husband to see his eyes opened wide, looking more lost than I ever thought he could be. As we went to bed in our new home at 1:30 AM, we looked at each other, and said, “What in the world are we getting ourselves into?”

But now that the initial shock has worn off, we are so content to be here. Everyone here has accepted us and made us feel welcome. And we’re excited to begin our new ministry.

My favorite verses recently have been Hebrews 11:13-16 (NIV). The author is speaking of the heroes of faith who died without ever receiving in their lifetime the promises from God. They realized they were “aliens and strangers” here on earth. “If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had opportunity to return” (vs.15). But they were longing for something better—a heavenly homeland. Verse 16 says, “Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them.”

Read their whole BCM international account here. You can also keep up with the Biegerts over at their regularly updated blog.

How do you respond when your life seems to be dominated by bad news and unasked-for challenges? The recent economic crisis has added job anxiety and unemployment to the already-heavy list of worries that countless families face, so it seems appropriate to ask: how are you dealing with it all? What’s a Bible-based reaction to, and understanding of, life’s setbacks?

Writer, speaker, and friend of the blog James Watkins has a slightly different answer than you might expect: he thinks that humor can play an important part in helping us through tough times, and beyond that, he believes that there is a real purpose behind suffering. In fact, Watkins sees a certain often-overlooked sense of humor embedded in Bible passages that Christians often quote during difficult experiences, like Romans 8:28.

If that sounds intriguing, you’ll want to check out yesterday’s interview with James Watkins on The Harvest Show. (The interview starts at the 20:15 minute mark, if you want to skip right to it). There’s a text transcript of the interview if you prefer to read it. Here’s a sample:

Your book is based on the familiar promise of Romans 8:28. But you believe the real truth is found in verse 29. Can you explain that?

For years, I viewed Romans 8:28 rather flippantly. “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose,” but I never considered what that purpose was. Verse 29 says it is “to be conformed to the likeness of his Son.” That’s what God wants to work out of the problems and tragedies that we face.

In fact, there’s an amazing verse in Hebrews 5:8: “Although [Jesus] was a son, he learned obedience from what he suffered.” Jesus was “conformed to the likeness of” God’s son by what He suffered. He don’t become conformed to the image of God’s Son by “health and wealth,” “properity” or “blessings,” but by suffering. Not a popular message!

In the interview, James talks about the role of laughter in coping with tragedy and difficulty. It’s a conversation based on his latest book, Squeezing Good Out of Bad. (And it’s worth noting that in a rather classy move, he’s making the book available for free to anyone who is currently unemployed.)

I ran across this quotation a few days ago from Sandra Bowden, via Culture-Making:

What if you had to go to a church that had had no music since the early 1500s? It’s unimaginable. Yet the void you can’t imagine is there—[the] 500-year lack of visual arts in Protestant churches.

Hyperbolic, yes, but the spirit of the quote is spot-on. For the most part, Christianity over the past few hundred years has done little to involve visual artists. Thankfully, this is steadily changing.

Recently, Mission Network News reported on a ministry coming out of The Mission Society called The Fonderie. The Fonderie is a collective of Christian artists that reach out to their professional artist colleagues. Here’s an excerpt from the MNN post:

The Fonderie offers discipleship classes, weekend retreats, coaching and prayer. In addition, they are engaged in art shows, small concerts, coffee house events, and creative project development. Their gallery is open for all artists–believers or not.

An artist’s schedule may make going to church on a regular basis difficult. The rhythms of the two lifestyles are very different; for example, a jazz musician who plays at clubs every night until 2 AM or a painter who is on tour for six weeks at a time. It leaves them disconnected from the body of Christ.

The Beise’s ministry is a pastoral response to these challenges. They encourage artists in their talents. In some cases, artists have felt like a tool in the hands of the church, so there are lots of discussions that must take place in the process of integrating them back into a community.

Read the rest here.

Does your church involve visual art in their sanctuaries or in worship?

What does forgiveness look like in everyday life?

Forgiveness is easy enough to talk about in the abstract—for Christians in particular, this is a topic we hear about quite a bit. We talk about Jesus’ forgiveness of our sins and the Christian imperative to forgive others when they wrong us. But what does that mean, exactly? Does it mean forgetting about the offense? Pretending it didn’t happen? Refusing to be angry at the offender?

In a recent article for Winning at Home, Shirley Valk explores the idea of forgiveness by citing the dramatic real-life case of a man who endured 11 years of prison for the crime of rape—a crime he hadn’t committed. After his eventual exoneration, he extended the hand of forgiveness to his accuser, and we can learn from his example:

Forgiveness is difficult for many of us to comprehend. How can a man spend 11 years in prison after being wrongly convicted and not be angry but forgiving? Forgiveness is not saying that what was done was okay. It is not letting the person who hurt you off the hook of the responsibility for what they did. It is not making it okay for the other person; it is making your life okay. Forgiveness is freeing your spirit, heart and mind. Forgiveness is taking care of you and restoring your relationship with God to wholeness.

Read the whole thing. And take a look at the many other regularly-posted articles at Winning at Home—they’re a great source of help and ideas for strengthening your family and navigating relationship challenges.