John Adams once said that “I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy.”
What a time to live in when you constantly hear about Stage 4 cancer getting healed, missing limbs growing back, marriages being restored, deaf ears opening up, blind eyes now seeing, cancellation of debt, children’s hearts turning back to their parents.
The church has a unique and tremendous opportunity to see the kingdom of God continue to touch our world in our time and to see it increase in the next generation. It’s important that we live our lives in such a way that will set up a generation we will never see for success.
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Eight reasons Christians need to be active in standing with Israel
We as leaders find ourselves in a sobering moment in history, which calls us to take a stand with God’s covenants in the earth. It is our responsibility to do kingdom business until He comes (Luke 19:13).
More than 10 years ago, Robert Stearns asked me to join him in encouraging Christians to pray every year on the same day for the peace of Jerusalem. It is a daunting task to stir the global church to unity in prayer, but the millions of believers who now do just that the first Sunday of every October are proof that God’s grace is on this important issue.
The most essential things I could hope to pass on to the next generation of church leadership are these several reasons for standing with Israel:
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You can’t stand on the sidelines of the culture war
There are times in life when you can choose your own battles and times when your battles choose you. In 2007, my church was targeted by the homosexual community. A decision was made by our church leaders not to compromise our faith by allowing a memorial service, which would have emphasized and celebrated homosexuality, to be held in our sanctuary.
We did, however, reach out to the family with many acts of love, including paying for another venue to host the memorial service. In response, gay activists unleashed a barrage of attacks through email, blog sites and the media—intending to shame us into silence. I soon came to learn the importance of pastors and churches standing together in a bold front for righteousness and biblical morality in our communities.
One of the most effective strategies used to silence and defeat those who would stand for morality is isolation—making them feel as though they stand alone and public opinion is against them. I was amazed at how quickly the homosexual community was able to organize and mobilize its attack.
This strategy would not have been as effective if the body of Christ would have quickly shown its support and taken a stand with us for biblical morality. The silence of the church spoke volumes. The church should learn from those who oppose us. It’s time we get organized and be ready to mobilize when our values come under attack.
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How to transition from attracting followers to reproducing leaders
Have you paused to consider that you’re pastoring the first generation in history that doesn’t need leaders to get information? When you see your folks on Sunday, many have been online, finding all kinds of other pastors, authors and zealots and obtaining all sorts of information. Even though people no longer need us for information, they do need us for interpretation as we help them navigate the barrage of information they consume each week.
My concern is that we, the leaders of the church, have either misunderstood the biblical idea of leadership or we’ve dismissed it as “secular” or “fleshly.” We’ve read the Bible with a “follow-ship” bias and missed the call from God across the Old and New Testaments to lead.
Look again at the book of Genesis, where we read familiar words: “Then God said, ‘Let us make man in our image.” Just what does that mean? We receive a clue to a part of its meaning in the next phrase: “and let them rule” (Gen. 1:26, NIV).
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