Originally posted July 30th, 2008
A friend of mine, Steve Hill, has a great post on his site discussing the effectiveness of evangelism campaigns and “revivals” (Todd Bentley et.al.), written from the point of view of somebody who has been on both sides of the story.
As Steve says, we need to “question everything”!
Read his post here.
Originally posted July 27th, 2008
Now this is strange…
We moved to Ukraine in the summer of 2005. The first few months were very difficult, as we were trying to fit in with a church over there that we just didn’t fit. There were too many things we just couldn’t accept, understand, or whatever.
Then, the change that started in us a couple of years before we moved to Ukraine (and was a large part of the reason we moved there), took another “leap forward”. We were trying to follow Jesus, and the more we tried to do that, the more we got frustrated with “the church”. I’m not talking about the “Church” as Jesus talked about, his people, but rather “the church”, the institution, as we have created it to be.
Interestingly, within a few months of being in Ukraine, we met a number of people, local Ukrainians, going through some of the same “thought struggles” as we were. Some had been hurt by the churches, some had been excommunicated, some were simply asking questions. We learned from each other, we challenged each other, and we changed each other – I believe for the better.
Now, we are back in Canada, and it is all different. Again. We are not the same people who left here. For better or for worse, we have changed. The people, “the church” here is the same. It’s a good church, we loved it when we started attending a few years ago, we loved it when we left for Ukraine, and we still love the people there…. but…
I see things differently now. What I used to think was “good evangelism” I see now as “missing the point”. Don’t think that would be too popular with some of the Christians in the church… I don’t simply want to fall back into our “typical Christian life”. That would be a waste.
I really miss the challenges, the discussions, the friendships, the ability to build something new and different, to try to help others together with like minded people like we were doing in Ukraine. How do I start finding these people who aren’t afraid to ask the tough questions, who aren’t afraid to “re-think” what it means to follow Jesus?
How do I do this?