So dark spiritually is Europe

On holy ground, a hollow sound

This article by the a traditional media source, the Chicago Tribune, has some very thought provoking quotes. Here are my top quotes:

• “But the churches are mostly empty, and the only wonder to most Czechs is why anyone at all bothers to go.”
• “According to a European Union survey published last year, only 19 percent of Czechs said they believed in God; most of the rest proclaim themselves atheists.”
• In referring to churches: “I love to visit them,” he said. “But I see them as historical objects, not as religious places.”
• Mark Lilla, a professor of social thought at the University of Chicago, has described present-day Europe as “the closest thing to a godless civilization the world has ever known.”
• “When we bring up the subject [of faith], it’s like asking if you believe in UFOs. That’s what we’re up against here,” Gregory said. “In the States, you can assume most kids know why Christmas is celebrated. In the Czech Republic kids think baby Jesus is like Cinderella or Shrek. … They think it’s all a fairy tale.” [Lori Gregory was a Christian missionary with Young Life in the Czech Republic]
• Church missed a chance [referring to the time immediately after the fall of communism]
• Dusan Trestik, a historian at the Center for Medieval Studies in Prague, agreed.

  “I think you have to say the church failed in the needs of modernization,” he said. “The church was offering traditional Christianity for grannies.”

• “They are looking for something, for guidance, and in the pure sense, it’s religious,” [referring to Czechs who say they are aethists]
• “I go to church infrequently. It’s boring. It gives me nothing,”
• “Yes, it’s a failure of the churches. But this is something that is characteristic for the whole of Europe,”

This is why Europe is the mission field we are called to. Pray that our final 30% of monthly support will come in so that we can make the move to make a difference in the lives of Europeans. Thank you.

How “green” are you?

I saw this website called www.myfootprint.org where you can take a quiz to see what kind of ecological impact your living style has on the Earth. In my current living state, I require about 19 acres to live. Which means that if everyone was like me, we would need 4.3 planet Earths for everyone to survive.

The idea of taking care of our planet is a high value for those in the area of Germany that we are moving to so I have to make a choice:

• 1) I could just be the “ignorant” American and go on with my life as normal (which would probably make many of the people around us angry)
• 2) I could be offended that they would expect me to do things the way they do them and try to make everyone else conform to my way of doing things. (boy, if you thought option 1 would upset my neighbors…)
• or 3) I could learn how the Germans do things and change the way I do things to integrate with their society

There’s a fine line that missionaries walk when integrating with a culture. As missionaries we are called to show God’s love and teach those we come in contact with about how Jesus Christ is the only way to have a close, intimate relationship with God.

Missionaries are welcomed when they fulfill that calling. They are shunned (or worse) when they come not only sharing about Jesus Christ but also pushing their personal/cultural values on top of the Gospel. The New Testament is filled with different situations where Paul had to struggle with those who were the “circumcision group” where they added to the gospel the Jewish cultural value of circumcision to the Gentiles.

Please pray with us and other missionaries that we speak only the Gospel to the world and do not add to it our cultural values.

Dare You to Move

After seven years of bouncing between a bowling alley, then a skating rink, then a YMCA, our church, Lake Forest Church, has finally moved into its own building. This is a very exciting time for all of us. The drive to build the church building came when Krista and I were deciding whether or not eDOT was the place God was calling us to. Ironically, the drive was called “Dare you to move”. We joke all the time that they dared us and now we are moving. I also joke anytime that someone says something like “Doesn’t it upset you when such and such happens?” to which I reply, “Yeah, I think I’ll just leave the country!”

But isn’t that the state of the church both in Europe and the US? People get upset with something in the church and say “Fine, I’ll just leave”. Here in the Bible Belt (i.e. Southern US), people seem to just jump to the next church down the road. In other places, they just leave the church completely. In Europe, churches are struggling – places that once held people for worship are now dance clubs, apartments or tourist traps. Europeans don’t see Jesus’ love in the church and so they don’t see a need for church and therefore no need for God.

So now I ask those that are a part of any church – Do you Dare to Move? I am not asking you to literally move (like Krista and I), but are you willing to move with the Holy Spirit and show people the love of Christ? People will still leave the church (just as people walked away from Jesus) but are we really doing all that we can to show people God’s love. If not, think about the different ways we could!! What about feeding the hungry, listening to a teenager who just needs to be heard, visiting an elderly person who can’t get out to see anyone or just smiling warmly at someone as you pass by them. How are you called to share God’s love?

Language: Crosses the Georgraphy

Recently, we received an email from the director of the Kremenchuk Bible College in Ukraine. They just started their first distance learning course last month. Here is what he said:

“I want to share about our first blessings of this program. In the beginning of February our Ukrainian group of students got involved in the studies. We didn’t make a large commerce. It was an experiment, therefore there are 7 people in the group. Those are very committed and active people. At the end of February I went to Germany to Berlin. There I made presentation of the program for Russian speaking people. In Germany 15 people joined the program!. It’s indeed the only chance for them to receive education in Russian without leaving Germany. We have received some applications from Greece too. God is expanding the ministry and we are very grateful to Him and to you for that.”

Language and technology cross geographic boundaries all the time in Europe so when a school in the Ukraine offeres courses in Russian, those all the way in the UK, Portugal, Italy and other places whose primary language is Russian, can take the courses they so desire.

eDOT works in numerous languages and is looking at going into more languages such as Arabic and Farsi which are being used more and more in Europe. There are so many in Europe who want to receive Biblical education but don’t have the means to until now.

Please pray that:

• We are able to continue to raise our funds so that we can get moved to Germany and join in on the excitement of the ministry as it is building up in Europe
• For our team mates as they work on getting several more courses ready to be released to the different Bible Colleges and Seminaries that we partner with in Europe
• For others, like us, who are still raising their support to join eDOT full time. There are many of us which is good because there is still so much work to be done.

God bless!!!

Where do values come from?

From yahoo.com –> Western & Islam religions clash

This article is about a man, Abdur Rahman, who lives in Afghanistan and converted from Islam to Christianity. He is now on trial for apostasy (converting from Islam) and if convicted, will be facing the death penalty. Westerners are up in arms because of this while Muslims defend that it is a part of their faith and culture.

Personally, I am conflicted. How are we to go into a country, remove its government in which we view these laws to derive from, and say that the laws of Islam are no longer to be followed or be literally interpreted? Islam has been in this country for hundreds of years and their culture is based on it. In America, our culture and country were based on freedoms (including religion) but that is not so for Afghanistan.

Being a Christian, I am at a loss about the persecution of this man. James 1:2-3 (NIV) says “Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance.” Shouldn’t we be joyous that Abdur is facing this? I look to him and say that he must truly know God through Jesus Christ if he is not willing to give up Christ and return to Islam to avoid these proceedings. My instincts say that we must remove him from this peril but my faith says that we should stand with him in whatever fashion we can so that through it, God may be glorified.

Many of the European media have been commenting on the situation. Their cry is against the possibility of the death penalty or being institutionalized in a psychiatric hospital not against the freedom of religion. Europe itself does not see hold a high value on the freedom of religion but believes religion should be downplayed into a corner of one’s personal life but not involve one’s entire being.

Now I am not one for “religion”; the ceremonial acting out of different acts to “appease” God, but I am for knowing God in an intimate way which I have found to be through Jesus Christ which does involve one’s entire being.

So for you out there that call yourselves followers of Christ I ask: If you were Abdur, would it be a joy to be in this situation or would you reject Christ for the sake of temporal safety.

For those of you that are not followers of Christ I ask: Where do your values come from? How can you look at a culture that is different than your own and say it is “barbaric” without being hypocritical or superior?

Thinking Globally

From Yahoo.com –> Evangelicals urge action on global warming

Well, “Evangelicals” are finally speaking out against global warming. According to the article, a number of “evangelicals” have endorsed legislation that does something about global warming (I am using quotations around “evangelicals” as I am not quite sure what the media’s definition is for that term but I digress). I was taken back by this quote:

The Christian leaders said they were impelled by their faith to launch the campaign out of a growing realization that the threat of global warming was real and that the world’s poor would suffer the most.

Now when are we going to look at our influence on the world? I mean the fact that only 5% of the world’s population (that would be the USA) creates 25% of the emissions that cause global warming. That’s very negative. Being a negative impact is easy. Being a positive impact is the hard part. Are we willing to be a positive impactor on this world?

Not just a group of people that impacts the world positively by helping the poor, the underprivileged, the abused with their circumstances but are we also ready to impact the world so that they understand the true meaning of Christ!?! I am not talking about being geared towards the family values but really the true understanding that we can be in a deep relationship with God our Creator through a relationship with Jesus Christ.

It seems that the American church is split. One side says that it’s all about a personal relationship with Jesus Christ and that we just need to spread that news. The other side says that we need to right the wrongs in this world and help people in their circumstances. That we need to helps those who are in need. The reality is that we need to do both!!! We need to be helping people throughout the world with their circumstances in the name of Jesus Christ so that they can come to a personal relationship with Him. Now when is this nation which is so easily able to impact the world going to mix these two ideas to reach the world for God!!

Let me know what you think by leaving a comment.

Quite your whining or be fired!!

From the BBC.co.uk–> German firm bans office whingers

Could you imagine that if you were caught whining in your office or through email, that you could lose your job?

This is really cool in that they say that the negative energy created from whining impacts a person’s ability to work. Employees have said that it has made them happier in more of their life than just work. However for some employees, this policy meant that they lost their jobs or were reprimanded by their superiors.

The creator of this policy was the chief executive in the company. So this attitude that is moving throughout the company is coming from the top. It first starts with the leadership. Isn’t this so true of just about everything including the church? What happens when a pastor is discouraged or worn out? Doesn’t the rest of the congreation generally fall into the same patterns?

Greater Europe Mission works with the European church leaders to help them have what they need so that they can be the positive influences on European society. In eDOT, we work to make sure that pastors and church leaders have the educational opportunities especially if they are not able to get to a residential school.

Going back to the impact of the CEO of a company on producing positive thoughts throughout their work place, I wonder what would happen to that company if it not only had positive thoughts, but that the thoughts conveyed from the CEO were that of Jesus Christ. To learn more about how that works, check out another ministry of Greater Europe Mission: Life Quality International which works to help Christians throughout Europe live a life that follows Christ in everything including what they do at the workplace. Talk about being radical!!