We now look at strategy. An important piece in choosing a strategy is our view of eschatology (end times teaching) and our role in it. It is important to understand what scripture actually says. As a child I was raised with what I refer to as The Great Escape eschatology. Things would get worse and worse in society, Jesus would come and rescue the church from trouble via the rapture, and He would then punish the sinful people left on earth. It is still a popular view and comforting for believers, I simply can’t find it in scripture
A brief interlude here, a very short version of my testimony. I stopped attending church when I was 14 and rarely darkened a church door for the next few years. At 25, after going through cancer and a shift in my worldview at 23, I made a commit to follow Jesus. This is when I believe I was genuinely converted. Prior to turning to Jesus at 25 I read the entire bible over a six-week period during cancer treatments and continued to read it after. When I started attending church services, I saw a lot of things I was unable to reconcile with what I had read in scripture. A bit like a fellow I knew. He was converted during the Jesus Movement many decades ago by reading the bible alone. A friend then took him to a church service. He said partway through the service he turned to his friend, pointed at the platform and said, “I don’t know what this is, but this isn’t that.” He was now pointing at his bible.
Here is an example from my experience. A couple of years into my walk with Jesus we moved and at the little church in the country there was an invitation to a men’s meeting so I went. There was a discussion around a key decision that needed to be made and they were going to vote on it. I was shocked and asked why we would do that and suggested that the proper course of action would be to pray and ask the Lord what to do. Now they were shocked!
My point is simply that we often do things or hold to a theology based on tradition and habit without really weighing our traditions and theology in light of scripture. My end times view is that Jesus was clear, the gospel of the kingdom would be preached to all ethnos – nations, ethnicities or people groups and then the end would come (Matthew 24:14).
This means that contrary to much popular theology Jesus return is not imminent as this has not yet taken place, that is a bit of an aside though. The gospel going to all people groups means the church needs to be established and effective, which brings us to a key distinction. In the past year I read something by Dutch Sheets where he differentiated between the Mark 16 and Matthew 28 commissions. He presented Mark 16 as being about revival and Matthew 28 about cultural reformation or transformation.
When we look back in history at the two Great Awakenings, they reshaped society because they lived out both Mark 16 and Matthew 28. Here in North America, we had the charismatic movement in the latter part of the twentieth century which produced great experiences and numerous converts but we forgot about the culture. In the meantime, those with another agenda were discipling our political institutions, our courts systems and our education system. The results have not been good for the church or the culture at large.
Which brings us to our strategy portion. We need to pray for transformation and labourers. We need to be come involved in our culture seeking to bring about change and transformation. We need to seek His wisdom as to our role. When we disengage, we see our children and institutions discipled by those who do not have their best interests at heart. As Jesus body, the church, He has called us to engage with and shift our culture in the visible realm and to shift the atmosphere in the heavens wherever we are so that captives are set free and the spiritual climate reflects righteousness.
I am not suggesting we will become a Christian nation, I am suggesting that as Christians we can have a significant impact in and on our nation. If we look at places like Iran or China the church is growing rapidly while the nations are, for the moment anyway, remaining on their present anti Christian path. Yet, the church is still growing and shifting the culture. There are more Christians in communist China than people in Canada. Estimates vary a great deal but range from 48 to 100 million Christians in China. There are around 40 million people in Canada.
In conclusion, our job isn’t to hang on, it is to reach out. To live as Christians in a culture that has shifted from indifference to our faith in some cases, to outright hostility toward our faith in other cases. In this environment Jesus said we are to be both salt and light. Salt is a preservative and light helps us to see.
13 “You are the salt of the earth; but if the salt loses its flavor, how shall it be seasoned? It is then good for nothing but to be thrown out and trampled underfoot by men. 14 “You are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden. 15 Nor do they light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a lampstand, and it gives light to all who are in the house. 16 Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven.” Matthew 5:13–16 (NKJV)
How are we doing?
