Have we missed it?

[Cookin-with-Stoneking]

Occasionally I read other blogs, newsletters and the like, I came across this convicting letter from a missionary to Europe.

Very convicting and sad, is this what our legacy (the church in the West) will be?

Without further delay, here goes.

This past March, after a two year absence, I was back in Ukraine but outside the box of the big ministry. We spent some time with a group of young people running “The Shelter” (www.shelter-plus.org). They fill an old school building with a theatre, computer lab, cafe, recording studio, band practice room, ping pong tables, art studio and bible studies. Several hundred kids go through there in a month with about a hundred regulars and a core of committed that really run the place.

I heard that evangelism had become difficult in that city and asked them about all the young people I saw standing around everywhere. They said, “Most had been through the churches” and that it was now almost impossible to talk to them about Jesus.

Then the first part of April I was in Armenia and again saw scores and scores of young people standing around on the streets at all hours of the day and night. Again I questioned how these “standing idle in the market place” could be hired by the Master. Again I was told that it was difficult since most of them had “been through the churches”.

And speaking of that city in Armenia…. In the center is an area of several blocks which was devastated by the earth quake of 1988 and never rebuilt. In that area people have built shacks out of rubble, scavenged wood and cardboard. Sometimes the rats chew on the little kids while they sleep. Nearby is a brand new Armenian Apostolic Church which cost US$2.8 million to build. Also nearby is a brand new Armenia Evangelical Church which cost US$4 million to build. Across the street from the rubble houses is a large Pentecostal church under construction. It is impressive with huge pillars and a carved stone facade. The price tag? Not known but church members who work on the project are paid $20 per month. Why would they work for that? Total desperation.

I talked to a family from that church. They are committed, long term members. They walk to nearby villages to share Jesus. They have a weekly children’s program in their apartment. The father is trying to feed his wife, his five children, his mother, his brother, his brother’s wife and their baby. They all live in the one apartment. They asked me for money for food.

“Why me?”, I asked them. “What responsibility does your church take for you?” The answer? The church was trying to help families worse off where the rats were eating their kids but could not do so much due to the building program!

What a contrast! Millions have been spent and continue to be spent so hymn books and candles could sleep warm and dry while kids sleep cold and rough. Leaders drive nice cars while “brothers” work on their buildings and houses for food, for a little or for nothing. When will we really face the words of Jesus in Matthew 25:40?

Some of those brought up under communism accept leaders who build personal empires as normal but many, especially the youth, do not. They see the Christian leadership in the same light as the political/mafia elite who use their positions as a means of personal enrichment and power.

Maybe the issues of affluence and greed are not so stark in the western world.
Maybe we need to see what our affluence and greed looks like when lived out in the second and third worlds.
Maybe we do not see the young men standing idle in the market place.
Maybe we do not want to see them.
Maybe we do not want to look around outside the box.
Maybe it is too disturbing.
Maybe, like me, you will have too many sleepless nights.
Maybe you had better stay busy rearranging the furniture inside the box.
Maybe people will start to come to your box.
Maybe Jesus did not command us to go.

We have a gospel of church. “Come to church!” “Support the church!” “Support the leadership!” “Build the house!” “God’s house has to have the best!” “Build an alter of worship!” What happened to “God does not dwell in temples made with hands”? What happened to the gospel of the Kingdom? What happened to the gospel which is good news to the poor?