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11/05/2012

My Thoughts

I've heard it said since I was a kid, 'The American Church has become complacent' but I haven't understood the impact until recently.

I attended a PAAR's training class to keep my foster parenting certification current and discovered that 60% - 70% of all the inmates of Ohio prisons have been through the foster care system. To me that sounded the alarm that is waking me up out of my complacency and into the mode that there is a hole in this cruise ship I've been living on. Although others around me can seemingly ignore the danger and continue to live their lives like this ship will never sink, I am starting to get the urgency to pray for the church to rise up and take back her God given privilege to care for the orphan and the widow. Or this ship will soon be so inundated with water it will sink.

A large part of the American churches complacency started with the governments takeover of the welfare system. I am not against helping others when they are in need but the government has no effective way of changing a life. The recidivism rate of inmates is ridiculously high, like 90%. It is only God that can change a life, which even statistics prove. (The recidivism rate for inmates that attend a Bible study is half and for those who take a stand to follow after Christ it drops much lower.) So, if the government continues in this roll of welfare, I expect we will only see those receiving welfare will grow and grow and grow.

So how does the church start to respond to the alarm.
1. Get into Foster Care. Not just any family can handle these children in great need. They need praying families that love Jesus and will allow the little ones to come unto him (and into His church and church families.)
2. Adopt. How can a church be against abortion and yet be so anemic at accepting a child that needs a forever family.

I believe what has to happen though, is that our perspective needs to move away from the consumerism of a cruise ship to the idea that we need to do whatever it takes to follow after Christ, even if our hair gets messy, our hands get dirty (TV show revolutions), our houses look mussed up and littered ('Cheaper by the Dozen' Steve Martin movie) and at times we are frazzled. The deck of the Titanic was a place of urgency and not a time to be concerned about appearances.

Oh God don't the church continue in it's passive, spectator behavior of their involvement in your world. Make them rise up and do it the right way and allow you to revive our land. People will look to you as their provider and savior in this life and the next instead of the current government. In Christ Name, Amen.

Love,
Dad