Changing Perspectives
Stop and wonder: When you think of Christianity in the United States of America, do you believe Christianity is declining or inclining? What do you think the average Christian looks like?
Listen: Acts 2:46-47 (emphasis mine)
46 Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, 47 praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.
Reflect: I’m competitive. It’s hard to be competitive and not be good at sports so you can imagine my little league baseball career was very disappointing. As someone who is competitive, I like to see the Christian church in the United States doing well. However, we are in a period of decline by measure of worship attendance and the number of people who identify as “Christian.” And yet we are part of a global church—connected to our partners in Tanzania and Guatemala by the power of the Holy Spirit. The church is not just in the United States!
In fact, in 2014 the “average” Christian was likely to be a 24-year-old female living in Latin America. the largest population of Lutherans live in Sweden, Ethiopia, and Tanzania. There are currently an estimated 7.9 MILLION Lutherans in Tanzania (ten years ago it was 6.4 million), a church body that is growing at a record pace. Our partners in Nyanzwa have added two new preaching points in the past two years. Once they had a church building, the Mpilipili preaching point grew from 30 people to 300 people in one year.
Is the church declining? Or are we just looking in the wrong places? What if we changed our perspective? Instead of asking “what are we doing wrong,” what if we asked, “what is God up to” and “what are our partners doing right?!?” They go door to door to tell people about their church and their faith. They invite new people to enjoy food together. Once their church building is at capacity at a preaching point, they send a handful of faithful members with a newly trained evangelist to go further down the road and start a new preaching point. Radical hospitality. Radical welcome. Faithful sharing of the Good News of God’s love shown to us in Jesus Christ.
God’s church is growing at record pace in places we would historically least expect. God is up to something. It’s time we paid attention.
Pray: Gracious God, help us to change our perspective. Instead of seeing decline, help us to see where you are growing your church. Instead of challenges, help us to use the gifts you have given us to tell others about Jesus. Amen.
Carry On: Pray for our partner parishes:
· The Lutheran Church in Nyanzwa (Nee-on-zwa) Tanzania
· San Marcos in Maya Itza, Guatemala
· Divino Salvador del Mundo in Guatemala City, Guatemala
Know that they are praying for you and Easter Lutheran Church, too!