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Observations from Travels
Across Europe October
2006 Over
the past several years my wife and I have made numerous ministry trips
to Europe, the most recent of which ended this week and took me to five
nations including the former communist countries or Hungary and Romania.
On earlier visits we ministered to believers in England , Wales ,
Ireland , Northern Ireland , Poland , Macedonia , Albania , Italy and
Turkey . I mention these
places not to brag or to criticize any particular location but to offer
a few observations that stem from some disturbing patterns that have
emerged from my exposure to a variety of cultures and people groups. In
all of these countries religion has played a dominant role.
In each of them the primary ecclesiastical influences have not
been evangelical Christian but Catholic, Orthodox or Islam.
Their histories of conquests and defeats, of civilization and
atrocity all reflect attitudes driven by religious belief. These beliefs
have defined these peoples and even now their churches, even the modern
evangelical and so-called “spirit filled” churches and theirconcepts
of God are deeply rooted in their cultural traditions.
Budapest
Last
week I posted a report on the Northwest Renewal News of our findings in
Romania and Hungary and indicated my distress at the very dominant
practice of legalism in the local Christian Churches including the
Evangelical and Pentecostal works and even Charismatic fellowships with
American connections. Some
local believers expressed their sadness over a Christian culture that
lacked a sense of joy or celebration and instead stressed a religion of
control and fear. It
seems that as a defining force in culture religion helps to discriminate
between those who are one of us and those who are not.
The clearer those defining traits are the easier to segregate the
right from the wrong and being right allows for social cohesion and
community. So
spiritual leaders are seen as social reformers.
The role of pastors, priests, rabbis, monks, druids, elders,
imams and medicine men have historically included promoting a conformity
with their societies. In
western Europe, Christianity’s apex meant the church controlled the
state and those who veered from the obligations of the spiritual
suffered very secular consequences.
But
Jesus wasn’t a political activist or a social reformer.
He made it possible that man could know a power beyond anything
this world offered. He said
that those whose lives He changed would be gripped by a force that was
not of this world. The
transformed would not fit into this world and would live lives directed
by no human cultures, social pressures or religious beliefs.
They would hear a Voice inaudible to this world and they would be
captivated by a reality invisible to this world.
They would not fit even in their own society and would inevitably
suffer estrangement for their spiritual distinctiveness.
They weren’t simply characteristic of one human culture versus
another but were reflective of qualities unknown in any social group.
They weren’t proponents of any political system or cultural
tradition or religious body because they were impassioned by truths that
conflicted with all of them. As
I travel to the nations, I regularly encounter genuine Christians who
grieve their spiritual aloneness. They
are often surrounded by Christian churches but they can’t find anyone
that understands their hunger for true relationship with God.
The prevailing religious leaders of their communities teach
compliance and performance and the best efforts of the seeker to satisfy
the demands of God as He is described fail to produce the transcendent
fulfillment for which they desperately long.
Instead this failure provokes guilt and condemnation.
Many of these societies abandon faith for a pursuit of the
material and reject the message of the church which then tends to even
more strident attacks from the church. It
is tempting to focus on the practices of the unenlightened countries
when criticizing religion but in America we are just as guilty.
Our evangelical leadership too often represents a worldview of
religious and political conservatism.
Organized church serves largely to sustain a structure of control
and a tradition that lets us know who is right and who isn’t. Christians
in the former communist block aren’t all that different from those of
us here in the good ol’ US of A. Their
faith is largely traditional and ceremonial.
Their clergy dictate approved behavior.
They have little knowledge of the Holy Scriptures.
They conform to the church calendar with elaborate traditions
around religious holidays. The
obligations from the church stress external holiness, giving and
attendance at meetings. They
turn out en masse for major church sponsored events but have little life
change to show for it months later.
Community life is overwhelmingly about money and security and
entertainment, while crime and corruption increases, and calls for true
spiritual living are almost wholly neglected. They know almost nothing
about real joy in Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit.
The
difference between Christianity in America and Christianity in Eastern
Europe is largely a matter of degree.
Believers in Europe weep when they hear what resources are
available to US Christians. They
imagine that we are a nation in continual rejoicing what with our
Christian media, mega churches, guaranteed freedom of belief and our
global influence. They have
no idea that in America with its Christian churches on every corner,
books and worship music available to anyone who wants them, its highly
marketed revivals, conferences and miracle meetings, million man marches
for God, men’s and women’s ministries, Jesus festivals, state of the
art technologies in church, internationally famous speakers, huge
ministry organizations, a dozen (largely unread) Bibles in nearly every
home, and celebrity endorsements from the worlds of sports,
entertainment and politics, per capita church growth nationally has been
stalled at zero for most of the past three decades.
Clearly
the church of Jesus in other nations needs all the prayer, love and help
we can give them. These
nations have believers who are on fire for God and who petition the Lord
for a great move in their land but they represent an occasional flame on
a spiritual landscape that is otherwise frequently cold and desolate and
they ache for more of God and more of God’s people.
You and I have brothers and sisters in Christ who agonize over
their desire to know God better. When
we do respond to the cries for help from the saints in other countries
we give what we have: religion and money and tradition.
Despite your email in-box being filled with fraudulent
solicitations for funds from West Africa or India the Christians I meet
aren’t asking for dollars. They
are asking for understanding of the truths of Jesus and true Christian
fellowship. One brother
explained that they didn’t need an American mega church crusade for
two weeks as much as they needed one person to stay with them for a year
to teach them how to pray and reach their neighbors.
After attending her Pentecostal church of 1700 one sister cried
with despair for her people that none of the church leaders ever taught
her about the grace of God. An
exhausted minister said that the big local evangelical churches were
known for squabbling over members while the homeless went hungry and
ignored. Each
of these incidents is an example of a foreign church with ties to US
influences. We promote
celebrity dog and pony shows instead of the power of God to carry us
through suffering. We teach
a church structure that prioritizes control and disregards humility and
forgiveness. We fight over
territory rather than becoming servants.
Like I said, we give what we have. I
now have great Christian friends in other countries that need help to
bring the message and power of Christ to their nations.
And I believe that we have a divine call to give that help.
But we have to be careful to give them what they really need and
not impose our uniquely American attitudes about religion.
It will be hard for many of us to get past our own traditions and
institutional practices and biased thinking about the necessary ways to
do church maybe because we haven’t really gotten past those problems
in our own lives. Maybe
we haven’t been as effective at bringing the good news to the nations
because we haven’t discovered its liberating power for ourselves.
Maybe our instinct for personal comfort, our confidence in church
hierarchy, our belief in religion as a cultural guardian, and our
traditional American trust in the corporate structure makes it
impossible to tell them about Jesus without wanting to make them
American first. What
the world needs is Jesus and Christians whose hearts and heads are given
over to the things of Jesus. I
don’t see much of that overseas but I don’t see nearly enough of
that here either. The Lord
said that where our treasure is there will our hearts be also.
He calls us to be radical in our service for Him.
He empowers us to do great exploits and to take the gospel to all
the world. He lays claim to
our lives and makes it clear that we aren’t in this for our
convenience but to spend our lives for Him and His.
This
is what the world wants to see—people who are crazy for Jesus and who
live their lives to please Him without thought for personal glory.
I confess that when someone in another country asks why they have
contemporary churches doing culturally compatible things instead of
seeing militant advocates for Jesus turning their world upside down with
a supernatural power and sacrificial love I find it hard to give an
answer. And harder still to
find an example of what they want. I
believe that the American church needs to repent.
We need less of us and more of Him.
How do we get more of Him? Where
do we find Him? How do we
live so that He is present and magnified in us?
He is found in a heart that is intimately devoted to Him.
He shows up in acts that are calculated to please Him.
He blesses lives that honor and cherish the things He honors and
cherish. True
faith is not about tradition and ritual or works and conformity.
It is about having an encounter with the Eternal and being
transformed so fully that we become a different person with the DNA of
our Father God. It is about
rising above the limits of humanity and displaying the qualities of
heaven and walking out our days in joyous anticipation of a destiny with
Him. True
faith has never been about coming up with a religious system that people
think is a good idea with a theology and a set of values that will make
the world a better place. That’s
what we too often export to the world.
But its way past time for us to start showing the world the
changed lives that give evidence to the promise that they too can find a
Savior who will bring them victory in their lives. You
don’t need religion to meet that Savior.
You don’t need clergy or cathedrals or orthodox doctrine or
good behavior or even correct wording.
He is only interested in your heart’s desire to have Jesus come
into your life. If that is
what you want, then just pray to Him now.
Praying is just talking to Him in any language or vocabulary that
fits you. Right now, where
you are, in the privacy of this instant talk to God and tell Him what
you want. If you mean it He
will know and He will begin to change you and your life and He will be
your constant Friend and Helper from this minute on.
He loves you and He wants to bless you.
If
you prayed and believe that something happened in you please write and
tell me so. I would be
privileged to pray with you and communicate with you in these early days
of your adventure with Christ. May God bless you. Mark
Pelletier Hi-Venture Ministries
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