Statues, History and the Confederate States of America

A screen-print of a photo taken at sunset on the Gettysburg National Battlefield hangs on the wall of my office.  It was a gift from the parent who took the photo while we were chaperoning a school class on a three-day field trip.  The sunset was absolutely gorgeous, the gray clouds and blue sky above and the green fields and trees below made a perfect portrait.  Only the cannons to the right, on the ridge that slopes gently upward on the right side of the picture give a hint that it was taken on a former battlefield.  

But that spot on the battlefield is the place where one of the most significant events in American history occurred, a place perhaps more important than Yorktown in that what occurred there led to the preservation of American ideals and freedom beyond what was achieved by the American Revolution.  The cluster of trees in the center of the photograph is known as the "copse of trees" marking the "high watermark of the Confederacy.  At that place, on July 3, 1863, the Confederate army under General Robert E. Lee made its furthest advance against the Union army lines on the battlefield that marks its furthest penetration into Union territory during the Civil War.  

The specific part of the battle in which this event occurred is known as Pickett's Charge.  In an attempt to end the battle and open a way for his army to advance towards Harrisburg, Lee ordered General Longstreet to charge the Union line on the top of Cemetery Ridge.  Lee hoped to force Lincoln to sue for peace and preserve the Confederacy's existence by threatening or capturing Harrisburg and breaking the Union line at Gettysburg was the key to that.  The Union's last stronghold on the battlefield was the line on Cemetery Ridge.  The cannon were lined up near the top of the ridge and the soldiers were lying behind the low rock wall about thirty yards in front of the ridge, just below the copse of trees.  

The Union line held.  At one point, a group of Confederate soldiers succeeded in getting past the wall in an attempt to reach the artillery line and spike or turn the cannons.  They reached the small cluster of trees (which was probably much thicker and larger in 1863 than the photo now shows) but that was as far as they got.  There is a small plaque at that point noting the location as the high watermark of the Confederacy, representing its furthest advance on the battlefield during the war.  From that point forward, Lee and his army was in retreat and the end of the unjust and oppressive institution of slavery in the United States was within sight.  

It is not possible to talk about the event being "history" and look at events on the battlefield without understanding why there was a Civil War in the first place.  My first tour of the Gettysburg battlefield was led by a retired middle school history teacher who, along with his expertise and knowledge of every movement of the battle, also believed that God's divine presence was there, guiding the decisions that were made and the events that occurred which led to the defeat of the Confederacy and the end of institutional slavery in America.  

In a speech now known as the "Cornerstone Address" given by a former Georgia congressman who became Vice President of the Confederate States of America, Alexander Stephens claimed that slavery was a "fundamental and just result of the inferiority of the Negro race."  It was this specific "truth", in Stephen's opinion, that cause the sharp contrast in ideology between the United States Constitution and the constitution of the Confederacy and which Stephens used to justify secession and ultimately the attack on the U.S. military at Ft. Sumter leading to war.  An exact quote from Stephen's speech makes this very clear.  "Our new government foundations are laid, its cornerstone rests upon the great truth that the Negro is not equal to the white man."  Stephens notes in his speech that belief in this "truth", not some vague diagreement over "states' rights", is what separates the Confederacy from the United States government.  

The Confederacy was defeated.  It was a rebellion against the United States, not just its government but by extension, its people.  Secession, along with the attack on Ft Sumter leading to war, was an act of treason, and the leaders of the Confederacy were duly charged after the war, though the sentences and penalties were very light and extremely forgiving.  That alone is more than enough reason to disqualify anyone involved in the leadership and support of the Confederate States of America from being memorialized and honored with statues, monuments, and having buildings, schools, and particularly military bases named after them.  Acknowledging history is one thing, honoring those who rebelled, attacked and fought against your own country is something else.  

It isn't possible to separate the Confederacy from slavery.  Slavery is, by any Biblical standard, the evil exploitation of human beings, a practice that devalues the sanctity of human life and demonstrates a love of money over love for others.  The Confederacy, via its constitution and in the words of its Vice President Alexander Stephens, decided to call evil good, and go to war against those who believed otherwise.  American perspectives on race weren't settled in the Northern states by any means, but they were solid enough not to give up on preserving the Union even when the military situation got bad.  That's why placing statues and monuments to Confederate leaders in public parks and government buildings and flying the Confederate flag is giving honor to the nation's enemies.  It's as plain and simple as that.  

How the Church Resolved the Problem of Racism...

...and still has the power to do the same thing today.

One of the most remarkable days in the early history of the Christian church is the Day of Pentecost.  Jews who had been scattered by various conquests and invasions but had remained faithful came to Jerusalem to celebrate.  The Holy Spirit came upon the members of the Christian church at that time in dramatic fashion, visibly appearing as flames of fire while breaking down the barrier of language among the Jews gathered from different parts of the known world, allowing those gathered to hear that the Messiah had come in the form of Jesus of Nazareth who had just been crucified and resurrected from the dead.  Peter preached, the message was heard and received, the Holy Spirit was present and three thousand souls were added to the kingdom.  The conversion of so many Jews from different places guaranteed that the gospel would be spread and churches would be planted among Jewish communities everywhere to which those who were saved in Jerusalem would return.

But as miraculous and barrier-crossing event as that was, even after Pentecost, the Christian church and its leaders still saw the gospel as only being for Jews.  The church had bridged the social and religious prejudices and barriers that existed within Jewish religious culture, but its leaders still could not fathom that the message of salvation in Christ was intended for gentiles.

The first indication that the developing church would break down, and inevitably ignore, ethnic and racial barriers is found in the account of Jesus and the disciples travelling through Samaria, where Jesus encounters the woman at the well and miraculously reveals himself as the messiah to her.  While Samaritans were not really of a completely different race, the differences that developed between them and the Jews taken into captivity in Babylon meant that they were separated by ethnic prejudice and hatred.

Following Pentecost, the first account of the conversion of a Gentile to Christian faith is slipped into the account of Phillip and the Ethiopian eunuch.  Prompted by the Holy Spirit, Phillip encounters an Ethiopian court official returning home from Jerusalem.  Apparently, he was a Jewish proselyte, not an unlikely situation at the time.  At the instigation of the Holy Spirit, Phillip does something a good, practicing Jew would never do.  At the invitation of the Ethiopian, Phillip gets into his chariot.  This would be a "double whammy" in Jewish culture since the man was a gentile and a eunuch, both conditions which would have made him "unclean" and caused Phillip to become unclean as well. But this racial barrier is broken in an instant.  Phillip shows the Ethiopian that Jesus is the Messiah about whom Isaiah speaks.  The Spirit opens his heart and mind to the gospel and he is baptized.  This is clearly a spiritual initiative because Phillip is "swept away" and the eunuch does not see him again following his baptism.  So this African man becomes the first gentile convert to Christ mentioned in the New Testament.

The narrative in the book of Acts moves to Peter's encounter with Cornelius, a Roman who also appears to be a proselyte to Judaism, or who at least has a working understanding of the Jewish covenant and scriptures.  A meeting that wouldn't have happened without the prompting of the Holy Spirit, who moves Peter through a vision in a dream, giving him the courage to set his Jewish convictions aside and visit Cornelius' home where a potential church was already gathered.  Peter explains that it is unlawful for him, as a Jew, to enter the home of a gentile.  The key words in the English narrative as translated in the NRSV are "but God."  

"But God has shown me that I should not call anyone profane or unclean."  And right there, in the words of one of the church's Apostles, is the whole foundational Christian teaching on the matter of race and ethnicity.  Cornelius had gathered all of his relatives and friends and they were sitting there, ready to listen and willing to respond, waiting to hear from Peter.  Pentecost happened again as the Holy Spirit appeared, giving each of those who were gathered the same miraculous gifts that confirmed his presence the first time Peter preached.  Grace was poured out, God answered the question and resolved the difficulty right then and there.  Peter would still struggle with this issue, and so would the church, which struggles with every issue that it attempts to resolve on its own and not by depending on the power of the Holy Spirit.

Of course, it caused a controversy.  Peter faced a critical inquiry when he went back to Jerusalem because the word had come back to the church leaders there that Peter had gone to Cornelius' house and that he had preached, fellowshipped, and eaten with the uncircumcised, and had baptized them. The scripture says that after he explained everything to them, "they were silenced."  (Acts 11:18).  And they praised God saying, 'Then God has given even to the gentiles the repentance that leads to life."  Was it really that easy?  Was an ingrained, cardinal doctrine based on centuries of religious bigotry and hatred overcome by a single encounter with the Holy Spirit based on the testimony of the experience by a single apostle?  But God....

But God...
The boundaries of centuries of religious and racial prejudice set in place by Jewish practice were swept away in these encounters with the Holy Spirit.  God had a purpose he intended to accomplish through Christ and that was the salvation of his human creation.  Think about the depth of religious bigotry that prevented people from associating with people of a different racial and religious background to the point where it was believed that to do so separated one from the presence of God and required a lengthy, obnoxious purification ritual to regain your previous status.  How would the gospel get shared across a gap like that?

But God's presence gave both Phillip and Peter confidence that they were following his will and boldness to take the necessary steps to do it.  Phillip climbed into the chariot with an Ethiopian who, by Jewish law was unclean first because he was a gentile and second because he was a eunuch.  Phillip's action not only won the man to Christ, but also opened the door for the gospel to be preached in Ethiopia.  Peter crossed the threshold of a house where a group of people had gathered for the purpose of becoming a church.  The Holy Spirit's response, witnessed by one of the church's apostles, open the door for the eventual evangelization of the whole world but the miraculous signs poured out on the gentile believers testified to the fact that they were God's chosen as well and that what had been symbolized by the torn veil in the Temple was a prophetic occurrence come to pass.

The Church Resolving Racism Today
The early church in Jerusalem clearly did not have a concept that included preaching the gospel to gentiles.  Even though it can be seen from this side of those events in the Old Testament scriptures, at the time they were blind to it.  Look at the dramatic transformations which were required to convince the leaders.  Phillip was physically moved from the spot where he baptized the Ethiopian to Azotus as confirmation of the Spirit's presence.  Peter witnessed a full repetition of the Pentecost experience at Cornelius' home following a supernatural revelation through a vision.  It took the same kind of spiritual encounter to lead Paul to a transforming encounter with Jesus.

In spite of the fact that the indwelling Holy Spirit gives Christians direct access to the "mind of Christ" and to the very wisdom of God (I Corinthians 1 and 2) it is also evident that the fallen nature of the world has had an impact on the church's effectiveness.  Having this spiritual power and wisdom is one thing.  Using it is quite another.  It is not there for us to conjure up at those moments when we seem to need it the most, but set it aside, counting on our own wisdom when we want to do something our own way.  Submission is a requirement when it comes to accessing the Spirit's power because using it is intended to accomplish God's will, not our own.

"But God..." Must be Experienced
The title of the conference was intriguing, the "Baptist Conference on the Holy Spirit," hosted by Dr. Dwight McKissic, pastor of the Cornerstone Baptist Church of Arlington, Texas on the church's campus.  The speakers and presenters included pastors from a variety of Baptist churches, some dually affiliated with National and Southern Baptist conventions, some independent, some predominantly African American, some predominantly white, with participants mainly from Texas but from a scattering of other states including Oklahoma, Arkansas, Alabama and Louisiana.  The title caught my attention, so I went.

Unlike most other church conferences I've attended, the purpose of this one was more on the experiential side and less on the informational side.  The lineup of speakers and worship experiences was intended to focus participants on the Spirit's presence, discerning the Spirit's will, submitting to the Spirit in order to be transformed through an encounter in worship.  I had never experienced anything like it.  The only way I can describe it is that the presence of the Holy Spirit is truly transformational.  I felt conviction, the release of forgiveness, a variety of other emotions, a sense of the presence of God and unity with the other believers who were present.  In the follow-up sessions on the second day, there was openness and fellowship with people I'd never met before.  God was present in the form of his indwelling Spirit.

There was unity.  The divisions between people that were present, from different local churches, different denominational backgrounds, different racial and ethnic backgrounds, were gone.  It dawned on me that, for the first time in my life that I could remember, I was submitted not only to the Holy Spirit, but to the preaching and spiritual guidance of men who were of a different race than me, and it didn't make a difference.  No one pointed that out, not that they had to, but it was something that I noticed.  It made permanent differences to me in many things, not just in the way I approach worship and submit to the Holy Spirit, but in the way I relate to Christian brothers and sisters of different racial, ethnic and denominational backgrounds.  Those are all things which the enemy has used to divide and attempt to conquer the church, quite successfully in most cases, at least among American Christians.

"Blessed are the Peacemakers, for they shall be called the sons of God" 
There can be no human agenda in this.  Anything less than complete reliance on the power of the Holy Spirit will fail.  The wounds run too deep.  There are those who don't want to see this issue get resolved, who prefer the status quo and who thrive on hostility.  It's not easy being a peacemaker, it comes with a price called sacrifice.  Look at what happened to Jesus.  We still live in a world where there are those who would rather burn a cross, or nail someone to it than to lift it up as a symbol of redemption.

But God...

Time to Be Silent and Let Somebody Else Speak: Shai Linne on George Floyd

There is very little I can say at this point that will contribute anything to the discussion prompted by the murder of George Floyd.  I think there are plenty of voices coming forward whose life experience has been so very different from mine when it comes to experiencing injustice because of their race.  I do not have anything to contribute to the discussion except that I will do whatever I can to stand against injustice and support the kind of change we need to make things better.

Shai Linne is a recording artist who has released numerous acclaimed Christian hip-hop albums, including his recent release for children, Jesus Kids. He is the author of God Made Me and You: Celebrating God’s Design for Ethnic Diversity and coauthor of It Was Good: Making Music to the Glory of God. After completing a pastoral internship at Capitol Hill Baptist Church in Washington, D.C., Linne cofounded Risen Christ Fellowship, an inner-city church in his hometown of Philadelphia. Linne, his wife, and three children live in Philadelphia. Learn more at www.shailinnemusic.com and follow him on Facebook and Twitter.

https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/george-floyd-and-me/

The Church and the Governing Authorities

During this current pandemic and the accompanying states of emergency, stay-at-home orders and measures taken by state governments in an attempt to stop its spread, at least to avoid overwhelming hospitals and trying to save lives, the political climate of the day has contributed to a conversation centered around whether or not a state government, specifically a governor, has the authority to include churches in executive orders which limit the size and scope of public gatherings.  The courts, and inevitably the Supreme Court, have been called on to interpret the constitutionality of their executive orders and the extent of their authority.

In a decision specific to a California congregation, the court majority ruled that churches are subject to a governor's emergency executive orders, specifically, orders which limit the size of a gathering during a pandemic.  You can read the media account of their ruling here.  The ruling would also have applied to two Chicago-area churches who had also filed a case with the Supreme Court but the governor changed his executive order when the state moved to a new phase of its re-opening plan.  There has been a lot of muttering, along with some outright civil disobedience, on the part of some churches over whether closing churches is a violation of the constitutional guarantee of religious freedom.  The correct course for churches to pursue in this regard was the pathway through the court system.  The incorrect course, according to the Bible, would be civil disobedience.

Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment.  For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Would you have no fear of the one who is in authority? Then do what is good, and you will receive his approval, for he is God's servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain. For he is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God's wrath on the wrongdoer. Therefore one must be in subjection, not only to avoid God's wrath but also for the sake of conscience. 6 For because of this you also pay taxes, for the authorities are ministers of God, attending to this very thing. Pay to all what is owed to them: taxes to whom taxes are owed, revenue to whom revenue is owed, respect to whom respect is owed, honor to whom honor is owed.  Romans 13:1-7, ESV

Be subject for the Lord's sake to every human institution, whether it be to the emperor as supreme, or to governors as sent by him to punish those who do evil and to praise those who do good. For this is the will of God, that by doing good you should put to silence the ignorance of foolish people. Live as people who are free, not using your freedom as a cover-up for evil, but living as servants of God. Honor everyone. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honor the emperor.  I Peter 3:13-17, ESV

These are the words of two of the most prominent Christian Apostles to the churches.  They have a meaning within the specific context that they were written and there is an interpretation that provides relevant instruction to the church today.  There are some additional scripture passages, among them Jesus' own words, “Therefore render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's", in Matthew 22:21.  Paul puts some clarification to the context behind these words in explaining how Christians in the Corinthian church should handle the issue of eating meat sacrificed to idols.  It was an issue that went to the very core of the church's testimony of faith in Christ.  A church that was seen as rebellious against the governing authority would be seen as just another faction, not as a church bringing a message of salvation by grace through faith in Jesus.

There are no places in the scripture where there is an "opt-out" or an exception to the principles given by the church's apostles in these two passages of scripture.  And while there are a few examples in the New Testament where Christians found themselves at odds with the civil government regarding the restriction of their activity, instead of resistance or civil disobedience, they followed the principles outlined in these scriptures, accepting the consequences that came as a result of their actions.

Paul was a Roman citizen and invoked the rights of his citizenship on multiple occasions to clear a pathway for the gospel ministry to move forward.  This included his eventual appeal to Caesar.  Had Paul been labeled as a troublemaker, rebel, or been involved in civil disobedience as a result of the wrongs done to him by the government authorities, he likely would not have survived.  As it was, his demeanor led to his being permitted to live in a house and continue his gospel ministry in Rome while waiting on his appeal.

The argument that Christians don't have to apply these verses to a "tyrannical" government, or one that doesn't reflect their values has no Biblical support.  In fact, it would not be very many years after these words were written that one of the emperors whom Peter says to honor would begin to distinguish the Christian church from Judaism, perceive that its growth and spread, visible within the city of Rome itself, was a threat to his authority and to his rule and would light the fires of persecution that would result in the deaths of literally thousands upon thousands of Christians and last for over 200 years.  If the church had responded by rebellion or civil disobedience, it would have been wiped out when its numbers were decimated.  But it was the steadfastness of their obedience to Christ, visible in their obedience to these specific passages of scripture, that amplified their testimony among their neighbors, convincing them that Jesus must have been real if he was worth obedience to the point of death.  By the beginning of the third century, evangelism had overwhelmed most of the empire, leading to the conversion of the emperor himself.

I've seen some attempts to justify bypassing the literal application of these passages from Old Testament examples.  But the context in the Old Testament doesn't apply here.  These passages were instructions given to the church in the first century, not to Israel in captivity so the example of both Daniel and that of Shadrack, Meshach and Abednego do not apply.  God allowed the captivity of Israel as punishment for disobedience to his law.  Through his prophets, he gave a direct word to Israel regarding his expectations for their obedience during their captivity and for those who were obedient.  And while the Old Testament makes a clear distinction between the theocratic government of Israel and the surrounding pagans, the Apostles established a church that would transcend the artificial divisions of humanity and be capable of spiritual transformation through the gospel of Jesus Christ in any culture or nation.

Peter makes this distinction very clear:

But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. I Peter 2:9, ESV

Those words are written to the church, made up of a variety of different nationalities, cultures, former religious backgrounds, races and even economic status.

Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free; but Christ is all, and in all. Colossians 3:11, ESV

There's no question that the early church faced far more opposition and found themselves at odds with the civil government of their day in far more serious and consequential ways than the American church faces in a democratic republic where its members have been a dominant force in the political system and a majority of the members of the elected government at every level are also professing members of Christ's church.  There is no comparison between the persecution that the early church faced at the hands of the Roman emperors and a disagreement with the political position of some members of the various levels of government entities in America.  What others have endured for the cause of Christ makes our grumbling and complaining pitifully petty.

Nothing about the American system of government in any way resembles the context of the times during which Peter and Paul wrote those words.  Executive orders and emergency restrictions issued by governors of various states (irregardless of partisan political affiliation, since such orders were issued across the board by Republican and Democratic governors and mayors alike and some of the more restrictive orders were issued by Republican governors) are not some kind of sign of an outbreak of persecution against Christians. 

In the broad, collective definition of the term "church" as it applies to the institutions which exist in the United States, Christianity is still the biggest single influence at virtually every level of government, from municipal to state to federal and there is no other place in the world where the Christian churches receive anywhere near as much government favor.  The churches and church-related institutions in this country just received billions in government assistance for their payrolls and expenses, including churches themselves, which used the funds to pay pastors, church employees and missionaries serving in the field. 

It would have set a better example, and been more in line with the mission and purpose of the church, if more Christians would have looked at the pandemic as an opportunity to step up and do more in the way of outreach and ministry, and less whining and complaining about infringement on rights that they still have and privileges which go beyond the scope of government "neutrality" toward religion and which still cross the line of church-state separation.



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The True Agent of Change

It's hard to express the way I feel right at this moment about the death of George Floyd.  There's no question that was an injustice, as much as any of the multiple numbers of similar events that have taken place in this country, both recently and throughout its history.  The fact that several other similar incidents have occurred in a short period of time, Armaud Arbery, Breona Taylor, along with the current restrictions related to coronavirus helped magnify the feelings. For all our claims of being a country founded on Christian principles, the racism and unequal treatment of people of color are one of our biggest moral failures.

The infant Christian church and its apostles confronted the racial, religious, cultural, social and economic divisions that were at the very root of the problems of humanity and built a church that bridged some of the deepest and widest chasms of human prejudice and bigotry that existed at the time.  In the descriptions left behind for us of those early Christian congregations, we see places where Jews came together for worship with Samaritans and Gentiles, where slaves worshiped in the same room as the wealthy because those who followed Christ set aside their old identity in favor of a new one which brought about a spiritual transformation that completely changed people.

The early church, as described in Colossians by the Apostle Paul, is the only institution--I'll use that word here for the purpose of clarity--in human history that has successfully brought people of different racial, ethnic, social, religious, cultural and language backgrounds together in a spirit of unity to accomplish the common purpose of testifying to salvation in Jesus and to glorify God.  While it is unfortunate that throughout its history, the church collectively hasn't maintained this posture of unity in diversity, there are plenty of individual local bodies that have succeeded at it.

In that renewal, there is no longer Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, and free but Christ is all and is in all.  Colossians 3:11, NRSV

The early church was unified because its members were completely submitted to the presence of God through the Holy Spirit and had been through a life-transforming experience when Jesus became their savior, and they were transformed.  Their purpose in life was changed.  But a unified church was a threat to that which had caused the lack of unity, the prejudice and bigotry on which many people thrived.  The church endured more than two hundred years of horrible persecution and death at the hands of the institutions that profited off bigotry and were threatened by the kind of unity the church displayed.  But for the most part, it succeeded in bonding together and outlasted the persecution it endured, eventually reaching most of its neighbors with the gospel of Christ and ended the persecution, not by rebellion or violence, but because their endurance through the most horrific persecution was a powerful testimony of their faith.

The circumstances in which I have been raised and under which I have lived my life do not permit me to understand the feelings and emotions that are experienced by people of different racial backgrounds and skin color than me.  I am grieved and I am very sorry when I see things like this happen, but I know that I don't experience them in the same way that those of a similar lifestyle and cultural background do.  I have no life experience that leads me to an understanding of what life has been like for those who have experienced the walls of bigotry that have been put in place by racism.  So I have to trust those who do.  I believe that the church has within its power the ability to take the lead and be the place where people really see change happen because God has moved through his people.  So my prayer is for God to make me into a peacemaker.

I can't relate to the reaction of those police officers, either.  Other than the boy scouts, I've never been in a uniform.  Police officers are among a small group of people among us who see our society and culture at its worst most of the time.  Though I have worked in a career field where you do not always see people from their best side, I can't relate to being in a place where most of what you see and experience is bad and in which much of your training involves strategies for dealing with all of that without causing a bigger problem.  I know enough police officers to know I haven't yet met one who is not as equally horrified as I am by what this Minneapolis police officer did and who would never do anything like that if they found themselves in a similar situation.  Nor should the thousands of peaceful protesters be indicted by the actions of destructive anarchists taking advantage of a situation. 

But here's the bottom line.  The church has the capability to bring about healing, unity, and lead people to a transformed life.  Humanity is not capable of resolving its own problems.  It requires the intervention of its creator God and his church is the only institution in our society capable of addressing the problems and bringing about a lasting solution.  The question is whether the church in America is now in any kind of position to bring about spiritual change. It can't accomplish its mission and purpose while it is overly involved in and aligned with secular politics which breaks down the level of trust and fosters dependence on worldly, not Godly power. 

We could experience a real revival of the church in this country if we trust in God's power to break down all of these barriers and unite people regardless of their differences.  Or we can watch the decline that we are now experiencing at an accelerating rate lead us into extinction. 

Let Us Consider Hebrews 10:24-25 During a Pandemic

https://www.baptiststandard.com/opinion/voices/let-us-consider-hebrews-10-24-25-during-a-pandemic/

An Ode to World Changers: My Heart is Breaking

As World Changers closes an amazing 30-year run, here are some memories of one project that helps remind us of what matters....

Last night on Facebook, just before I went to bed, I found a post from Lifeway Christian Publishers announcing that they were cancelling the summer's scheduled projects for World Changers.  Well, that's probably a given for many of the youth mission projects and camps this summer, the risk of spreading the Covid-19 virus is just too high.  Yeah, I know a lot of people hold different opinions about it, but we're going to top 60,000 dead from it this week, after only two months of its spread.  So the precaution is necessary.

But the announcement went on to say that the entire World Changers ministry, in operation for thirty years, was being shut down by Lifeway due to declining participation in recent years. That was when my heart broke.

In the early 90's, I want to say '92 or so, I saw a promotional video and some materials about World Changers.  I was serving as an associate pastor of a small church in Kentucky at the time and was looking for something more than a "banana splits and balloons" camp experience for a youth group that needed to develop a vision for service.  It would have been difficult for our church to put a mission trip together on our own and World Changers looked like an easy way to get involved in short term missions.  The only openings at the time were in a project in Clarksdale, Mississippi, not too far away and location really didn't matter to us, so we signed up and went.

It was one of those weeks where, if something could go wrong, it did.  The Mississippi Delta is a sweltering, mosquito infested place in mid-summer and it was in the middle of a heat wave.  We headed out with a dozen youth and three adults, spent a little time enjoying some fun in Memphis and then headed south.  Daytime temperatures were hitting the 105 degree mark.  We stayed at a junior college in dorms that were undergoing a renovation of sorts, so the rooms were a mess.  The first night, during the worship service, the AC went out.  It was a major breakdown and the parts that were needed weren't scheduled to arrive before the end of the week.  Did I mention the mosquitoes?  Everything is usually bigger in Texas, but Mississippi has cornered the market on the size and number of mosquitoes.  It rained hard the night before we went out to work and when we turned down the rural, dirt road where the house we were working on was located, the van slipped in the mud and slid off the road and into a ditch.  So we unloaded and walked and had to call a tow truck to get us out.  After that, we parked on the paved road and walked half a mile to the house.

Did I mention the mosquitoes?

The first day, the lumber yard didn't deliver the materials we needed to work on the house.  They couldn't get down the road.  So we did as much preparation as we could.  When we finally got things going, we discovered that the floor of the house wasn't level, so the siding we were putting on wouldn't square up right.  Turns out, that affects just about everything we're doing.  We discovered that the reason the floor wasn't level was because one of the joists holding it up was broken and lying on the ground right under the kitchen, explaining why the refrigerator leaned away from the wall and into the room.  So we cut the kitchen floor open and tried to lift the joist up so that we could repair it with a couple of 2x4's on each side of it.  The ground underneath was mostly Mississippi mud, so we had to get a jack to put under the joist to raise it up to fix it.  The jack sunk into the mud.  I guess it's probably still down there somewhere.  So we propped up the joist with cinder blocks and then build a lever out of boards that three of us could sit on long enough to get the 2x4's nailed onto the joist.  It took three on each side to get the job done.  That was a sign of what the rest of the week would look like.

Local churches were supposed to deliver lunches to the work site.  On Monday, ours didn't come.  We called the coordinator's number and he couldn't track it down, so he told us to find a local fast food joint and we'd get reimbursed.  Mind you, we were working in a small, rural community in Quitman County, Mississippi and the county seat, ten miles away, didn't even have a Dairy Queen.  This was before the internet, so I had to ask the homeowner if there was a hamburger or pizza take out place nearby.  She directed me to a place about a mile down the road called "The Chicken Hut."  It looked like one of those places you would pass up if you were just passing through, but it smelled wonderful inside.  The guy who was at the counter apologized for being out of fried catfish but said the owner was at the lake getting more and would be back tomorrow.  So I got a couple of buckets of their spicy batter fried chicken, a couple of large containers of fatback and collard greens, deep fried okra, cornbread muffins and a couple of jugs of sweet tea with a sugar film on top to feed 12 people, mostly high school and college students, on a 102 degree day in the Mississippi Delta.  The chicken went pretty fast, and so did the cornbread and tea.  Surprisingly, there were plenty of collard greens and okra left over.  The next day as we headed to the worksite, I pointed out the Chicken Hut as the place where yesterday's lunch had come from.  Several people got a sick look on their faces.

On Wednesday morning, a crop duster working on a cotton field across the road dumped some kind of red pesticide on us as he lifted up literally within a few feet of the top of the house.  Whatever it was, it had no effect at all on the mosquitoes.  We had to call one of the coordinators so that he could make some calls and find out what kind of pesticide it was and whether we could safely hose everyone off.  It was a while before we got an answer back, but no one got sick or dropped dead and we were relieved, sort of, when we found out it was fertilizer, not pesticide.

Thursday morning, one of our participants started throwing up around 3:00 a.m. and after an early morning trip to the emergency room, which in Clarksdale, Mississippi is quite an adventure at that hour, she wound up in the hospital on an IV for dehydration.  Within 45 minutes of our arrival, Two other kids from the project arrived wit the same symptoms.  They were all diagnosed with dehydration.  But I was amazed at how many other people were there at 3:00 a.m.  Apparently, that is the most popular time to visit the hospital in Clarksdale, Mississippi.  Lots of people with bandages and bruises. It was a relief to the adult left in charge at the hospital when I came to pick them up that evening.

There were no porta-potties available but the construction coordinator had made arrangements with the pastor of a small, rural, Baptist church about a quarter mile down the road for the crews working in the area to use their facilities.  The phrase "going to Mt. Zion" took on a whole new meaning.  No air conditioning in there, either and the bathroom was a sauna.  Did I mention the mosquitos?  And the bathrooms were also home to some really large and particularly active wasps.  There was a hole left between a couple of the floor boards in the girls' restroom through which one of the crew members observed some kind of black snake crawling on the ground below.  We heard the screams a quarter of a mile away.

On Friday, at the end of the day, crews departed houses that had been visibly transformed.  Our homeowner was in tears, in spite of the fact that the siding we put on her house wasn't exactly square, she also had a new, wider doorway into the bathroom, a ramp from the driveway and a storm door for her son's wheelchair access.  Similar scenes were repeated all over the two-county area where we were working.  But we also left behind lives that were transformed.  We were blessed to know about some of those who became followers of Jesus because of the week we spent there, but there were others whose lives were changed that we won't know about until we reach eternity.

On Saturday morning, our very tired group loaded the van for the five hour drive back to Kentucky.  I was thinking that none of them would ever want to do anything like this again.  But I was also thinking that this was a real picture of missions and that in many parts of the world, people deal with so much more than that in order to find ways to preach the gospel and point people to Jesus.  Apparently, the rest of our group was thinking along the same lines.  The conversation all the way back was about what a great experience it had been and how they couldn't wait for next summer.  Nothing that was negative ever made its way into the descriptions of the week given by the youth when telling the church about their experience.  Well, except for the mosquitoes.  The change that happened in the youth group filtered through the whole congregation.  But that is what a World Changers project does.

Long-Term Impact of World Changers
For me, that week in Mississippi launched what has been one of the most meaningful spiritual growth experiences in my life.  For the next twenty-six years, with one exception, a World Changers project was part of my summer, as a group leader bringing youth from my church to participate in a project and then later on as a member of the coordinating team at projects in seven different cities.  It completely changed my perspective of missions and of being a servant of the Lord.  I can also say that it was a life-changing experience for the participants who went on those projects as well, breaking down social, economic, racial and religious barriers and making kids--and adults--think about themselves as "missionaries" all the time, regardless of their career field.

In terms of operation and expectation, most World Changers projects were very similar, but they were never routine and the experience never got old.  The experience described above, as it turns out, was very typical.  It mirrors life in that things do not always go as planned.  You learn how to discern the difference between a problem and a crisis and how to be quick on your feet to respond, making sure you say a quick prayer.  But beyond that, every day of each project is another time during which the Holy Spirit is at work.  There's a spiritual fire that gets ignited and kindled during the week and it spreads from there through youth groups and into their churches.

I don't think there's been anything among all of the missions "programs" that Southern Baptists have had over the years that has had anywhere close to the impact and influence on missions involvement and education that World Changers has had.  In terms of the sheer number of youth who have been involved and what gets done spiritually in the course of one of those weeks, nothing else compares.  A big hole has been opened up in Southern Baptist missions education by this loss.

Over 400,000 people have participated in a World Changers project.  I'm sad that this virus provided the catalyst to have caused it to end but grateful for every minute of involvement.