The Coming Faith

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In 1998, I spent the better part of a month in a third world country ministering largely among the poor of that country. Our team spent time on dirt floors in remote rural villages, in churches that met under aluminum roofs with no walls, and in huge sanctuaries in the major city that housed upwards of 5000-6000 believers at a time.

Before we left to return to America, a number of believers assured us that they would be praying for us, and told us that they already prayed every day for the American church. They wanted to give us a message to take back to the American church.

The message was this:

Believers in the third world spend much time every day in travailing prayer for the American church. The American church which has given birth to much of the third world church through it's missionary efforts of the 1950s, 60s and 70s, is now the one in desperate trouble, these believers shared.

"You don't know what's coming," they said with love. "You think that because 'America is a Christian country' that you will never know tribulation. But you are wrong. Even now, that tribulation is beginning for the American church. Soon, you will stand shoulder to shoulder with us in the knowledge that this tribulation is a gift from God, and that it will reverse the apathy, complacency and lukewarmness of the American church."

From that day forward, I have stayed in intimate communication with members of the third world church the world over. I am humbled by their faith, their trials, their stand for Christ. I am learning from them. It has changed how I live.

Pause for a moment if you would and consider the faith of our brethren in China. Pause for a moment and consider if these conditions were to exist in America. This is a very personal consideration, for it quickly brings the question, "Is my faith yet persecution-proof? Am I ready to live as my brethren already do virtually the world over? What must I do to prepare my soul and my faith and my life?"



Click on the arrow in the middle of the video screen to view the CBS News report on the house churches of China.







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