| It can take up to two years to train a church planter in India.
Grand Rapids, Michigan-based Mission India’s Dave Stravers says the spiritual climate is that ready. “It can be quite embarrassing because we don’t have the resources to train everyone who wants to receive help from us. We actually have almost 4,000 church planters on the waiting list, waiting for our training. So that’s the number one need–he training. Then, we of course provide them with materials, so they need some Scriptures,” and the ministry furnishes a bicycle to increase mobility. Through this approach, many have responded to the Gospel. That has brought its own set of problems to church planters. A backlash reaction to the sudden growth of the church has prompted anti-conversion laws in seven states. Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Orissa, Arunachal Pradesh, Rajasthan, Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh are giving indirect support to militant groups and resulting in ongoing violence against Christians. Even in states where such laws are not written, they are acted on by the local authorities. Says Stravers, “Often, [the church planters’] lives will be threatened; they’ll get beaten up; they’ll be warned to leave: ‘Don’t come back here again or we’ll kill you.’ This is quite a common form of intimidation, and the high success of the church planters is really attributed to the work of Jesus and the Holy Spirit in India.” Reports of village churches being attacked, raided or otherwise destroyed continue to be a daily reality throughout the country. New converts to Christianity are often cast out of their families and face poverty and ostracism. Continue to pray that the Mission India team would remain bold in their vision. Pray, too, that God would provide the resources they need to train those who would be church planters, and that new believers would be grounded in the Scriptures. |
Soul and Spirit
Anabaptists During the Revolution
Ironically, once the fight for liberty started, the freedom of nonresistant Christians became sharply limited.
The Liberties of Nonresistant Christians. Some Americans supported neither side in the Revolution. Instead, as Mennonite and German Baptist leaders said in 1775, “We have dedicated ourselves to serve all men in everything that can be helpful to the preservation of men’s lives, but…we are not at liberty in conscience to take up arms to conquer our enemies, but rather to pray to God, who has power in heaven and on earth, for us and them.” Chief among these nonresistant Christians were the Quakers, Mennonites, German Baptists, Moravians, and Schwenkfelders.
Most nonresistant Christians were quite content with their lot as British subjects. As three Mennonite bishops in Pennsylvania wrote in 1773, “Through God’s mercy we enjoy unlimited freedom in both civil and religious matters.” Ironically, once the fight for liberty started, the freedom of nonresistant Christians became sharply limited.
Militia Duty. The first issue that peace-promoting Christians faced was militia duty. After Lexington and Concord, patriot committees called all able-bodied men to join a voluntary association “to learn the art of war.” The associators noticed that the nonresistant Christians did not join in the drills. They demanded laws requiring everybody to serve.
In November 1775, Mennonite and German Baptist ministers sent A Short and Sincere Declaration to the Pennsylvania assembly. They suggested an alternative to militia duty. They would donate money to help poor families left destitute because their men were off fighting. Instead Pennsylvania passed a law levying a special war tax on all non-associators. Later it said nonresistant Christians could hire substitutes or pay a fine. Most nonresistant Christians refused to do either, because as the Short and Sincere Declaration stated, they found “no freedom in giving, or doing, or assisting in anything by which men’s lives are destroyed or hurt.” Therefore, Patriot officials confiscated their property to pay the tax and fines.
Who is Caesar?
Independence created another problem for the nonresistant Christians. Was King George III or was the Continental Congress the Caesar they were to obey? Many of them had promised obedience to the king when they came to America. Breaking their word was seen as a serious sin. Also, the king had protected their liberties. Now the patriots were taking them away.
In the end the nonresistant Christians put their trust in the words of the prophet Daniel in the Bible, “He removeth kings and setteth up kings” (Daniel 2:21). They patiently waited for the outcome of the war to find out who God would set up as Caesar. In the meantime they followed a pattern of strict neutrality. They refused to help either side to fight.
However, when hungry, sick, or wounded soldiers, whether patriot or redcoat, needed aid, the nonresistant Christians gave it. As a Hessian officer said, “They are the most hospitable to us.” The patriots did not understand this impartial love. They threatened men like Mennonite Christian Weaver with a whipping for feeding runaway British prisoners even though he had done the same for Continental soldiers.
Source: US Anabaptists during the Revolutionary War (excerpts from the fifth grade social studies course produced by Christian Light Publications)
What Makes Her a “Man”?!
In yesterday’s news, this report of people playing with words and culture and other such stuff:
| Pregnant man gives birth to girl
A US man who was born a woman before undergoing gender realignment surgery has given birth to a baby girl, US media reported. Thomas Beatie, who is legally male but decided to keep his female sex organs during chest reconstruction surgery and testosterone therapy, attracted worldwide attention in April after revealing his pregnancy. The 34-year-old gave birth to a baby girl at a hospital in Bend, Oregon, on June 29, People Magazine reported Thursday. “The only thing different about me is that I cant breastfeed my baby. But a lot of mothers dont,” the magazine quoted him as saying. |
I’d say her (because that’s what she is, folks!) “gender realignment” surgery hardly qualifies as a success.
She had chest reconstruction surgery and testosterone therapy — and that makes her legally male?!
She decided to keep her female reproductive organs…and she’s still considered a man?!
Please.
And people still accept the whole charade.
OK.
Eeeny, Meeny, Miney, Mo
How do you spell all those words?! 😯
Whatever. This story is more important:
| Children: I’ll Take That One
There is a horrifying slippery slope here. Where do we draw the line? Again, these babies did not have a debilitating lifelong malady. All they had was a chance of developing an illness. What’s next? Poor eyesight or hearing? How about food allergies? Better yet, why stop at abnormalities? How about insisting they be taller than average, or have superior abilities? While you’re at it, why not also select the eye color and hair color? Don’t just fertilize eleven eggs. Fertilize a hundred, choose the single best one, and destroy the rest. […] We are in an era where science enables us to do wonderful things, but also terrible things. Our public policy must protect life, especially the lives of innocent, unborn children. And we must never deceive ourselves that we do children a favor by ending their lives as they begin. |
PS: If you like to read bumper stickers, check out this one. 🙂
Charm Her xx Off
Does that title shock you for this blog?
That’s the subject of an email in one of my spam boxes.
So’s this: xx xx reveals xx in xx.
(Look, I’m no “prude” but I’m using xx to keep from being flagged by various filters out there.)
I deleted the emails unread. As I have thousands of their ilk over the years.
But I call attention to them because of what I wrote earlier this morning: He Needed Wisdom and Understanding.
The Missing Fact
On the subject of criticism and correction, here’s something vital to remember:
| Stop having a measuring stick for other people. There is always at least one more fact, which we know nothing about, in every person’s situation. |
That’s part of the June 17 entry in My Utmost for His Highest by Oswald Chambers.
What Strangers Think
Andrée Seu has another thought-provoker over at WorldMagBlog:
| “Lazarus, listen, we have things to tell you. We killed the sheep you meant to take to market. We couldn’t keep the old dog either. He minded you; the rest of us he barked at. Rebecca, who cried two days, has given her hand to the sandalmaker’s son. Please understand — we didn’t know that Jesus could do this.
“We’re glad you’re back. But give us time to think. Imagine our surprise….We want to say we’re sorry for all of that. And one thing more. We threw away the lyre. But listen, we’ll pay whatever the sheep was worth. The dog, too. And put your room the way it was before.” (”Adjusting to the Light,” by Miller Williams) I have been praying (almost mechanically after a while): “Teach us to number our days, that we may get a heart of wisdom” (Psalm 90:12). And God has been answering: a perfect new dog-walking track that thrusts in my my face rows of granite headstones on which beginning and end dates compress full lifetimes to, well, a “mist,” a “vapor” (James 4:14). All these people I jog past are forgotten, every one. If they were anything like me, they wasted entirely too much time worrying about what total strangers thought of them. |
On the other hand, let’s not forget that the impressions we create in strangers do matter. We are God’s epistle, known and read of all. We are light in the world.
Above all, of course, the child of God strives to show himself approved before God.