And We Wonder Why...

Once a month, I receive The Lutheran magazine.  This is the magazine of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America of which my congregation is a part.

It usually takes me several days to read it, not because I couldn't do it in a matter of minutes, but because it usually disappoints me greatly to read its general focus and point of view. 

That statement might qualify as too much information, but I'm setting this up.  Bear with me.

For the past several days, I've been perusing the articles, and then this morning at breakfast, I turned to the magazine's summary of the synod assemblies held throughout the church.  The major decisions of these assemblies were being highlighted, and there were three recurring themes:

1. Eradicate, alleviate, and increase giving toward hunger.
2. Increase giving to malaria initiatives.
3. Appeal to the church to address bullying in society.

When I finished reading the summaries, I paused.  Not one time did I read the word evangelism.  The word appeared exactly zero times by my count.  Nada.  Nil.  And I thought to myself, "Can this be real?"

Now, don't get me wrong.  I have no issues in seeking to alleviate the suffering caused by hunger.  But until we realize we don't have a food problem, we have a distribution problem.  We will make little to no headway.

I've got no problem seeking to help the people throughout the world deal with malaria.

And I don't have a problem speaking out against bullying.  However, I still reserve the right to teach my children to punch a bully in the mouth or nose to end the bullying even though it's more politically correct to tell them, "Go tell the teacher/authorities/police/whoever."  I'm still a big fan of taking care of things yourself and empowering my kids to stand on their own two feet against those who might try to run roughshod over them.

These initiatives are all well and good, but where is the focus on Christ's command to make disciples of all nations?  Where is the focus on Christ's admonition to be His witnesses to "Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and to the ends of the earth?

Why is such a thing important?  Why should proclaiming the good news and inviting others to become disicples of Jesus be front and center in the Church's job description?

One cannot deal with the underlying causes of bullying and hunger and malaria, etc. without dealing with the root causes of such phenomena.  One cannot begin to address such things if one's basic understanding of sin and human nature is not addressed.  The Church cannot begin to change the world unless individual lives are first changed.

Again, as I said earlier, the amount of food and money in the hunger issue is not a problem.  We produce plenty of food to feed the globe.  Get rid of ethanol mandates, and we've got even more to go around to feed the population and have surplus many times over.  But tell that to the U.S. government which mandates our food be used for fuel.  Tell that to the third world dictator who refuses to let food shipments enter into his country to feed the population.  Tell that to investors who artifically drive up the cost of food to make a fast buck.  See the problem?  It's a heart condition.

Same can be said of bullying.  Bullies prey on those who come across as weak.  Parents do not place boundaries on some of these children, so they feel entitled to do whatever it is that pleases them.  Discipline?  What is discipline?  Just what exactly is speaking out against bullying going to accomplish?  Hell, my daughter's elementary school had all sorts of bullying initiatives going on throughout the year, and it didn't stop one little boy from continuing to dump sand in my daughter's hair on an almost daily basis for a week.  My daughter repeatedly told the teachers upon our instruction.  And after we contacted the teacher ourselves, it finally stopped.  We were one day away from my daughter having to go to the principal's office for defending herself.  Who was the one with the problem here?  My daughter?  The school?  Or the little kid who continued to dump sand on my daughter because he thought it was fun?  (And yes, I learned enough about this kid's family to know there were some major issues there.)  Again, a heart problem.

When will we learn that in order to impact the world around us, we cannot change the world?  When will we learn our hearts must change first?  When will we learn the need to confront our sinful selves with the life changing news that Jesus died for us when we were still sinners?  When will we learn the need to reach out to others with this news as well? 

We wonder why our churches are in decline. 

Take a read at the summaries of the synod assemblies of the ELCA.  Count the number of times you see the word evangelism, and you will have your answer.