Last week I met with local pastors in the Magic Valley from Burley to Hagerman, Jackpot to Twin Falls to prepare ourselves for a strategic plan to speak to the Twin Falls, City Council and prepare to engage God’s people to interact with state legislators concerning the abolishing of abortion in the state of Idaho.
As I Read Scripture and pray over this day with desire to remain focused on the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ as described by the Bible only I’m finding myself shocked at how little many expect from the church anymore.
Does anyone turn to the church to know about reaching children and youth? Maybe, but be sure of this, the church will turn to the para-church publishing house to train and program the methodology. What happened to a day when God’s people would turn to their Bible and seek God for the best way to reach the children?
Does anyone expect a leading voice from the church when it comes to feeding the poor? Likely the church is going to turn to the para-church food kitchen or food bank to regulate how to do this for them.
There was a day when the community would turn to the church to care for the orphan, sadly, today, the church has largely given this God ordained duty to the government.
If you want to influence city, county, state, or national issues with a moral base you will be hard pressed to find a church anywhere willing to engage. There was a day when all would look to the moral buttress, the church, the pillar of truth. The danger today is that the church has abdicated this off to the para-church lobbyist. We’ve been encouraging God’s people to contribute to the para-church so that the para-church can represent our values. The problem today is that many of the para-church lobbyist are not held accountable to the church and the church assumes they are the experts. It is time for the church to not only continue pressing the government to defund Planned Parenthood, it may as well be time to defund the para-church.
It is time, church, we must not leave our post as an abandoned post.
We are told (we even tell ourselves) “you can’t legislate morality.” We seem to have forgotten that that is part of the work of the government, to legislate moral and just laws. We also must know that a government does not have the capacity to be moral or remain moral if an imputed righteous people remain silent.
It is a more true statement that you can’t legislate righteousness. Righteousness is something that only God deposits upon an unrighteous person because of his depravity, inability to be righteous.
But, because the church has largely stepped out of the conversation on the topic of humanity and decided to hire the “experts” to speak for us we are now in communities that are not that interested in what we have to say about morality, or righteousness on any matter. Our communities look at the “right to life” groups and pregnancy centers as the “experts” on matters of life and they view the church more as the “experts” on summer daycare extravaganzas and free cotton candy.
This is for sure, if morality is not legislated, and that from a position of absolute truth, it will not be long before the immoral community begins to legislate immorality.
Welcome to today.
Church, return to your post in the community as a pillar and buttress of truth. From this place don’t forget your need to proclaim the gospel and call all people, everywhere, to believe and repent.
It’s a good day to be the church.