Who's Preaching the Gospel to Americans?
Time to get moving. A call for local evangelism.
posted over 13 years ago
Hai guyz
I know you're having lots of Bible studies and it's great that you're all building each other up, right, and fellowshipping, which is important, but who's ready to put their boots on the ground and take it to the streets!
"Campus Crusade for Christ is a student group dedicated to the forwarding of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We work with the philosophy of WIN, BUILD, SEND. WIN people to Christ, BUILD them up in His word and spirit, and SEND them out to repeat the process! "
You guys are doing great on the Building, decent on the winning, but unless you count going overseas as 'Sending' (which it is), you can use a little work.
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I became a little bit disaffected with Cru last year because it was starting to show signs of cliquey-ness and division, so I removed myself, feeling that it was my responsibility. But the other main reason that was already causing me to drift away a bit was the lack of evangelism. Let me be clear, I think it's great that some people from Cru have gone to India, Africa, Latin America, etc to do missionary work, but has anyone noticed that while Christianity is spreading like wildfire in the southern hemisphere and the Indian Ocean region, it's vanishing from Europe and beginning to show signs of severe atrophy in the United States? Who is evangelizing Americans?
America is the great country it is because of its people. It has been the only safe haven for liberty and democracy to last over 200 years in history, and this is because its precepts are founded on Christian morality. The country has historically been majority Christian, and whereas many of the supposed 80% believers in this country are nominal believers, the culture created by a God-fearing people has imparted this morality on the entire country, even nonbelievers. Maybe some of you are looking forward to moving to Africa or China in the next 20 years, but did you realize that the reason $1 Billion is going to the drought in the horn of Africa this year alone, from the Western World, is because of the spirit of giving that the people derive from their Christian principles? America consistently out-gives the rest of the world in aid every time there is a disaster anywhere in the world, and this is because of our Christian charity. But what happens when you take away the Christians, take away the basis for the morality that has been intertwined with our culture for its duration until now? When you take away the foundation for a Christian society, the society will not be Christian--meaning that personal charity, personal morality, and personal freedoms will be decided by personal opinion--a guarantee that there will be less freedom, less charity, and less morality. In a generation or two, America could be 20% Christian. Have you considered the implications?
Obviously this is not merely a political issue. But if America loses its faith, then who will give aid to hurting people abroad? Who will tell us about persecuted Christians? Who will translate the Bible into the languages of native people so that they can be reached with the Gospel? Who will go and do mission work? America has been a launching point for powerful efforts to reach people with supplies to increase their quality of living and to reach them with the Gospel. What happens when nobody's doing this? My point is that if you take America for granted and stop preaching and evangelizing in this country, then your dreams of reaching the world will be forfeit, unless another 'America' rises up to take the stand. This is, frankly, unlikely. It took 4,300 years for the first America to be founded--the first country with personal and religious freedom..ever... and it's not likely that it will be easy to find or create a replacement.
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Hopefully this isn't too long-winded for you to follow.
I have a burden to reach people on campus. Have you stood around and watched the reactions of people to Tom Short and Paul Adams when they come to preach on campus? Even people who have lived here their whole lives DON'T UNDERSTAND THE GOSPEL. If they don't even understand it, because they've never heard it, how can they accept it? I'm shocked to realize that the reason for the apostasy of young people today is simply because they haven't heard the Gospel--because American Christians are not preaching to them.
Can we fix this, please?
I was thrilled one week this last semester (SP11) that Cru decided to go out and actually make connections with people on campus, and, if possible within the 1-hour time limit, preach the Gospel.
Why can we not make this a weekly thing? After we have been energized at Cru praise worship and heard a talk by a teacher, then we should go out and reach out to the campus community. After all, what's in the name Campus Crusade if we are not literally fighting for the Cross on the UMBC Campus?
Please. Let's do this more often. A weekly after-meeting evangelism? Street-preaching? How hard can it be? Surely you don't have to go thousands of miles across an ocean just to be able to share the Gospel?
Please. Americans need to be reached, too.
Please.
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