Is America turning to God?  Is America turning away from God?  There are definite signs of both, aren’t there?  The real question is, “Is your heart turning to God?” 

I have been able to fellowship with the church in many cultures and traditions with different and beautiful expressions of worship in North and South America, the Caribbean, Europe and Asia. God is certainly glorified by this kaleidoscope of worship. The scripture even tells us that people from every tribe, every language and every culture will gather around the throne and worship the Lamb of God (Revelation 7:9). I look forward to that day.

With all the “visible” differences in the church around the world, I truly see only two that matter: a church that is seeking God, and a church that is not. Both are very present today.

Some have reduced God’s message of redemption to a tool for social reform. Some have made it a vehicle for personal advancement. Others have re-written Jesus’  words to make Him only “one of the ways” to eternal life. Still others have made the gospel just another method among many to teach morality and ethics, or have discounted Jesus and those who follow Him for not being ‘politically correct.’

In many places around the world, it’s all or nothing. Either serve Him with all your heart, or don’t serve Him at all. No middle ground. The cost is too high. The effect on your life too great. Give Him everything, or give Him nothing at all.

Combine this with the depth of spiritual, moral and emotional devastation which has led to a mass of wounded lives living in despair and fear, a cultural expression of faith in a politically correct (and often dead) church just does not suffice. Preparing a good Christian program and opening the doors is not enough. Neither is heralding truth on a soapbox.

Truth must have hands, and it must have feet. It must have shoulders to lean on and knees to intercede. It must have tear-stained cheeks from hearts that feel the pain of the people, hastening them to do something not just tangible but right in response, pursuing healing and justice. It must be church that goes to the oppressed and rejected and compels them to come into fellowship with the Healer, Savior, and Lover of their souls.

Tom White of Voice of the Martyrs wrote, “If we hoard our holiness, keeping it inside the church, is it really holy?  Are we godly if our Christian witness is only heard inside a sanctuary? …The light of an active, verbal testimony has greater effect out in the darkness, not in a Sunday school that the world ignores.”  He goes on to say, “God doesn’t want your heart, He already has that. He wants your feet.” 

Salt and light must be more than a phrase. Enduring hardship not a figment of the imagination but a lifestyle. Ministry must not be a position with a title, but the physical hands and feet of Christ serving in our world. 

In the New Testament and in many places around the world, what I have just described is church as normal.  And in America? . . .

I encourage you in Christ: The times are urgent. The needs are great. The harvest is ripe and ready. The Master is calling. Don’t just go to church. Be the church. Be the hands and feet of Jesus. And let “church as normal” become church that “turns the world upside down for Christ.”