O for courage!

One of the things we've been doing in lockdown is watching some of the material at Redeem TV. In particular the children's cartoon series called Torchlighters. It's a powerful series about various people from Christian history who were willing to suffer and die for Christ. People like Richard Wurmbrand, Eric Liddell and Jim Eliot.

I also like to read Tim Challies blog and noticed that yesterday's A La Carte entry had a quote from John Piper:

"Confidence in the face of death has emboldened Christ's people for two thousand years. The truth of God's wise and good sovereignty has been the stabilizing power for thousands of Christians in the sacrifices of love."

And I thought of Jesus call to his disciples in Mark  8:34:

And calling the crowd to him with his disciples, he said to them, "If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me." (Mk. 8:34 ESV)

And it made me think I need to pray for faithfulness and courage. Not particularly in the face of the Coronavirus. Although that can be scary. But I need to courage to stand firm in the gospel. I need courage to take risks to serve God in a generation that does not and a country that has all but forgotten the Christian message.

Perhaps one of the most saddest things for me in recent months and years has been to reflect on my own lack of courage and boldness and that of so many Christians and their leaders in the UK. When we ask why we are where we are, whether in particular denominations like the Church of England, or particular churches that have gradually drifted away, or in a country which has systematically tried to remove any Christian influence from its laws and institutions over the years, surely one of the key reasons is that Christians and church leaders lost courage and conformed.

Of course Jesus told us this would happen in the parable of the sower. He reminds us that many who seemingly accept the Christian message have no root and so their 'faith' collapses under persecution (Mark 4:16-17). And many succumb to the thorns of the cares and pleasures of the world (Mark 4:18-19). It has struck me that the uncomfortable truth is that this describes much of what passes for evangelicalism. That the warning inherent in those verses is to me and to my tribe. We want to be evangelicals and have good jobs, so we conform our faith to our work culture to get by. We want to be evangelicals, but don't want to raise difficult issues in our ministry that might upset people, so we conform to our congregation instead of God's word.

Perhaps the enforced lockdown that we are currently experiencing could be a reminder to take up our cross and seek to be the good soil, eschewing conforming to the world, the denomination and even our Christian friends or family. It will be hard, but I wonder if it is one of the things that must happen before the gospel will once again take root in our towns, villages and cities, even in our churches and denominations.