An opportunity for Churches - Are they willing to pursue
Global Outreach in addition to caring for their own flock? (last updated: 19th November 2023)
Churches are well-meaning bodies that exert a powerful and much needed force for good in society as instructed by God. As never before there is the opportunity to spread their wings, and reach out across the Globe.
Matthew 9:35-38 (NIV),
35: Jesus went through all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues,
proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and healing every disease and sickness.
36: When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed
and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. 37: Then he said to his disciples,
'The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few.
38: Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.'
In the old days it was a matter of visiting people in distant lands, or even towns
and villages nearby, on foot, but today we have 'The World Wide Web', a tool that
could be used to help spread the Gospel more widely, and with minimum effort on
our part. So why not use it?
Churches are in fact embracing modern technology by using
social media to help spread the word, but only in a fairly limited way to a
closed community of believers and friends in their immediate area; 'among the converted'
some would say. Why stop there?
This web site provides an alternative to social
media with all its associated issues, such as child grooming on Instagram and facebook, and is available to everyone across the Globe.
Churches by their very nature have limited capacity to interact with one
another. GiveMyStory.com enables congregations across the Globe to do just that
by sharing testimonies that would otherwise be the preserve only of those within
their community of believers. This capability must surely strengthen the faith in a way
that has never been possible before.
How desperate is the need you might ask? There has undeniably been
a decline in the faith over the past 150 years,
as evidenced by significantly reduced Church attendance in recent times in many areas.
This has been accompanied by the rise in an alternative religion referred to
as secular humanism which of course denies the existence of a Creator God.
Christian Ministries International have recently published an article on this very
subject: erosion of the Gospel message
Church Leaders should not be afraid to raise the subject of origins with the young people in their congregations because evidence suggests they will lose the vast majority of them for good once they have attended College or University. This is because of exposure to a variety of sources including their non-christian peers, tutors, media outlets, etc., advocating the alternatve religion of naturalism. Although based on data from America the same principle surely applies elsewhere in the Western World. The rate of attrition is set to increase with more and more young people entering higher education:
This video stresses the importance of raising the issue of origins with young people in the Church. If, as is typical, discussion of it is avoided the vast majority of them will never attend Church again. This is a proven fact!
Our software has in-built controls in place to ensure that only well-meaning people
with genuine interest have proper access to the site. The testimonies provided will
be thoroughly vetted before they are published. It is very much down to Churches to
start the ball rolling by encouraging their congregations to respond to the challenge
and help build a resource with the potential to propel Christianity to the wider
community and across the Globe.
It also needs to be said that Creationism, in its central assertion that the universe has a Creator, is a perfectly respectable and reasonable position. Indeed, it is by far the view that has dominated human thought since the beginning of time
Darwinian Evolution, which is dependent on the notion of survival of the fittest, was used by Adolf Hitler as an excuse to justify the extermination by ethnic cleansing on a vast scale of those he considered inferior to the Aryan race. Hitler was not alone in his belief. It is an undisputed historical fact that the other monsters, Joseph Stalin, Mao Zedong, and Pol Pot all had the same worldview and used it to justify mass extermination of people they regarded as inferior, or, less than perfect, or not in tune with their philosophical or political views. So Darwinian Evolution isn't just bad science it has been used as an excuse to murder vast populations of innocent people.
Can we by any stretch of the imagination believe that a loving God would have put in place evolutionary mechanisms based on survival of the fittest or natural selection to create the complex life forms we see on Earth today given where it would inevitably lead civilisation?
Darwin himself understood the dangers of adopting his theory and stated as much in his writings. (for more details). Those that subscribe to the notion of Theistic Evolution, that travesty of the truth, believe that God was the originator of evolutionary mechanisms to produce all life on Earth! This is perhaps not surprising since it is increasingly taught in Theological Colleges as an explanation for life's origins, much to the delight and amusement of, for example, secular humanists.
Theistic Evolution is an attempt by the church to accomodate both God and man in the debacle concerning life's origin. It seems that God is to receive only a share of the credit, with the rest going to unguided naturalistic processes. The outcome is that God ends up humiliated, and mans reputation is likewise tarnished because he ends up being a descendent of animals swinging from trees. Has anyone asked monkeys how they feel about this idea I wonder because they are magnificent works of creation in their own right, and might not be too happy to be physiologically associated with creatures that spend billions of pounds inventing ever more ingeneous weapons to destroy members of their own kind.
It can also be argued that disavowing the Genesis account is tantamount to accusing God of lying, a difficult accusation to defend given the perfect nature of the accused.
If they wish, the images of churches that support us by providing testimonies from members of their
congregation will be displayed on a separate page to recognise their commitment to the project.
Hymns of Grace seeks to produce musical material that focuses on God, His Word and the Gospel story, melding beautiful melodies with eternal truth
1. Creation sings the Father's song.
He calls the sun to wake the dawn
And run the course of day
'Til evening falls in crimson rays.
His fingerprints in flakes of snow,
His breath upon this spinning globe;
He charts the eagle's flight;
Commands the newborn baby's cry.
Refrain:
Hallelujah!
Let all creation stand and sing, "Hallelujah!"
Fill the earth with songs of worship, tell the wonders of creation's King.
2. Creation gazed upon His face;
The ageless One in time's embrace
Unveiled the Father's plan
Of reconciling God to man.
A second Adam walked the earth,
Whose blameless life would break the curse,
Whose death would set us free
To live with Him eternally.
3. Creation longs for His return,
When Christ shall reign upon the earth;
The bitter wars that rage
Are birth pains of a coming age.
When He renews the land and sky,
All heav'n will sing and earth reply
With one resplendent theme:
The glory of our God and King!
Words and Music: Keith Getty, Kristyn Getty and Stuart Townend
