WHY?

A 10 year old girl visiting the area with her family is abducted, sexually assaulted and stabbed to death. This horrific act is every parent's nightmare and it happened a short drive from where you and I live. How are we supposed to make sense of this tragedy? The fact is, we can't. There's no making sense of why someone would do something like this. These kinds of senseless acts are a painful reminder we live in a sinful broken world that has yet to fully experience the "peace on earth" the angels promised over 2000 years ago. God's Kingdom "on earth" has yet to be fully realized and Christ is counting on us, to not only pray for that Kingdom's coming but to actually get our hands dirty in the process of global redemption. It is no longer okay to hunker down and circle the wagons while everything goes to hell in a handbasket. This is an abandonment of the divine commission and the repercussions of our disengagement will have far reaching consequences for our children, grandchildren, and future generations. Guys, you can only jail so many before the only safe places become prisons for the innocent.

A book recommended to me by our District Superintendent, Rev. Frank Alegria, is Bob Farr's Renovate or Die. The author writes, "The truth is that if we don't renovate (our churches) we are going to die. Many people would already say that we United Methodists are already an endangered species...We are going to have to sacrifice some of our ways of doing things and some of our personal preferences for the sake of those who do not yet know (the Gospel). I am not referring to our values, core beliefs, or our Wesleyan theology. No. I am referring to our focus, our presentation, our systems, and our ways of doing things."

We forget the Church is always one generation away from extinction. All it takes is one Christian refusing to pay the gift of faith forward (for example, because of personal preference) to break the chain leading to the redemption of millions of believers! Remember, its my job to push. " Because I didn't like this or that" won't float when we stand before Christ and he inevitably asks us WHY?