Winning Ways: This is Your Wake-Up Call

In his fight against slavery, the ex-slave Frederick Douglass had a moment of crippling discouragement. His 1852 speech before an Ohio crowd grew bleak and disheartening as he expressed frustration that God had not yet liberated his people from slavery. That's when a fellow abolitionist, Sojourner Truth, stood up from the front row and asked her famous question.

"Frederick, is God dead?"

It's a question someone needs to ask a bunch of Christians today--maybe even you. We've read about the rising numbers of those who claim no religious affiliation. We've read that there's less church involvement from this generation of young adults than when any previous generation was in their 20s. We've read that our culture-shapers no longer operate out of a Judeo-Christian consensus. From both religious and secular media, many believers have grown discouraged from these bleak reports of our shrinking numbers and influence.

To which I ask, "Is God dead?"

When Sojourner Truth asked Douglass that question, it snapped him out of his despair. Here's hoping an upcoming sermon series will do the same. This Sunday I begin a 4-week series called, "This is Your Wake-Up Call."

God has provoked this series of messages within me. Even though our church has been growing, I've been in too many discouraging conversations about how Christianity is losing ground in the larger culture.

It's time we woke up to a few biblical realities. So, here's where we're going with the sermons in January:

Week 1: Let's regain our confidence that the gospel is powerful stuff. Powerful enough to transform the hardest heart--the hardest city.

Week 2: Let's remember that it was God who destined us for this particular time and place. When some of us pine for life in another era, we're denying God's wisdom in determining we are to serve him in this chapter of American history.

Week 3: Let's return to the biblical vision of our church as an exciting mission outpost.

Week 4: Let's look for practical ways to bless our city through service.

Join us @ 10 every Sunday for these important messages. Christian influence in our culture may be in a waning season, but God isn't dead. G. K. Chesterton was right: "Christianity has died many times and risen again; for it had a God who knew the way out of the grave."

 

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