All Over the World

Things have a way of working out in the end. As a young idealistic 25 year old who's motivated by delusions of grandeur and influence, I'm realizing more and more about the cycle of life and how ultimately the cycle moves us forward.

2007 brings a lot of questions with it. Will I finish school this year? What's going to happen in Iraq? Are we going to have a draft soon? Will this be the year I find that relationship? Will the Church really make a difference in Africa? All these pressing questions both global and personal, take rent in our mind's as we wait to see the answers unfold.

I'm a person who believes in order, design, a history of stories, and a goal in which we're working towards, ultimately this world being renewed and made right again through Jesus Christ.

I've recently started studying the book of Colossians in the New Testament. Paul's tiny letter to a tiny church in Asia Minor. In the first few verses he voices his care and love for them from afar and gives them great news.

"All over the world this gospel is bearing fruit and growing, just as it has been doing among you since the day you heard it and understood God's grace in all its truth." Col. 1:6

Here in the states the Church is beat up. The culture that surrounds us has moved past Christianity. As an aspiring evangelical minister here in the states, often it seems as if the foothold the gospel preached on these shores has been washed away. Looking across the sea brings no comfort either as Europe, the stronghold of the reformation and Christianity has moved completely past the need for something bigger then themselves, beyond a need for God, and the grace given in his son Jesus.

Then I read Paul's words to the Colossians. From the basement of a Roman prison, he wrote praising the work in Colossae, the faith, hope, and love shown by the people there. He heralds the news that the gospel taking root in their lives is going throughout the world. "...bearing fruit and growing." Paul, apostle of Jesus Christ, was so confident that the gospel would accomplish it's desired goal. It would bring harmony and justice, redemption and renewal to a broken world, and it would bear fruit. It wasn't a question for Paul. The chains of prison could not hold his zeal, they could not shake his confidence in the gospel's end game.

At times I'm tempted to doubt Paul. Sitting in a much more comfortable place than Paul I question his claim. I look at America, the waning Church. The rise of materialism and greed all under the banner of democratic capitolism, and I see the gospel slip. But as soon as that doubt comes, Paul's promise remains. The truth in the message of Jesus Christ is stronger than ever before. Paul's promise is being realized. Places like Latin America, North Africa, India, China, and Indonesia, are seeing unprecedented conversion and revival. Along the way the gospel brings with it the flags of justice, peace, hope, and physical health.

Perhaps America will follow Europe's lead into a new era in which the Church will struggle to maintain it's health. Perhaps the cycle of God's story is moving somewhere else. But Paul's words to the Colossians give hope to the Christian, and hope to the world. Though we may struggle. Though 2007 may continue to take us down a different path here in America, God is moving like never before in other parts of the world.

May we be a help to them.

God help us to further the gospel in those parts of the world, and God may your gospel still shine, please shine, here through your Church in America.