Dear Friends,
We may be living in a time of Awakening like has never been seen. People are concerned with the decline of the church but it maybe we are just moving from a period of religion, belief and doctrine, systematic theology of the head to a period of the spirit, a thing of the heart.
Some acute observers think we may be in the Fourth Great Awakening or the Great Global Awakening where people from all over the world and originally of many faiths are more concerned with love, truth, grace and healing and living in peace, love and harmony than religion, which seems like a set of rules focused on what sets us apart.
The first believers were called people of The Way, the Way to live and love. The Torah refers to the first 5 books of the Old Testament but also to all of the Covenant as The Way to live. Jesus said He was ‘the way, the truth and the life.” He is the Way of God made flesh. He is the Living Way.
The early believers were referred to as followers of The Way. The Way of Love. Jesus said the world would know that we trust in him because we love.
Jesus didn’t call people to believe a creed or certain doctrine. He called people to “follow him”.
Spiritual awakening is learning to see differently, of prayer and repentance, changing how we think.
New Testament writers referred to “metanoia”, a change of perspective and outlook that moves human beings beyond chaos toward reconciliation and harmony with God.
Diana Butler Bass, writes in her book, Christianity After Religion, that early Christian thinkers agreed that metanoia involved recognizing our estrangement from God and neighbor and turning of the heart and mind toward love.
This is happening all over the world, to followers of every “religion”. The world has gotten smaller and we are all able to communicate in new ways instantaneously.
I was at a party recently, where I was introduced to a Christian man and my friend informed him that I was engaged in world missions. He made a point to make sure I was aware of how threatened “we”, being Christians and the US, are by the Muslim terrorists who “want to kill us”. I informed him that I was aware of this and understand our need to defend ourselves. But I asked him if he was aware that since 9/11 followers of Islam, as well as every other religion, have been asking themselves “Is this what my religion, and every other religion, is about? Killing and destroying those that don’t believe as we do?”
I also told him that all of the many missionaries I talk to every month tell me that many Muslim people are coming to know Jesus and accept and trust in His message of love, joy and peace. In fact, there are so many of them that missions people have a term for them “MBBs”. Muslim background believers.
God is touching peoples’ hearts and the world is responding. People are realizing that the call to be reconciled to God is a call to accept the love of God and live in the love. Our hearts and our actions are more important than our beliefs. Jesus’s words ring in people’s hearts and heads, “Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.” John 13:34
These pictures are children in Rwanda learning to use Samsung Tablets. It is the future for these children who don’t have books. We are working on our next big project purchasing these tablets for children in Nicaragua and Mexico.
Please keep us in your prayers and giving to show the love of God by helping some of the poorest children learn.
Hope, Love, Grace & Joy be yours through Christ,
Cameron