To use a somewhat dated expression, it’s “hot off the press.” I am referring to the latest Pew Research Center “Religious Landscape Study.”  This is Pew’s third large-scale “Religious Landscape Study,” involving, in this 2023-2024 survey, 36,908 United States adults.  The first of these “Landscape surveys” was 2007, and the second in 2014.  As a result, we now have, between these three surveys, a thorough and comprehensive picture of U.S. religious trends over the last 17 years.

     To keep this in perspective, Pew has become the preeminent source for this kind of information.  Not even the Gallup organization can compete when it comes to findings and data related to religious life in the United States.  Gallup surveys contact only 1,000 adults.  And unlike Gallup, Pew Research’s survey of just under 37,000 respondents focuses entirely on in-depth questions related to religious affiliation, practices and beliefs.  

     So—now that I have your attention—here is a summary of the results of this latest Religious Landscape Study.

     First, the good news.  Unlike the 2007 and 2014 surveys, this survey indicated that the rate of decline in Americans identifying as Christians is leveling off.  The quote, in the introduction of this Pew report is, “After many years of steady decline, the share of Americans who identify as Christians shows signs of leveling off—at least temporarily—at slightly above six-in-ten…”

     Now the not-so-good news.  This “leveling off” needs to be considered in the context of long-term decline when it comes to…

1. The percentage of Americans who self-identify as Christians;

2. The number of Americans who report they attend church worship services at least once a month (now at only 33% of respondents); and…

3. The fact that the generation most likely to identify as Christian and worship regularly is aging (and dying) Boomers; while younger generations are far less likely to identify as Christians and far more likely to identify as “atheist, agnostic” or as “nothing at all.”

     And one more finding from Pew: When it comes to overall trends since 2007: “There are far fewer Christians and more ‘nones’ among men and women; people in every racial and ethnic category, college graduates and those with less education; and residents of all major regions of the country.”

Oh, and one more quote regarding these downward trends: “The changes are much more pronounced among ideological liberals than (they are among) conservatives.”

     For complete results from this survey you only need to go to the Pew website.

     I realize there might be few (if any) surprises in these survey results and trends.  However, I would like to share some practical strategies for your congregation to consider as it strives to be faithful, effective and relevant in our increasingly secular society.  The suggestions below are based on my work—over decades—working in a coaching role with pastors and lay leaders of over 500 Lutheran congregations.

1. Never forget that when it comes to a congregation’s number of active members, size matters. Implications?  Smaller churches cannot do everything well when it comes to their ministry efforts. Accordingly, they should focus on doing one or two of their ministries really well.  Some examples:

Quality worship (including congregational singing), small discussion-oriented groups (most often Bible studies and/or book studies), and local community service efforts your people can volunteer for.

2. A ministry focus on reaching nesting-stage families is incredibly important.  But it usually “takes families to attract families”.  So if you no longer have any families with children worshiping you might want to focus on one or more of the above strategies.

3. In smaller congregations—especially those worshiping fewer than between 50 and 75 at a given service—be sure to more-often-than-not select congregational hymns and songs that are both popular and familiar.  Otherwise you will have difficulty maintaining your current attendance over the long term.

     Finally, there are two primary ministry strategies that are the most meaningful and effective for congregations of any size.  The first relates to outreach and the second to in-reach and disciple-making.

A. Worship  This is not only about preaching and worship music (see above), but also Sunday-morning hospitality.  The bottomline here is this rule of thumb: The more meaningful your worship life—including congregational singing, preaching and hospitality—the more likely your members will invite friends, and the more likely first-time visitors will return for a second visit.

B. The second suggestion is disciple-making and small groups.  They go together.  The best venue for “making disciples” is small groups.  Here’s a challenge for your congregation: Rather than be satisfied with the number of groups already meeting within your congregation, how about “new groups for new people”?  For example, how about trying to launch at least one new group each year?

     If you would like free printed resources related to either worship ministry or small groups, email me at pastordonbrandt@gmail.com  Unless I happen to be on a trip I will email these resources to you within a few days of you contacting me.

Pastor Don Brandt

Congregations in Transition and Congregational Lay-leadership Initiative

Director’s Note: Spencer Wentland is uniquely qualified to write this article analyzing the ELCA’s concept of global mission as accompaniment rather than evangelism – as responding to requests for help from indigenous churches rather than being concerned to share the message of Jesus with unreached peoples.  Spencer is a member of our young adult group, which meets via zoom about once a month for fellowship and support.  He is passionate about reaching people who do not know Jesus.  He has much international experience, including studying and serving in a discipleship community in Denmark.  He has served as an ELCA lay missionary in Japan and has written on the theology of global mission of different Christian groups. 

The ELCA defines accompaniment as “…walking together in a solidarity that practices interdependence and mutuality[*]” (Global Mission, emphasis in original). Although often portrayed as a biblical theology coming out of the disciples’ encounter with Jesus on the road to Emmaus, it is strongly influenced by and rooted in liberation theology[†]. My immediate concern with it, as a heuristic to the what and where of mission, is that it is antithetical to the Pauline priority on unreached places.

The Apostle Paul emphasized not building on another’s foundation but to establish the Church where it does not exist. Combined with Jesus’ teaching that the Gospel must be preached in all nations (Gk. ethnos, often understood as ethno-linguistic people groups by many missiologists) and then the end will come, there has been a strong emphasis on sending missionaries to work amongst unreached and unengaged people groups[‡].

While working as an ELCA missionary, I heard about experienced mission personnel being sent home while the Japanese Evangelical Lutheran Church was told how they were going to become less dependent on the ELCA. In the name of being post-colonial, it was an ironically patronizing execution of implementing an accompaniment model.

Accompaniment is actually very good in shaping how we do mission. We should not ignore the presence and work of indigenous Lutherans. If consistent with the values of accompaniment, it’s a good way to think about working together in the larger context of God’s mission. It reminds us that the task of mission must be informed by the catholicity of the Church as well as its apostolic nature. It also informs us to do mission in the pattern and practice of Christ himself who is Immanuel.

The problems with accompaniment are when it determines what the content of mission is and where it is done. When applied to the what of mission, it frames the whole task into a ministry of presence. This collapses into the problem that when everything is mission, nothing is mission. The primary task of establishing the Church in unreached places, making disciples and evangelical mission is diminished into almost oblivion by tasks being determined by the partner denomination. True accompaniment would involve both churches determining the content of mission work in the light of both Scripture and context. Working together is key, not completely abrogating task criteria to the partner church.

The ELCA’s requirement that pre-existing Lutheran churches request the ELCA to send missionaries (an effort in being post-colonial) assures that no missionaries will ever be sent to unengaged people groups. The Japanese are the second largest unreached people group, so there is an odd and good anomaly that work is going on there. During my missionary orientation, I asked if someone had a vision like Paul of a man from Macedonia, saying come here, would that qualify a call (Acts 16)? Is the Holy Spirit leading with the Word, or are we reducing the idea of being spirit-led to a democratized principle of the external call coming through partner churches?

In conclusion, accompaniment is a mixed bag. It’s great for the how of mission, and it is a true gift. However, it needs to be understood in the larger context of the ELCA’s constitution and statement of faith, including its responsibility to work for the fulfillment of the Great Commission. To do this, the primary tasks need to be strategic partnership for the purposes of mission development/evangelical mission and a willingness to send people to places where no Christians, let alone Lutherans, exist.

Photograph courtesy of Spencer Wentland; it is of a protestant church in Okinawa.

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[*] “Global Mission.” Elca.Org. Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, Accessed November 5, 2023. https://www.elca.org/Our-Work/Global-Mission.

[†] ORDÓÑEZ, CLAUDIA. “Public Health Needs Liberation Theology.” Aquinas Emory Thinks. Aquinas Center at Candler School of Theology, February 15, 2021. https://aquinasemorythinks.com/public-health-needs-liberation-theology/.

[‡] Unreached: relative to the population living near a gospel witness. Imagine an American city of about 250,000 people and if there is only about three or four churches of twenty people and no youth groups. Unengaged: has any effort been made by Christians to bring the Gospel and make disciples among this particular people group?

Certainly one of the most complex, difficult, and volatile situations in the world today is the
relationship between Israel and its neighbors. The Jewish people suffered horribly during the
Holocaust. After World War II they needed a homeland – a place to live where they would be
safe. The problem is that there were people who were already living there and had been for
hundreds of years.

I do not agree with everything that the Israeli government has done over the years, just as I do
not agree with everything that the U. S. government has done over the years. There are many
ways in which the Palestinian people have been suffering and we need to be deeply concerned for our fellow Palestinian Christians. But the Israeli government needs to be able to protect its people, just like every government needs to be able to protect its people. The Israeli government and the Israeli people need our prayers and support as they fight off the most violent and deadly incursion in decades.

I believe that the promises of God were fulfilled in Jesus, not in the creation of the modern state
of Israel in 1948. I do not agree with those who believe that the Kingdom of God would be
advanced if the Dome of the Rock were to be torn down and a Temple were to be built in its
place. But still, as I read the Bible, the physical descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob
played a major role in God’s plan for our salvation. The Lord said to Abraham, “I will bless
those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse; and in you all the families of the
earth shall be blessed” (Genesis 12: 3). And the apostle Paul wrote about his people, the Hebrew
people, “To them belong the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the
worship, and the promises; to them belong the patriarchs, and from them, according to the flesh,
comes the Messiah” (Romans 9: 4-5).

The best article I have found regarding how we American Christians should view and why we
should stand with Israel under attack was written by Russell Moore, editor in chief of
“Christianity Today” magazine. Here is a link.

https://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2023/october-web-only/israel-hamas-middle-east-war-christians.html

I urge you to join with me in praying for Israel under attack – for its government, its people, the
wounded, the dying, those who have lost loved ones, those who live in fear and constant great
danger.

Santino Burrola recorded a video and posted it to TikTok.  He was fired from his job at a grocery store for the offense.  What did he do wrong?  Inappropriately filming someone in the restroom?  Dancing in the aisles while on the clock?  No.  He recorded thieves stealing from the store.  He peeled aluminum foil off the license plate of the get-away vehicle so that it would become visible.  Hoping that the culprits would be caught, he posted the video, and at least one of the thieves was caught.  For his actions in trying to stop people from stealing, he was fired.

The store cited its policy that employees should not interfere with people shoplifting to “minimize the risk to our associates.”[i]

If you read the title to this piece, you may be wondering how this story relates to Christian Nationalism.  It doesn’t seem to tie in at all.  Please bear with me, and I will try to show you how.  There is a Christian Nationalism which should be rejected and condemned vociferously, but there are also some thoughts and ideas which are labeled “Christian Nationalism” in an attempt to smear those who offer them as well as to dismiss those ideas without having to engage them and understand why they are held; and those thoughts and ideas directly relate to the Santio Burrola situation.

First, we must define Christian Nationalism.  There is no firm definition, at least that I have found.  In our postmodern society, this is par for the course.  The muddier we can make definitions, the more we can apply or deny them to a given situation, group, or movement. 

But I don’t play those games.  Muddying the waters only sows confusion and chaos.  Therefore, you do not need to guess my operating definition of Christian Nationalism.  It is this: The belief that God has given the U.S. a special blessing and destiny, and that to be American means to be explicitly Christian.  Therefore the United States should impose the Christian faith upon its population in public life including in its understanding and application of the law.  Many would call my definition too limited, and they would like to add several caveats to it including the following:

• The U.S. was established to be an explicitly Christian nation.[ii]
• That Christianity should have a privileged position in society.[iii]
• That it provides cover for white supremacy and racial subjugation.[iv][v]

I reject these caveats and additions, and I explain why below. However, I also believe it is important for Christians to unequivocally reject and condemn the definition which I have set forth. Why?

For two substantial reasons: First, Christianity is invitational, not impositional.  Plain and simple.  Nowhere does Jesus ever suggest that anyone be forced to become a Christian or follow Him.  In fact, when people reject Jesus, He lets them go.  He doesn’t zap them.  He doesn’t punish them.  He allows them to walk away to follow their own whims.  He focuses His attention on those who do accept the invitation to follow Him. 

Faith in Christ does not come by forcing people to follow Jesus.  Faith comes by hearing the Word of God and having one’s heart transformed by the power of the Good News of Jesus Christ.  This is our only and sole weapon of transformation and bringing of the Kingdom of God to earth.  Imposing the Christian faith by fiat does not change a heart, and the times when it has been tried have led to disaster.

Secondly, the Kingdom of God is in the world, but it is not of the world.  Martin Luther writes about this eloquently in his short piece Temporal Authority: To what Extent it Should be Obeyed, “What would be the result of an attempt to rule the world by the Gospel and the abolition of earthly law and force? It would be loosing savage beasts from their chains. The wicked, under cover of the Christian name would make unjust use of their Gospel freedom.”[vi]

The Kingdom of God operates by grace, and those who enter into it have no need of temporal law.  The Law of God is written upon their hearts, and so they actually go above and beyond what temporal authority calls for.  However, as Luther states, there are very few true Christians, so temporal law is necessary to curb sin. 

Those who seek to impose the Kingdom of God by following the belief of Christian Nationalism do not fundamentally understand Christianity, and, perhaps this is why, as the authors of Taking America Back for God found, the religiously devout do not adhere to those beliefs.[vii]

It would appear that a rejection of Christian Nationalism on these terms would be satisfactory, and we could simply bury the subject altogether; however, we cannot.  The topic actually becomes a bit muddier when one considers there are people within society, and within the church, who use Christian Nationalism as a pejorative towards those who believe that a) the United States was founded upon Christian principles and b) that Christianity should have a privileged place in society. 

Let me state unequivocally before I continue, I do not believe that Christianity should have a legally privileged place in society.  That is both unconstitutional in the U.S. and would actually fall under Christian Nationalism; however, when I speak of a privileged position in society, I speak from understanding two things: 1) That, as a Christian and particularly a Lutheran, I believe that all temporal authority comes from God, and 2) without grounding the fundamental rights of humanity as well as both values and morals, in a transcendent[viii] reality/worldview—specifically a reality/worldview that also allows respectful disagreement alongside those rights, values and morals—then a society will descend into chaos and eventually fall.  Explanation is in order.

In the United States, it is understood that every individual human being is endowed with certain rights, and the founders of our nation stated clearly in the Declaration of Independence, those rights are self-evidently endowed by the Creator.  One must ask oneself two questions: 1) Where did this idea of fundamental human rights come from? and 2) Why say that they are endowed by the Creator?

The answer to the first of these questions is: fundamental human rights including that each human had inherent value and worth came from the Judeo-Christian tradition.  This is not a made up claim.  You can read the histories and practices of ancient civilizations and find that only within the Judeo-Christian tradition does one find that each and every person has worth and value; each and every person is created in the image of God; each and every person is allotted certain protections no matter if they are an insider or an outsider.  Here is the pertinent question: can a society hold onto fundamental beliefs when throwing out the very belief system that brought those beliefs into the world?

The answer to the second of these questions is: they are endowed by the Creator because if they were endowed by society or the government, then they can be taken away at the whim of society or the government.  Rights that are endowed by the transcendent can only be removed by the transcendent.  Rights that are endowed by the immanent[ix] can easily be removed by the immanent.  The reason the Civil Rights’ Movement in the U.S. was successful is that an appeal was made to transcendent rights which superseded laws that society had implemented.  Without such transcendence, one could have simply said, “The majority has spoken.  Your rights are granted by the state, nothing more.”  There would have been no counter argument.  Another pertinent question: Can a society which removes the underpinning of human rights from a transcendent Creator maintain human rights for everyone? 

The answers to these two questions begin pointing us towards the reason Christianity should have a privileged place in society. However, there is one more addition that must be made.  Christianity not only ensures fundamental human rights and grounds those rights in a transcendent reality, it also provides a moral framework which allows for disagreement and respect towards those who hold different positions.  Christians understand that we treat fellow Christians as family–this language permeates the New Testament, but what about those who are not in our Christian family?  They are our neighbors, and we are commanded to love our neighbors as ourselves–love being agape, the Greek word for a self-sacrificial love which calls for sacrificing ourselves for the sake of our neighbor.  There is a further call to love one’s enemies–again using the same Greek word.  Hatred and demonization of enemies; of the other; of someone outside one’s preferred group, is forbidden within Christian thought.  Is there another philosophy or religion which goes so far? 

Certainly not the godless, postmodern society which is rapidly gaining ground within our culture.  Postmodern thought has removed the idea of transcendence and has made everything immanent, and, unfortunately, even some within the church buy into this particular philosophical framework.  It is much to society’s detriment.

Let us return to the opening story of this article: Santino Burrola and his subsequent firing for wanting to stop thieves.  What philosophy/worldview undergirds the idea that thieves should be allowed to take goods unchecked?  What philosophy/ worldview undergirds the idea that those who seek to stop stealing should be punished?  It’s not the Christian worldview.  It’s not the worldview which undergirded the United States from its inception.  There is something else at play.  There is another stream of thought which is being privileged. In this case, it is the postmodern worldview/philosophy which somehow has accepted theft and demeaned those who try to stop it.  It would seem self-evident that privileging this philosophy/worldview is not good for society in the long run.  In fact, it will lead to chaos. 

As the great Catholic apologist G.K. Chesterson once said, “When men choose not to believe in God, they do not thereafter believe in nothing, they then become capable of believing in anything.”[x]  A culture or society which does not believe in God, or at least have human rights rooted in a transcendent Creator, will then become capable of believing anything including that theft should be allowed and those who seek to protect another’s property should be punished.

It would behoove those who try to lump those who strongly adhere to the beliefs that the United States was founded upon Christian principles and that Christianity should have a privileged place in society to understand why we say such things and not simply dismiss us by pejoratively calling us Christian Nationalists.  We’re not.  We’re Christians, Lutherans, and citizens who love our country and what it stands for.  We want our country to be a place where justice, fairness, and freedom thrive.  We are convinced that in order for this to happen, we must have a shared understanding of human rights, values, and morals; and we are convinced by history, philosophy, and faith that this will be impossible without this being grounded in a transcendent reality which allows for disagreement.

Is there a better grounding than Christianity?  I don’t think so.

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[i] https://www.cbsnews.com/colorado/news/king-soopers-employee-fired-video-theft/

[ii] https://sas.rutgers.edu/news-a-events/news/newsroom/faculty/3406-religious-nationalism

[iii] Ibid.

[iv] https://www.elca.org/News-and-Events/7996

[v]  I do not deal with this caveat in the article as it is not a theological point; however, this Pew article (https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2022/10/27/views-of-the-u-s-as-a-christian-nation-and-opinions-about-christian-nationalism/) shows that even within the African-American and Hispanic communities a majority of members of those communities support the statement that the founders of the U.S. meant for this to be a Christian Nation.  Not only that, the majority of African-American Protestants believe that the U.S. should be a Christian nation.  This caveat is actually not based in reality, but is based in an attempt to simply discredit Christian Nationalism by tying it to white supremacy without actually dealing with any arguments.

[vi] Luther, Martin. Temporal Authority: To What Extent it Should be Obeyed.  Luther’s Works Volume 45. P.91.

[vii] https://learn.elca.org/jle/taking-america-back-for-god-christian-nationalism-in-the-united-states-and-andrew-l-whitehead-and-samuel-l-perry/

[viii] Something that is above and beyond or outside ourselves and this universe as we know it.

[ix] Those things found within the universe as we know it.

[x] https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/44015-when-men-choose-not-to-believe-in-god-they-do

“Keeping an International Perspective While Living in

an Increasingly Secular Culture”

The signs were there, even before this pandemic.  North American culture seems to be moving toward an increasingly secular worldview at breakneck speed.  One particular moment when this sank in for me was the finding, by a large-scale Pew Research Institute survey, that the offspring of Boomers in the U.S. were only half as likely to attend church as when their Boomer parents were young.  That is a dramatic change in just one generation.  And this was before Covid started negatively impacting church attendance across the country.

Consider an illustration — from contemporary media — about how Americans are now living in a truly secular age.  It comes from the HBO drama series “Silicon Valley.”  One tech company employee explains to a co-worker why their company’s chief executive just “outed” another employee as a believer.  “You can be openly polyamorous, and people here will call you brave.  You can put microdoses of LSD in your cereal, and people will call you a pioneer.  But the one thing you cannot be is a Christian.”

Admittedly there are days when I despair that the Body of Christ is at risk of becoming completely inconsequential, a relic of the past.  But that was before I read an article in the most recent issue of the Fuller Seminary quarterly magazine.  The title was The Strange New Habitat of the Global Church, and was written by Professor Veli-Matti Karkkainen, a Finnish (and Lutheran) member of the Fuller faculty.  He shares, in this article, the latest information on the global Body of Christ.  

As you probably already know, the epicenter of the universal church is definitely moving south.  Well, the pace of that movement is only accelerating.  Some details from this article:

a) The current number of Christians worldwide is 2.4 billion. (That’s with a “b.”)

b) The great majority of Christians now live in Africa, Asia and Latin America.

c) By 2050, only about one-fifth of Christians will be non-Hispanic whites.  Karkkainen quotes a book from Oxford University Press, The Coming of Global Christianity: The Next Christendom.  “Even now a typical contemporary Christian is a woman living in a village in Nigeria or in a Brazilian favela or a young, often poor, person anywhere in the megacities of the Global South.”

d) An interesting quote from Karkkainen himself: “With the shift of the majority of Christians to the Global South, with societies and cultures more traditional than those in Europe and North America, conservative and traditional mindsets will be strengthened globally even when theological liberalism and pluralism reign in Western academia.”  (You might want to read that quote again.)

e) Of the over 200 million migrants in the world, about one-half are Christians, with the majority of them in the U.S. and Europe.

f) Among American ethnic group ministries it is Hispanic churches that are experiencing the greatest growth.

g) Black churches in the U.S. continue to grow.

h) From a global perspective, Karkkainen writes, “Secularism has not won the day.  Over against the overwhelming majority of the world’s population self-identifying as adherents to a particular religion, only about 15% label themselves as religiously unaffiliated.”  Fifteen percent.  That is approximately one billion; compared with 2.4 billion Christ followers.

The practical implication of the above information is that foreign mission support by you and your congregation is as vital as ever.  (Many of our Boomer Lutherans currently have significant disposable income and assets; most likely over and above what your congregations needs from them to “make ends meet.”)  Also, here in the U.S. there might be incredible opportunities for your congregation to reach out, in particular, to the Hispanic population; either directly or by financially supporting effective Hispanic ministries.

     So the Body of Christ is, even in this secular age, alive and well.  So take heart!  Millions of people around the world are still responding to the Gospel.

Editor’s Note: Ethan Zimmerman is a junior at Ohio Northern University where he heard the call to become a pastor. He plans to attend seminary after graduation. His grandfather, the Rev. Jerry Rhea, a NALC pastor, has encouraged Ethan to apply to the NALS.

Recently, I was sitting in my car after class, listening to music on random shuffle, and eating Taco Bell, when the song, “Hands On” from Kanye West’s album, JESUS IS KING, started playing. I sat there listening to it, really listening, instead of passively enjoying it as I do with most music, and I had a revelation.

First, let me give you some context about Kanye West. For those who don’t know, he is a famous hip hop/rap star who has written many songs that hit the top of the charts; many of those songs are quite vulgar. Recently, Kanye took a 180 degree turn and wrote a gospel album. It received both surprised and mixed reviews from the secular music world and from Christians — many people thought he had lost his mind. Kanye is currently married to Kim Kardashian, a popular reality TV star. They recently split and a divorce appears imminent.

Now why do I bring this up? Why did I entitle this, “Pray for Kanye”? I did so because I have something in common with Kanye. Over the past year or so, I have been doing a lot of introspection, analyzing my life and the path that God has set me on. I am a junior in college and plan to go to seminary to become a pastor. My time in university has been quite formative as I transitioned from childhood into adulthood while growing in my faith. I have made decisions that cost me friends because I didn’t want to do things or go along with decisions that would jeopardize or go against my faith. It has been quite the perilous journey, but I would have it no other way for, as Paul says in Romans 5:3-5, “More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.” (ESV).

What I see in common with Kanye and myself is that Kanye is going through a formative time in his life too and his faith is also under attack. I am certain that his faith is the reason for the criticism that he received for making this gospel album and for the split between him and his wife. Before Kanye converted and made his faith public, he had it all: money, power and a reality TV star wife. To the world, what more could a man desire? His decision to go public with his faith and to step away from making vulgar hip-hop is a decision that could very well jeopardize what the world sees as success.

These “Hands On” lyrics express Kanye’s worries and anxieties:

“Told people God was my mission

What have you been hearin’ from the Christians?

They’ll be the first one to judge me

Make it feel like nobody love me.”

To feel alone, because people don’t like that I am following God, is something that I’ve felt before and it is quite the agonizing feeling. I found Kanye’s plea profound as he rapped, “Somebody pray for me.” As someone who has been in his shoes, I can’t help but empathize with him.

There has been a lot of controversy surrounding Kanye West and his faith, from the secular world not liking it, calling him crazy, to various Christians criticizing him and calling his faith fake. I think we, the Church, the disciples of Christ, should forget all of that and do what Kanye asks of us — pray for him. He is going through an extremely difficult time and he is at a fork in the road in his walk with God. He could abandon it all, return to the secular world, dance to Satan’s tune, do what man thinks is right, or he could persevere and continue to walk with God, even if the world thinks differently, even if it costs him everything he had before.

Regardless of what you think of Kanye West, I encourage you to join me in praying for him. Pray that he follows the Lord, uses his fame and popularity to spread the Gospel, and that his heart would be good soil.

I leave you with a verse I find encouraging as a reminder that there is always power in prayer. From the second half of James 5:16, “The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working” (ESV).

Click here to read an interview Kanye had regarding his faith and here to read another article about the controversy created by his album JESUS IS KING.

“Do nothing from rivalry or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves.” (St. Paul, writing in Philippians 2:3)

As our nation faces another shocking set of murders, it’s good to pause and remember why Christians walk a different path.  After all, it’s one thing to know your morals, and quite another to know why they’re your morals.  Why should we reject rivalry and conceit?

We can surely see the danger of both sins.  Rivalry led to the first murder on earth: Cain killing his brother Abel because Abel had the more acceptable sacrifice.  Conceit abetted the worse murder on earth: Jesus on the cross, arrested by those who thought themselves better than him.  The spirit of rivalry and pride—the hatred of our neighbor—lurks beneath every murder.  

But knowing a sin’s potential danger is not enough.  Our sinful hearts can quickly imagine an exception for ourselves, a justification for sin that makes us imagine that we can manage the risk. Better to know the true foundation of our morality: God gave His Son for sinners.   

Because God stands at the center of all reality, that sacrificial love for all people stands there, too.  God counted sinners more significant than Himself, so significant that He gave His life for theirs.  Being His children, and thus desiring to live in harmony with Him, we follow on that same path: no rivalry, no conceit, no murder, but only loving neighbors as our true selves.  

LET US PRAY: Forgive me, Lord.  I’d rather love myself than my neighbor, and so I do, on most days.  I am not You, Lord, as You know full well, and I often forget.  Yet since it is Your glory to have compassion on the sinner, have compassion on me.  By Your Holy Spirit grant that I would learn to find my true self not in myself, but in Your Son, and so also in His neighbors, and thus forgetting myself, love You and neighbor alike; through Christ Your Son.  Amen

Pastor Steven K. Gjerde

Zion, Wausau