Community

This afternoon I was privileged to meet with a bishop from the United Church of Pakistan and one of his key men.  The purpose of the meeting was to explore how we could be of service to them and they to us.  If you have been following the news - well you would have to be following it really closely - you know that Muslims are burning Christian houses and murdering Christians in Lahore and Gujranwala.  The charge from the Muslims is blasphemy stemming from both Christmas and Easter worship.

As we talked this afternoon some common themes emerged.  The challenges were different but the themes were the same.  Believers in Lahore, Gujranwala, and Tulsa have to be grounded in the Word of God.  That means that they have the ability to sit down with a Bible and a blank sheet of paper and dig in for themselves.  They have to be able to know how to do this on their own.  Why?  One never knows in the midst of a world that is under the dominion of evil when the leadership may be removed.  We are all to walk with Christ individually through the Bible.  We cannot function as apprentices of Christ on the basis of someone else's relationship or knowledge of Christ.  It has to be ours.  When suffering comes - it will - we have to be able to stand strong against that tide.  The only way to do that is to have deep personal roots in God's Word.

So we stand in community with believers in Pakistan in that we both need the same things.  We need to be in the Word and we need to pray for each other.