2 lists

Last month I was privileged enough to get to hear my all time favorite author speak while he was in Australia. I was most challenged by a story he told centering around his experience at a Christian youth camp. He had asked the kids to tell him all the issues their friends were most concerned about and their response was things like: Climate change, extinction of species, aids, terrorism, world food shortage, etc. He then asked them to tell him all the major issues their church was focused on. They said things like: How and when the world was going to end, style of worship, electric guitars and drums in church, speaking in tongues, ordination of women, getting people to come to church, money etc. Ever since, he has been greatly troubled with the fact that the second list has absolutely nothing to do with the first. His point to the audience was “How is this possible when the mandate given to those who follow God was to be a blessing to all nations? Surely if Jesus was here today He would have something to say about the things that most concern the people of the world.”
He went on to show us the 4 major crises in the world at the moment:
1.The crisis of the PLANET – We live unsustainably and are destroying the earth as a result;
2.The crisis of POVERTY – The small percentage of those who have the resources are getting richer, while the majority who have nothing are getting poorer;
3.The crisis of PEACE – Tensions are mounting between the “have's” and “have not's” resulting in increasing conflict around the world;
4.The crisis of PURPOSE – Instead of actively resolving the above crises, the worlds main religions are actually making them worse.

President JFK once said, “We have the means to end world poverty...all we lack is the will.” Religion has let us down in this regard because instead of painting an incredibly compelling and beautiful picture of the way life was meant to be, it has become distracted and consumed with pursuing selfish things which has only added to the worlds problems.
We need to understand that Jesus didn't come to start a new religion, but to tell a very different story about how this life was supposed to work. The simple reality is that the message of Jesus really is as relevant and needed today as it has ever been and it speaks straight to the heart of all 4 crises. Jesus transforms hearts and minds and so deals with the core issues of pride, greed, consumerism, materialism, selfishness, and evil...not by condemning us, but by appealing to who we were meant to be and calling us into a higher place where we have the opportunity to join Jesus' revolution of love to the ends of the earth. This leads people not to do what is best for themselves but what is best for everyone. This is the hope for the world