BrianIngraham.com | ASPIRE

Why, within a hundred years, did such a small country, with a small population, produce so many missionaries? 150 years ago the people of Scotland were leading the way globally per capita in world missions. Iain Murry suggests that these key ingredients made this significant nation massively potent for the Kingdom of God internationally.

• “Scottish missionaries came from homes and backgrounds where simple living, hard work, ready sacrifice and earnest devotion were the everyday experiences of youth.”
• “Nominal Christians, who care little of their own souls, are not going to be concerned for others, least of all for people whom they never saw… New Zeal to take the gospel out was born out of a new experience of its power.”
• Returning to faith in Scripture as the Word of God. (“The proof that faith in Scripture and its message is supreme in the motivation of mission can be seen in what has happened when that faith is absent.”)

Where are the people who will be mocked by the divinity students for not being highly critical of the Bible, but who instead have faith in it as God’s very words? Where are the ones who escape from nominality, and zealously exude a love for God and humanity? Where are the ones who refuse to loose hope for their God rejecting city? In short, where are the hero’s? Are there any left? Who will rise up?

Got to love Scotland. When it comes to the tobacco industry they don’t mince words. On one side, “Smoking Kills.” On the other side of the same box “Smoking can cause a slow and painful death.”

A friend of mine gave me this box after he finished them off. You have to shake your head. It couldn’t be more clearly spelt out for him and yet he sucks them down anyways. Isn’t it crazy how we do that? How we ignore the truths we don’t want to believe, no matter how clearly they might be laid out, to our own destruction?

Thanks to Christ’s Church Federal Way I have been doing some extra reading on the history of Scottish Christianity (reformation to present.) I think the most appalling, yet most encouraging theme of Scottish history is the complete abandonment of the faith and subsequent reviving. I was shocked to discover that the church has had other times in its short history far more dead, and desperate than today. I find encouragement in the fact that in dark days God revives his dying bride through the passionate faith of a few. Historically speaking, it is when people return to reading the bible themselves that the church returns in power.

Some themes in the revivals in Scotland:

• A return to the Bible in the pulpit and in the populace.
• A reliance on the power of the Spirit returning people to prayer.
• An anointed person or group sacrificially bringing a spark to a dead faith in a given region.
• Refusal to quite even though year after year revival teeters on the edge of total collapse and utter ruin.
• Powerful conviction leading to repentance leading to ‘unreasonable’ passion.

I see the stirrings of good things at our church. I see the pulpit and populace being bibliocentric, and our church growing in prayer. A good start. Time and tenacity will see if what is beginning will bring a reviving in our city. What I haven’t seen much of is deep conviction leading to repentance. I see repentance, but not by the kind of deep brokenness that has characterized other revivings. Then again, that seems to be the last piece that sweeps in quickly when everything else is in place. I wouldn’t be surprised to see our city revived in the next few years.

We need a reviving in our land, the kind of reviving we have only heard about. Is history in the process of repeating itself?

What a special Sunday!

This Sunday we baptized Richard. He came to Re:Hope last February and then gave his life to Jesus. He has been consistently growing and showing the real fruit of a transformed life. He has been reading through the bible and going through a “Christianity Explored” class. God has truly got a hold of his life and it is evident by how he lives.

Seeing lives change, seeing people come to Jesus, seeing people make big steps to follow and obey is incredible. One thing I’ve noticed about baptism, sure it is a huge thing for the person getting baptized, but it is also a big deal for the people of the church. It reminds people God IS at work in their church and whatever the current challenges are it is worth it because God is moving.

God is being so good to us, may His movement always be the mark of His church. Do you see God at work around you? He is.