Window on the
World
Window on the
World
By Randal Dick
Superintendent of Missions
Remember for a moment the horrible surge of fear we experienced when we were children and got lost. Who would care for us? Would we ever again snuggle under the warmth of the covers, protected by mom and dad?
What about the feeling we experience as parents when our kids wander off in the mall? When we miss them, there is that momentary dread that someone has snatched them. There are few things more dreadful to consider than a child left alone.
Yet, according to a report released by the United Nations, more than 100 million children are growing up alone.
An Associated Press story dated Feb. 24 quoted the report: "Poverty has imposed a heavy price on children, leaving babies behind without mothers, forcing children onto the streets to work and depriving millions of others of the security of a family.... Childhood itself is denied to them or, at least, badly damaged. `Whether they are orphaned, unaccompanied, living on the street or working in servitude, their aloneness is at the heart of their predicament,' the report says."
Stop and soak up the horror of that for a minute. When flying into Los Angeles you can see the city lights stretch for more than 50 miles. Yet, those 50 miles of lights illuminate only about 11 million people. In other words, if you were to gather all the children in this world who are alone, it would take nine cities the size of Los Angeles to contain them.
God is sensitive to the suffering of each little one who cries alone in the night. Yet, what he sees is not only 100 million physical children growing up without a parent, but also 4.2 billion precious children of all ages, trying to make it on their own spiritually without the support of a spiritual Mother.
This breaks his heart. It also should help us grasp the magnitude of Jesus' sacrifice. God hears the cries of his children and feels their pain as the earth spins through morning to night.
He sees the suffering that being cut off from him has caused his children. It was to end this spiritual holocaust that Jesus came. It is because of the orphans, both physical and spiritual, that he will return.
The Associated Press article goes on to say that one reason the number of children left on their own is increasing is because their mothers are dying at a greatly increased rate.
"War in the 1990s has separated one million children from their families, the report said. `We started out the 20th century where the victims of war were the military,' UNICEF executive director Carol Bellamy told a news conference in London. `We've ended up the 20th century where the victims of war are women and children.' "
Spiritually speaking we also have a problem of dying spiritual mothers (church congregations).
According to Peter Brierley of the Christian Research Institute, more than 500 churches in the United Kingdom ceased to exist last year. Consider, too, the findings of George Barna, whose research indicates that in the United States from 50 to 70 churches cease to exist every week. That is a high mortality rate.
The sheer magnitude and accelerated rate of congregational mortality in the West point to an underlying health problem. It is essential that we, of the WCG, recognize the symptoms of disease to avoid becoming a casualty.
For example, do we care more about where we meet than whether the truly spiritually needy are able to meet with us? Too many spiritual mothers today spend more of their energy maintaining their own well being than they do ending the problem of their Husband's (Jesus Christ) children growing up alone.
It is one of the most common sins of Christianity, both historic and present, that we interpret the church to be only for our benefit. We desire a stable and pleasant environment where we can go to worship and be encouraged. We desire fellowship only with friends of like mind.
It is a fundamental truth that just as churches are born, and mature to become spiritual mothers, so spiritual mothers get sick and sometimes die.
It is also a fact in the Western world that we are in a time when spiritual mothers are dying at an unprecedented rate--and the indications are that the death rate of spiritual mothers will rise dramatically in the coming decade.
According to Eddie Gibbs, professor of church growth at Fuller Theological Seminary, all spiritual mothers (churches) have a charge from Christ to rescue, nurture and educate his lost children.
Whenever a church deviates from this prime directive, or ceases to give Christ's imperative top priority, the church has nowhere to go but into a downward spiral of (probably well-intentioned) self-absorption.
They begin to make evangelism one of the ministries instead of one of the primary reasons for their existence. They only look forward to coming to church on weekends instead of being the church all week.
This process Dr. Gibbs describes leads to spiritual malnutrition, eventual sickness and death of the congregation.
I must admit, I have visited congregations where I went away heavy hearted, fearing that the congregation was so unhealthy that it may constitute a dying mother.
The good news is that in recent months I have seen and heard many more individuals and groups, especially in the WCG, who seem to have awakened to the knowledge of their calling. They are determined to recover and live. They are once again expressing the motherly instincts--determined that with God's help, the lost children around them will not continue to walk alone.
1. This little boy is an orphan
2. This young man (center) is a spiritual orphan. He wandered for hours looking lost and
alone, watching life pass him by. He would probably tell you that he is spiritually alone.
3. Some of the 100 million orphaned children, grouping together, trying to survive.
4. These men group together too. They may not look poor or lonely, but they may be
spiritual orphans whose needs are great.
Copyright © Worldwide Church of God, 2000