Although I am called to be a revivalist, God’s first calling to me was to work with teenagers. This I later realized was a preparation time of my life, which ended up lasting over 25 years. It demanded that I continually understand the ever-changing culture of the American youth. If a youth pastor/leader does not understand the culture of the times in which he or she is working, they will be ineffective in reaching today’s young people. Missionaries are another obvious group that have to understand the culture of the foreign country in which they are called to work. Canadian Donald Richardson wrote a book called “Eternity in Their Hearts”, available online through “Thriftbooks.com”, in which he revealed the secrets of his success as a life long missionary. In his book, Richardson does a beautiful job describing how God, through prayer, taught him that, as Romans 12:3b states “God has dealt to every man the measure of faith”,(KJV) every culture has the basics of the gospel hidden in it. He realized that as a missionary his job was to study closely the culture of whatever people group he was trying to reach in order to discover the basics of the gospel hidden in that culture. Once he had done so, he could then use that knowledge to introduce the gospel to them the most effectively.
As an Op-ed contributor to the Christian Post newspaper, I was given the opportunity to be a contributing author to a new book Our Right to Believe, recently published by the Christian Post’s subsidiary Vibe Press. In chapter three I go into revealed specifics concerning what I have learned through the years about the post Christian culture of modern-day America. Due to my years as a revivalist, traveling and preaching wherever the doors were open, maintaining a diligent prayer life in order to seek the heart of God, and constantly paying close attention to the changes that God was helping me observe over a lifetime, I believe I was able to make an effective and conclusive evaluation. In chapter three of Our Right to Believe you can read what I perceive is one of the greatest hindrances to revival in America and also what we should do about it. In the book chapter I go into great detail as I explain why many Americans really do not want revival at all, and what we can to change that mindset!
To read those findings, I encourage you to purchase a copy being offered every day in the Christian Post, but allow me to give you a tidbit from my chapter. Millions, both in America, and around the world, have been strongly affected over the decades by Dr. Benjamin Spock’s book on childcare, called The Common Sense Book on Baby and Childcare. It was released in 1949 one year after the end of World War II, eventually selling over 50 million copies. By 2011 it had been translated into 39 languages. After it came out, the book was widely criticized by the Christian community as it clearly contradicted many different concepts of biblical instruction and also renounced any form of corporal punishment for wrongdoing. His liberal instructions were “put a child to bed when he is tired and feed him when he is hungry.”
Twenty years later when a generation of millions of those undisciplined children became young adults resenting authority becoming the hippy movement Spock renounced some of his own teachings and made several changes in his philosophies. However, by then the damage had been done.
Soon to follow came the concept of Secular Humanism which fit perfectly with the thinking of the generation of “me first” children which had been raised by parents who had absorbed Dr. Spock’s philosophies. Secular Humanism, which has been accepted as a form of religion in America, put the god of “self” on the throne of one’s life and postulated that, since we were a capitalistic society, everyone should follow their own dreams and in so doing find success and happiness.
The established church began to be affected as well because many Christian parents were not warned that Spock’s teachings and Secular Humanism were eroding their biblical foundations out from under them as they raised their families or, if warned, simply rejected the warnings. Church leaders in many circles felt that they had a new perspective on the gospel message, which meshed perfectly with the “me first” mindset and the “hyper-faith” movement was born. Preachers who proclaimed the message of the cross and self-denial did not fit this “new revelation” and so were widely rejected. It was quickly noted that people would flock to churches that taught them how to receive “the blessings of God” in their lives and finances. As I have preached for years a false non-authoritative grandfather “god” replaced our authoritative “Father God”.
Last week, as the election tallies were mounting up and speculation was all over the place about who was going to be the next president, I went up to my church as I often do to spend time alone at night praying at the altar. I thought that I had finished bringing all the things that were near and dear to my heart to God in prayer, and was preparing to get up and go home. As I was concluding my prayer session by praying for the Trump family, a thought suddenly hit me, which brought me to tears. It was not about who had won the election. It was about the fact that at that point at least 49% of the American people appeared to have voted for a grandpa image president. In so doing were voting out an authoritative image president. My heart broken by this sudden insight, poured out tears and deep intercession for our nation. It seemed the same trends were being applied similar to the church!. All I could think of was this verse; “And He gave them their request, but sent leanness to their soul.” Psalm 106:15 (NKJV)
