I kind’a scratch my head at news like this and bow my head and pray for these folks.
We all should be concerned about what is happening here at home in America.
I asked Dr. Richard Mansfield of New Beginnings Church in ABQ to write about this Billboard campaign.
From Dr. Mansfield: It’s interesting that the American Atheists are first mocking the church for believing what we do and then in the same breathe, they are wishing us a Happy Holiday all the while not believing in the very reason for the holiday.
We shouldn’t be surprised about this billboard or their attitude towards God or the people of God. Jesus told us the the world would hate us just as it had hated him.
Thank you Dr. Mansfield, Merry Christmas to you and Cindy and all the folks at New Beginnings!
I like the New Beginnings billboard much better!!!!
From Pastor Randall Floyd of Clayton, NM Assembly of God:
While most of you reading this have probably heard about the billboard on I-25 in Albuquerque, let me remind you of what it says (I hope I quote this correctly):
“Skip church this week; it’s all fake news.”
Does this disturb me? Make me angry? Cause my “righteous indignation” to rise up? Well, yes, of course. But why do we act so surprised when sinners act like sinners? Think about it – what do runners do? They run. What do singers do? They sing. What do sinners do? They sin. So my first comment here is: STOP ACTING SO SURPRISED BY ACTIONS LIKE THIS! It’s simply sinners doing what sinners do.
My second comment is this: What I have spent the last 38+ years proclaiming is GOOD NEWS, not fake news. More good has been done in the name Jesus Christ and the Gospel than in any other name in history. And Jesus’ example and the Gospel should dictate our response to such an event as this. It must be truthful, firm, unwavering, and SATURATED in GRACE! Anything less plays right into their hands.
Finally, could it be that you and I are culpable in this matter? Let me explain. Could it be that we are guilty of giving these people their ammunition to make such a statement? How so, you ask? By claiming to be “Christian”; by saying, doing, and behaving one way in church and in the presence of other “Christians” and pastors, but living a life in total opposition to those claims the rest of the time. If what you live on Sunday morning within the four walls of the church building and what you do the rest of the week on not congruent, you are a hypocrite, a sinner, and you are the ammunition needed for people to make the statement that has been made on this billboard. For if the “good news” has not transformed your life, but you keep claiming it has, then what you are proclaiming really is “fake news”. It’s the same thing I’ve heard all my life – you must walk the walk if you’re going to talk the talk. So, please, stop living a life of “fake news”, and allow your life to be transformed by the GOOD NEWS – and live it daily.
Many Pastors are getting discouraged….This is from Pastor Steve Hickey a friend from Sioux Falls, SD……
It is a tough gig. Lots of blessings, and burdens. I was blessed in such a great church and knew it. Some churches chew pastors up and spit them out. Compared to those settings, I was spoiled. But there were really painful things too. Once a lady called and spewed venom and when I said I didn’t deserve it and complained about this sort of hardship in ministry she said… “You knew what you signed up for.” Actually, no I didn’t. I was 18 nearly 19 and God pulled me out of my mess and I was alive again and said yes to his leading. That led to youth ministry, pastoring, church planting. I said yes to God not having a clue what I was really signing up for. No need for God to give details really. If you say yes to him you can trust he knows what he’s up to.
From Dr. Jim Denison at www.fggam.org
According to Gallup, 95 percent of Americans celebrate Christmas, but only 51 percent describe the holiday as “strongly religious” for them. One in four American adults say December 25 is simply a cultural holiday, not a religious holy day. Only 49 percent of those who celebrate Christmas believe that the Virgin birth is historically accurate.
How should we respond to the escalating secularity of this season?
Using a pagan ship to witness to Caesar
Acts 28 tells the famous story of Paul’s voyage to Rome. As I was reading the narrative yesterday, I noticed this irony: the apostle was carried to Rome on “a ship of Alexandria, with the twin gods as a figurehead” (v. 11). These “twin gods” were Castor and Pollux, the twin sons of Zeus. They were believed to be deities that protected sailors at sea.
Such idolatry was anathema to the Jewish people. Saul the Pharisee would likely have refused to sail on a vessel dedicated to pagan gods. But Paul the apostle knew that he had a higher purpose. God had called him to be “a chosen instrument of mine to carry my name before the Gentiles and kings” (Acts 9:15). Before his shipwreck at Malta, God said to him, “You must stand trial before Caesar” (Acts 27:24).
Now the Lord had provided a way for Paul to fulfill his call. And the apostle was willing to use the things of the world to accomplish the things of God.
This was Paul’s pattern throughout his ministry. In Athens, he used the pagan altar to “the unknown god” (Acts 17:23) to introduce the one true God. After he was rejected at the synagogue in Ephesus, he “withdrew from them and took the disciples with him, reasoning daily in the hall of Tyrannus” (Acts 19:9).
Through this “secular” strategy, the apostle reached far more people than if he had limited his ministry to the “sacred” synagogue. As a result, “all the residents of Asia heard the word of the Lord, both Jews and Greeks” (v. 10).
Lost people don’t know they are lost
How would Paul approach the secularization of Christmas in our day? I believe he would offer this reminder: most lost people don’t know they are lost. They may be as religious as the Romans who dedicated their ship to false gods. Or they may not be religious at all.
Either way, they are deceived: “The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned” (1 Corinthians 2:14).
Here we learn that most secular people who ignore Jesus at Christmas don’t know better. They don’t intend to insult our Lord or his followers. They celebrate the secular traditions of the season with no real knowledge of its spiritual significance.
I know because I was one of them.
Growing up, my family never attended religious services at Christmas or any other season of the year. We never gave a moment’s thought to Jesus’ birth at Christmas.
But that didn’t mean we intended to insult those who did. I wasn’t antagonistic to the gospel—I was oblivious to it. I heard the truth about Jesus only after two men knocked on my apartment door when I was fifteen years old and invited me to ride their bus to their church. Prior to that invitation, I was lost but didn’t know it.
If Christians had responded to my secular Christmas observances by treating me as their enemy, they would have pushed me further from Jesus rather than drawing me closer to him. Instead, members of that church reached out to me with loving compassion. They understood my lack of spiritual knowledge and taught me what I needed to know.
I will quite literally be grateful to them forever.
How can we reach people who are where I was? One way is to use secular holidays to teach spiritual truth.
For instance, Martin Luther was the first to add lights to Christmas trees; he did so to point to Jesus as the “light of the world” (John 8:12). Holly wreaths with their sharp, pointed leaves were chosen to represent the crown of thorns Jesus wore on the cross; their small red berries symbolize his drops of blood. Evergreen wreaths likewise signify eternal life in him.
Nearly every Christmas tradition can be used to share timeless truth. If our Lord could use a ship dedicated to pagan gods to bring the gospel to Rome, he can use this secular season to bring Christ to our culture.
Jim Denison, Ph.D., speaks and writes on cultural and contemporary issues. He produces a daily column which is distributed to more than 113,000 subscribers in 203 countries. He also writes for The Dallas Morning News, The Christian Post, Common Call, and other publications.
