What a few Afghan missionaries taught me....
The Christian faith is not a club membership designed to help me sleep at night, comfortable in my salvation.
A few days ago, at an undisclosed location, I got to participate as a volunteer at a conference of Afghani Christians, Afghani missionaries, and the people who support them. There were Afghan immigrants from Switzerland, S. Korea, Canada, and all parts of the U.S. I heard stories that gave me great hope. If you have come across the FB stories about people in Iran having dreams about Jesus and coming to faith because of those dreams, they are true. I heard two such stories from Christians who became Christians as a result of Jesus coming to them in a dream. They had no contact with Christians prior to their dreams. They converted in places where saying the name of Jesus could easily lead to persecution and even death, yet they persisted in organinzing secret Bible studies and learning how to pray. They tracked down others to share the good news at great risk to themselves. The networking is truly a thing to behold that can only be explained as having the hand of God behind it.
It reminded me that the "just me and Jesus" version of faith so dominant in (and unique to) the U.S. is not only unBiblical, but it misses the main point of our faith: mission. The Christian faith is not a club membership designed to help me sleep at night, comfortable in my salvation. Our faith is a mission and every believer has a commission to bring people into God's family, so that the kingdom on earth will eventually reflect the kingdom, "on earth as it is in heaven."
It's a tall order. I too often fail at this call, and meeting these incredible people brought that so close to home. Below is a video testimony from one man I met, Samir. I sat for dinner at his table with his wife, brother, and three little children. I got to hold his sweet babiy and listen to him tell me his story of escaping Afghanistan in the late 90s when the Mujadeen and Taliban were in civil war after the Soviet pull out. His mother was the one in his family who had one of these dreams. I met others who left Afghanistan at the different periods of history, but this one just happens to also be available on You Tube.
I'm sure Samir would have rather enjoyed his meal instead of answering all my questions, but early in the conversation he mentioned that he was a Poli Sci major in college (just as I was) and how he challenged his Marxist professors at the Canadian university where he attended. What ensued was an hour of non stop political philosophy and theology dialogue. At the end of the conversation, I apologized for keeping the conversation so focused on politics and religion. I told him that my Substack was called, “Impolite Company” because the two forbidden topics in “polite comapany” just happen to be the two things I care most about! He declared, “I promise you, Afghans love nothing more to talk about than politics and religion!” Good thing for us!
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