I am the fire.
During my military service in Europe, one of the best experiences for me was the NATO Chapel. Everything else pales in comparison. Never mind the complicated politics of how AFCENT HQ in those days divvied up managing the chapel, the largest contingent was the Protestant branch of chapel services. It was an excellent training ground in how to have a strong Christian community without denominational peculiarities.
This was a military provision, so you had to find common ground or you got nothing. The only “home team” was being military. Since this was everyone’s shared identity, none of us expected that our denominational eccentricities would dominate in any way. That was during my time there; near the end of my tour, it was clobbered by an extremely powerful group of Lutheran officers who took over the Protestant operations with zeal. They steamrolled everyone else, and the previous community dissolved.
But during their time in the sun, there was a very strong evangelical community operating out of the NATO Chapel there. It was one of the high points of my life of ministry. It’s not that I was such a firm evangelical at the time, already moving away from that, but that there was a very strong undercurrent of genuine faith, of convictions over reason. Nobody expected total agreement on all points of doctrine; we all just wanted to serve the Lord together. We found a generic Christianity that worked.
This is in essence what I sincerely wish I could inculcate in my readers. I’ve seen with my own eyes how it can be done. I can tell you that the “heart-led” language doesn’t travel well, but talking about “convictions over reason” found a very hungry audience. They made me the adult Sunday School teacher for several years running. When our chaplain was gone, I even preached from the pulpit a few times. I was also the song leader for a few years, and youth director for a couple more. It’s not that I was so wonderful at these things, but that they were hungry for any spiritual leadership, and I was on fire with a faith certainty they wanted for themselves.
This is how we are going to touch lives during the next few years, at the least. We must find ways to expose our shalom to others. When we do, they will want what we have. There is nothing about this Radix Fidem covenant that seeks to displace the organized Christian religion anywhere. We are focused on the hearts of people. It’s an invisible Kingdom we are pursuing here.
I’ve seen what God can do for a community willing to serve Him. I want you to see it with your hearts. It’s not up to me to decide what comes after I pass on, and I refuse to try. What I really want is to see something solid in the Spirit Realm manifested among us, something that lives its own life in us. I’ve seen how infectious it is. Spreading it takes care of itself. It’s not what you are or what you do, but who you are.
So I’ll keep appealing for people to become the fire that will change hearts.
