In the past such words as “mystery, wonder, the unknown, and awe” immediately raised red flags for hearers.  Such concepts were seen as holes or limits on one’s ability to demonstrate the rationality of propositional claims.  Subjective experiences that express mystery and wonder today are not only welcome elements of Christian witness but are now often seen as evidence for the personal relevancy of faith to our hearers.

True wonder, or the state in which a person is filled with a sense of awe, comes from experiences with the Divine, albeit an inescapably subjective experience.  In fact, it is this articulation of wonder and its associated outward expressions (e.g. fear, immobilization, spontaneous worship, brokenness, demonstrative repentance…) that mark the unique experiences of women and men throughout the Scripture when confronted with the Divine.  Two great examples of this come from Mark 5 in the exorcism of the Gerasene demoniac and the resurrection of Jairus’ daughter.

Our experience of God may not always be as acute as our mountain top or defining encounters with God but true Christians should be marked as people of wonder for we relate to God in an on-going fashion.  Our relationship with God should go beyond rituals such as prayer, Bible study, and fasting and should include actual encounters with the Divine.  This is the one universal thread that draws the Biblical narrative together across characters from Genesis to Revelation.  This should come as no surprise since God is in the business of encountering His creation.  Such encounters are inherently “alien” and produce the kind of reactions we see in the Biblical narrative (again, fear, flight, spontaneous worship…).  While it is true that we are God’s offspring, He is our Father, there is something so terrifying about the Divine presence that we are left with few voluntary, rational responses in the immediate moment.

When it comes to relating our understanding of and encounters with God to others, there is great value in our transparency in this area.  In fact, the current cultural milieu is so desperate to mystically connect with the Divine, the hunger to hear such encounters amongst crowds and individuals is palpable.  While this opens the door to all kinds of deceptions and potential manipulations, authentic wonder and delight in mystery within the Christian faith is an asset, not a liability.  Seeking to root our experiences and the interpretation of such experiences in Scripture cannot be overstated but such authentic, transformative encounters with God are not confined to Scripture reading.  We cannot manufacture such experiences but hope and wait for God to ‘condescend’ and connect with our hungering hearts.

Whether through film, television, music, or on-line and platform gaming, pop culture is riddled with illustrations of a desperate generation trying to manufacture encounters with the Divine.  Such attempts to connect with God through the mundane and even through debauched behavior illustrates just how hungry this ’mystic generation’ really is.  Christians ought to have much to say in this area.  We have authentic, transformative encounters with a God who is intimate with us and longs to love us.  We have the means (community, prayer, fasting, Bible study, worship…) to make ourselves available to God and thus encounter the Divine.

Whether through re-telling and applying testimonial encounters to others or inviting others into Christian disciplines and practices where encountering God is likely, evangelism today needs to include much more emphasis on wonder.  Apologetically, when it comes to sharing Jesus relevantly with postmoderns, we need not run from or hide the fact that our faith, while an historic faith first, is also a faith of mystery.  Unlike the pagan mystical religions of Jesus’ day, our faith is a faith in an historic person, which makes authentic mystery possible!  We leave room for and appreciate wonder and mystery simply because of God, while familiar, is also the awful God of dread, alien, and full of wonder.

The culture at large appreciates wonder and mystery as can be seen in the hit television show, “Lost” or the console game, “God of War.”  Within the often avoided grotesqueries and debauched expressions of American culture is a deep soul cry for the transcendent and we connect with such a cry through the story of the cross, the resurrection and with our on-going story.  In the past, classical composers, expressionist painters, and gritty philosophers expressed this soul cry but today it is the film maker, the poet/singer, the manipulator of pixels and sprites, and those who clamor to consume such shadowy expressions of another world.  While such value is not universal and may be unique to the N. American cultural context, it is nonetheless real and represents a real open door for the brave new world of evangelism.

The first post-resurrection evangelistic sermon was preached by Peter in Acts 2. A stirring message in itself, the end of the message and subsequent message commentary give us some initial footing in addressing the counting/decision/conversion issue. In Acts 2:40-41 we read, “With many other words he warned them; and he pleaded with them, “Save yourselves from this corrupt generation. Those who accepted his message were baptized, and about three thousand were added to their number that day.” A few observations are helpful to us struggling with the messiness of evangelism today.

First, the count: The count was 3,000 added to their number that day. The text does not say 3,000 people were converted or that their names were written in the lamb’s book of life or that they were saved-simply that they were added to “their number.” The text also doesn’t say that the 3,000 were first verified as legitimate or there was an assessment period to see if their decisions bore fruit. What does the phrase “added to their number” actually mean? Prior to this message, in chapter one, the female disciples along with the 11 apostles were together with a larger group-all totaling around 120 “Jesus followers.” What is interesting is the repetition of the phrase “was added” and the emphasis in chapters 1 and 2 on numbering. Numbering appears in 1:13,14,15,17,21,26 and 2:39,41,47. In 2:47, the Lord “added to their number” and then the phrase appears “those who were being saved.” It would appear that the way in which the counting of the 3,000 and those “added” daily who were being saved is used in the same manner. Luke throughout Acts records numbers of people who are “added” to the community of the “saved” in a way that may be bothersome to many today. Luke records the “add” as the total number of those being “saved.” How can he be so sure? What about those who turn their back on Christ and the Way? To be sure, this happened all the time and of those being added daily or of the 3,000 added after the first evangelistic message, we can be almost certain that some of them eventually rejected their decision.

Second, the warning: The second important observation in the text is the fact that Peter warns the crowd to “save themselves from this corrupt generation.” The evangelistic call had a sense of urgency, of drastic separation from an already condemned generation of which the hearers were a part. He did not try to give an assurance of salvation or calm the fears of those perishing, he sternly warned them to save themselves. Obviously, Peter did not mean that they, in and of themselves, could literally save themselves, but in the context of his larger message, the call to repent and place faith in Christ’s finished work was the means by which they would be saved. His warning demonstrates what we are calling people to and what we are calling them away from. We are calling them to change allegiances, to recognize sin, to leave their identity and become a part of Christ’s new community of repentant and faith-filled believers (the grand picture of which is provided for us at the end of Acts 2). This is important in what we count. Often, counting decisions gets corrupted because the call to Christ is not clear. This is where legitimate criticism can be aimed at much evangelistic preaching as often the call is so ambiguous, so watered down that we cannot be sure what people have responded to. In such cases, we are almost always left to allow the respondent to self-assess what happened before we count. This was not the case in Peter’s message. He called for repentance, people demonstrated their response by coming forward to be baptized and the community took at face value the legitimacy of all 3,000 who came forward. There was not a re-assessment after the follow-up team had meetings with the 3,000, there was an immediate celebration and recognition of full membership in the “they” Luke refers to as the entire community of faith throughout chapters one and two. The warning, however, places the burden on the decision maker. Peter’s instruction is in the present tense and throughout the epistles, the warning to “be” saved, or walk according to the grace given us remains a source of challenge for all who follow Christ to re-examine continuously our allegiance to Him.

Third, the baptism: Water baptism is so much more than a mere physical indication of a person’s inner decision but it is at least that here in the text. In my evangelistic preaching I’ve used various physical mechanisms to give the decision maker an opportunity to visibly demonstrate her faith. Whether they’ve been items like glow sticks, water, sand, fire, marbles, free-standing doors, coloring on walls, receiving an empty glass to be filled, or simply coming forward, securing some visible and often external item to express faith is important. It is important for two reasons. A visible appropriation of faith (see my larger article on “Re-Thinking Alter Calls” at www.tellthestory.net) allows us to see who and how many people have responded to the call to repent. Second, a visible appropriation of faith is a powerful experiential component to an otherwise personal and inner experience. It would appear from Scripture that there was almost always some visible way, whether miraculous or through human volition, for decision makers to be counted as “added to their numbers.” Water baptism in this passage served this function, though it was certainly not limited to a mere visible appropriation of faith.

Let’s get practical:

There are a number of different “decisions” that can be made when the call to repent is clear.  They include:

•First Time Decisions: A decision by an obvious or self proclaimed non-Christian to follow Christ or a “nominal/cultural Christian’s” decision to become a true Christ-follower.

•Rededicated Decision: A decision to re-affirm one’s salvific faith, to repent of patterns of sin, and re-commit to following Christ as Lord.

•Journey Engagement Decision: Often confused as a salvific decision, people will often respond to a call to repent but not intend to give their lives to Christ as Lord. Such decisions often mark a pivotal point in a faith journey but are short of full trust in Christ.

•The Confused/Unintentional/Insincere Decision: Almost without exception, some will respond to a call to repent because they misunderstood what was being asked of them (no matter how clear the call was) or; they did not intend to respond but were interpreted as doing so or; their response was intentionally insincere. The insincere decision maker responds for all kinds of strange reasons-“I wanted a glow stick,” “I wanted to see what the stage looked like,” “I wanted my picture taken with you,” “I didn’t want you to look bad when nobody came,” “I just wanted to lead the way for others.” These and many other reasons I’ve heard over 20 years of evangelistic preaching.

Some Clarity:

Let’s make some observations about each of these decision makers. The first time decision makers are more obvious and readily accepted for “the count” when they are known or self identifying non-Christians but the count gets messier when a worship leader stands, or an elder or clergy member or life-long church member. Often, event organizers immediately conclude that such respondents are confused/unintentional/insincere decision makers. However, frequently these are nominal/cultural Christians who are authentically making a first time decision. Whether we refer to these as Lordship decisions or 1st time decisions really is immaterial, the decision maker in this category through her response has chosen to “save herself” and she should be counted as being “added” unless there is clear evidence to the contrary.

A “nominal Christian” is a Christian in name only, not in fact. Because of this, a Lordship decision of this type is really a 1st time decision because the nominal/cultural Christian has never been converted, merely religious. Socialized Christians are not converted though they often appear so through their habits and interest in Christian community. They often find themselves serving in leadership roles because they know the culture and language of community but have never repented of sin and placed their trust in Christ. Using this definition gives us permission to include in the count people who have experienced a “spiritual awakening” or “adult decision” and who now consciously follow Christ.

This definition is admittedly very broad; however I think there are 3 reasons why this broad definition for counting is indeed appropriate.

1) The lack of gospel clarity in the church: Many churches in America do not preach the true gospel message or do so unclearly. Also, they rarely call people to faith. Thus, many people who think they are making a recommitment to faith are in fact responding to the gospel for the first time or are making their profession public for the first time. In either case, we should include them in our “count.”

2) The lack of Biblical literacy outside the church: Most people lack the conceptual framework and language for explaining what is spiritually going on inside them. They cannot articulate often what kind of decision they are making are what the implications are when they do so. Again, the precedent in Scripture is to count all responders at face value, to celebrate them and begin enfolding them into community. The rule of thumb should be we count unless there is extant evidence not to do so (admission of confusion, unrepentant life-styles of sin…).

3) Decisions are measurable, conversions are not: Even though we are often still using conversion language (saved, converted, new Christian), we can never truly know whether a person has been saved. We are left with merely the visible representation of people’s decisions and the subsequent spiritual fruit or lack thereof. This means that there will always be ambiguity along the way toward maturity in Christ for people who indicate a decision and even seeming maturity in Christ can be deceptive as many fall away later in life.

Illustration:

Let’s say un-churched Anna makes a visible decision at a conference as a result of an alter call but a year later wants nothing to do with Christ while Hassan, a cultural Christian, makes a visible decision to “recommitment himself to Christ” at a meeting and over the course of the next several weeks begins to bear fruit for the first time in his life. Let’s say Jill makes a decision to follow Jesus as Lord in every area of her life after a life-long tradition of attending church. Jill has significant areas of her life that have never been submitted to Christ including areas of deep sexual sin and relational brokenness but now has been set free and is beginning to joyfully serve in Christian community. Finally, let’s say Tom indicates a “first time decision” on a response card at an evangelistic outreach but later realizes he came to Christ long ago and is only now making a public adult profession of faith. I’ve dealt with these and many other confusing scenarios over the years. Such circumstances make counting a very difficult issue.

Let’s consider why each of these four decision makers should be included as we count those “added” to our numbers.

Anna: Though it is heartbreaking, some decision makers do later go back on their decision, perhaps indicating that they never sincerely came to Christ in the first place. Regardless of how we theologically interpret the range of possibilities, at the time of Anna’s decision, illustrations from Scripture would indicate that we should count Anna, celebrate her decision, hold her to the spiritual expectations of Christian discipleship, and weep later when she turns from Christ, doing all we can to help her hold true to the word of life. In the beginning, however, we count her as a decision maker.

Hassan: Though Hassan has self-identified as a Christian all his life, he has never demonstrated the fruit associated with being filled with the Holy Spirit. He has likely never truly followed Christ though he may have been open all along to authentic discipleship. Hassan needed a clear explanation and call to faith and once he encountered Christ, naturally connected with Jesus and began to demonstrate salvific faith for the first time. Though we may be tempted to consider Hassan’s decision as a recommitment, perhaps he would even say so, in reality his decision is more likely a first time decision as it is associated with first time spiritual fruit demonstrating the regeneration of the Holy Spirit.

Jill: Jill would likely never say of herself that she “became a Christian” since in her interpretation of her spiritual journey, she has been Christian all her life. The evidence of regeneration, however, and freedom from deep bondage may indicate she has become born again. The spiritual fruit emerging in her life is indicative of a person who has encountered Christ and given long-term patterns of bondage and willful disobedient to Christ, the likelihood is that she too has made an authentic first time decision and should be counted.

Tom: Tom’s a slightly different story. Tom’s decision is obviously not a salvific decision but rather an affirmation of previous spiritual realities and decisions made in the past. For young people emerging into adulthood, however, it is important that they own their faith in a conscious way. Tom has already been “saved” but has never truly owned this spiritual status for himself. Many Christian youth find an important right of passage by responding publically as adults. Many times when alter calls are made where emerging adults are present, people like Tom wish to publically profess faith to have confidence in the authenticity of their faith or because they’ve never been given such an opportunity to do so before. Either way, the likelihood is that they’ve not been counted before and the fact that they as emerging adults wish to be counted now should be honored.

“Don’t Count Me”

Finally, the question is who should not be counted as first time decision makers. Obviously the confused/unintentional/insincere decision makers with a little bit of interaction will rise to the surface, often immediately after the decision is indicated. Additionally, clear Christians who merely wish to rededicate themselves or repent of specific struggles and incidents of sin should not be counted either. Often, these are interpreted as “Lordship” decisions but true “Lordship” decisions are more often than not authentically first time decisions for what kind of faith can be saving faith that is devoid of submission to Christ as Lord? It would seem from each and every evangelistic message in the book of Acts that the apostles believed salvation necessitated the eventual confession of Christ as Lord.

A journey decision should also not be counted as a first time decision. This category often takes the most work to follow up with and gain certainty. This is particularly true since frequently journey decision makers lack the sufficient language and theological constructs to self-interpret where they are or what kind of decision they have made. These standards leave a wide latitude open for us to include many who indicate a decision for Christ. This seems to be the practice of the first Church and there really is no reason why we should depart from their practice.

Entertainment/sport as an institution of culture has often, in its eroded state, become a vehicle for accelerated societal evil.  When entertainment falls into eroticism (as it often does) and when sport falls into violence (which it often does), the good gift of sport and entertainment goes from a vehicle for cultural expression to the glory of God to an instrument causing accelerated societal decay.  Each and every one of the seven institutions of society has a corresponding broken expression with equally wicked and destructive demarcations.  Commerce falls to greed, government falls to power at the expense of the marginal, families become places of abuse and neglect….The reality is, because of sin, we have rarely seen expressions of whole and transformative institutions.  We need renewal as many of the institutions of our time have or are beginning to enter into the unsalvageable stages of erosion.  The de-evolution of the entertainment industry into eroticism is well documented but we also see irreversible damage to the notion of the family, to medicine, and certainly to commerce.  Corruption, a culture of death, acceptance of broken sexual paradigms are all the cumulative effects of a lack of much needed renewal.

Renewal is not merely the bridled restraint of such expressions of decay.  It is true that the Church has a preservative nature in culture.  The presence of the Church in the World slows the ramped downward spiral of society and the grotesque end stages of unbridled wickedness.  The Scripture’s use of preservative imagery, however, is often misused.  Preservatives do not bring new life, they merely prevent the decay of death from entirely ruining the food they preserve.  Only the blowing winds of God’s grace on a people through the presence and power of the Holy Spirit in a unique, corporate way can actually bring new life.  Without this unique act of God, the best we can hope for is a slowing of the inevitable and at worst, when the preserving Church fails, the active judgment of God on a people-perhaps even their eradication.  Renewal is the unique resurrecting work of God through the corporate application of the Spirit’s power in bringing repentance and the subsequent Kingdom transformation of people groups in application to the culture-making institutions of their society.  Renewal is not mere mass conversion nor is it mere revival in the Church, though it may initially begin there, renewal is the macro-transformation of nations, peoples, tribes, and tongues expressed in their culture.

The Church often fails not only to preserve the culture but also fails to be able to receive renewal from God because it trends toward drifting in its identity.  The Church world-wide, when left un-checked, confuses itself as an institution of society.  We are to be “in the world, but not of the world,” says Jesus.  Applied societally, the Church is to participate and lead in every one of the seven institutions but not succumb to the temptation to be those institutions or to circumvent these institutions.  Sadly, we see the Church all too often failing to lead and transform these institutions but instead seeking to become or replace them.  How often have we seen the Church attempt to be a place of commercial enterprise with her ministers and evangelists peddling programs, conferences, products and the like?  How often have we seen well meaning Christian leaders attempting to use the Church as a vehicle for political manipulation and power?  How often have we seen the Church give up its ministry of prayer, evangelism, and the study of the Word of God for entertainment and programs of sport?  To sit in many prayer circles in today’s Church, one would think we are a hospital as we pray for strokes, heart attacks, cancers, and sicknesses at the expense of lost neighbors, broken families and injustices around the world of every kind!  The Church is not a hospital, though we are charged with caring for the broken hearted and the sick.  The Church is not the judicial system, though we are charged with loving the prisoner and visiting them in their hours of desperation.  The Church is not the academy but we are charged with bringing every thought captive to the Lordship of Christ and worshipping God with our whole mind.  The Church is not the family but we are a new family under God charged with caring for widows and orphans.

We are all of these things and none of them at the same time for we are something much greater.  A loftier, controlling identity shadows any particular missional charge, for we are the Bride of Jesus Christ, not merely the sum total of our functions.  As such, our primary passion should be to connect with Christ and to allow the regenerative flow of the Spirit fill us for His glory.  In the world, the Church’s passion should be to be the receptacle of the transforming power of God that can alone bring renewal to our society.  How sad that we drift away and settle for our secondary functions instead of our primary identity like a man who confuses his employment for his true identity.  The Church is to be just and the place for championing justice without being the hall of justice.  The Church is to be a place where the needs of the widow, orphan, sick and lame are addressed without becoming a hospital or place of respite care…The Church is to have no greater preoccupation than that of the person of Jesus Christ and being the receptacle of His renewing power.

The Church is to be in each and every institution, shaping and defining the trajectory of those institutions.  There is no place in society where the Church should not be seeking to bring renewal.  The high courts of justice, the culture-making centers of music and film, the great halls of academia, the research labs of science and medicine-it is all Christ’s.  We are not guests here, this is Christ’s world and He is in the process of reclaiming what is His through us.  When the Church abandons entire institutions, the society should expect to erode into debauchery.  When the Church leaves the university, we should expect godlessness to reign in the dorms, bars, and offices of faculty.  When the Church leaves the world of politics, we should expect unjust laws.  When the Church leaves the medical field, we should expect immoral research and practices.  Jesus will not break if we expose him to the real world but to listen to retreatists, one has to wonder if they have a cheap plaster Jesus picked up at some tourist shop of faith.  The real Jesus can withstand the challenges of brokenness and sin in all these places-He is more durable than we think!

We are to be in the world, acting as the preservative element that prevents it from eroding into darkness and despair.  However, we cannot content ourselves with mere incremental advancements of God’s Kingdom.  We long for it to break through in its fullness, for another ‘Great Awakening,” for mass repentance that gives way to new life!  We are to be waiting and calling on God for the unique work of renewal, of revival and awakening-the work that only God can send from Heaven.  The work of renewal, the breath of God on our land, is the only hope in escaping His wrath and seeing our society live again.  When the breath of God comes, it brings new life.  This new life in society looks like medical breakthrough, a passion for research and learning, just laws, resources for those in need, whole and joy-filled families, redeemed leisure and competition, breathtaking art, dance, film, music-all to the glory of God!  May it be so in our time Lord Jesus.

This is to be expected when looking such a monster as child prostitution in the face. Addressing an issue like child prostitution holistically is the only way we can expect to have any impact on such a rape of humanity. If we merely articulate the economic/profit drivers of the problem and fail to address the overall realities of poverty and political instability, we will fail to fully realize and engage the issue. If we only address the geopolitical circumstances which allow the modern day slave trade to proliferate and fail to also address the complicity of those who participate through the remote consumption of sex slaves through internet pornography, we will fail to fully get at the roots of the issue.

Ultimately, a problem like child prostitution as a spiritual problem has many different manifest implications. Child prostitution has medical, economic, political, social, familial, and psychological ramifications but to address any one part of this complicated matrix without addressing the human soul as the controlling issue is a mistake.

In Escaping the Devil’s Bedroom: Sex Trafficking, Global Prostitution and the Gospel’s Transforming Power by Jewell, the author makes the case for the connection between the sexualization of society and the growing acceptance of a slave culture. Many resources on human trafficking focus entirely on particular case studies and overwhelming statistical facts but Jewell makes the necessary connection between a sexualized society, the growing appetite and acceptance of sexual exploitation, pornography and the remote consumption of victims with the spiritual brokenness of humanity. This matrix of causal factors is rarely explicated in resources on the issue. What Jewell has articulated is the heart of the issue we must address.

Before we ask how a place like Toledo, Ohio can become in 2009 the child prostitution capital of the United States, we must first ask the question, “How can a person’s heart get to such a state of destitution that she would commoditize a child sexually for financial gain?” Before we can ask the question, “How can sophisticated, educated people in major metropolitan nightclubs legally get away with paying for sex with under-aged slaves?” we have to first ask the question, “What has happened to the human soul to allow us to actually enjoy paying for the opportunity to rape a child?”

Quintessentially these and other questions are spiritual in nature. The real question to me as an evangelist is how have we gone so long without such an exploitation of humanity? We have been anaesthetized to the true horrors of our own sin and brokenness. Wealth, education, a long period of relative peace and the façade of personal satisfaction through indulgence have paved the way for a forgetfulness of the deranged depths of our own humanity.

The return of the global slave trade is not only a stark reminder of the brokenness of the human soul, it is THE moral issue of our day. The only way to retain the relevance of a Biblical faith in this modern milieu is to fully engage the issue of global slavery with the spiritual power of the gospel. To fail to act

against this preeminently spiritual problem with the only spiritual power capable of bringing justice is to ultimately abdicate our role as salt and light in the world. We must act.

We must also understand how the sexualization of society has led to the possibility of the commoditization of humans and that this commoditization has led to a growing acceptance of the consumption of this commodity-children, women, young boys and girls-people for whom Christ died. Our generation will be judged by our children by what we did or did not do to protect the least of these.

The fact that Jesus is portrayed figuratively as “the lamb of God that takes away the sins of the world” is something that needs background and time to develop for our un-Churched friends. Often, we do not have the luxury of such time or the relational clout to develop such concepts through teaching. We often choose to avoid such symbolism and “advanced” theological concepts. What would have been an immediate “ah ha” connection for a Jewish audience presents itself as an obstacle for hearing to our audience today. There are still some concepts that ought not be translated, some symbols that are too “precious” to contextualize and must be taught.

In Kallenberg’s seminal yet short work Live to Tell: Evangelism for a Postmodern Era, he states, “…postcritical thinking transcends modern views of language…put simply, conversion involves the acquisition of a new conceptual language,” (pp 38-39). When we come to Christ (and are coming to Christ) our conversion must include, amongst other things, connecting to our world, to God, and to others through the use of an altogether new language. Because of this, evangelistic practices must not seek to merely contextualize, as important as this is. Evangelistic proclamation must also always teach the new language of faith. Certainly, different groups will need different forms aspects of faith contextualized and there are certain symbols of faith which may be appropriate for one group while obstacles for others. Having said this, the “precious blood” and its transforming power seems to be one of several realities we need to teach our hearers to understand and take on.

The centrality of the cross and the resurrection in time and space represent so much more than mere symbolism, they are the essence of the message of faith. There is no faith without the blood shed on the cross, no hope without the power of the resurrection-simply put, there is no gospel without the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. A bloody Jesus may appear to be a stumbling block for some people groups but unless we export this grotesquery into all cultures intact we run the danger of losing the connection with the existential referent itself. Of all things, it is the death and resurrection of Jesus that must be pressed into because therein lays the power for transformation. The fear, particularly for us “experts” on culture and contextualization is that we will be seen as cut from the same cloth as those “old timers” or fanatics. We must not shy away from this but instead recall and recite another great hymn, “Give me that old time religion-it’s good enough for me!”

Many churhces have little appreciation for the arts. With the exception of a music ministry, the inclusion of the arts in the life of faith is typically minimalistic. Dance, poetry, and the visual arts are looked on with suspicion or as mere tools for evangelism. Buildings are functional. The sense of architectural transcendence seems to be to the sole property of the Orthodox, Catholic, and the occasional Presbyterian. Such things should not be! I was hungering for art but did not see the arts celebrated in the life of believers.

Art is not a tool to reach people for Christ. As soon as art becomes a mere tool, we relegate our subcreative powers to mere pragmatism and become nothing more then spiritual capitalists. We gotta have art! I will say, however, that art feeds the soul because it points us toward our quest for true transcendent beauty. The quest of beauty is an important part, perhaps one of the most important parts, of becoming thoroughly Christian. As important as the discipleship of the mind, as holiness, as mission is the quest for and enjoyment of beauty. This may seem odd coming from an evangelist, particularly from a pragmatically oriented conservative Baptist evangelist such as myself but it is particularly true for those of my cloth. We gotta have art!

The role of art in ministry cannot be reduced to a mere tool. Christians have stood throughout time as some of the greatest protagonists of art as well as some of its greatest enemies. As this culture, however, yearns for the sublime, as they quest for beauty, settling only for lust, we must reclaim the arts. We are undoubtedly entering the age of the ministering arts. When I was a child, it was the expert-the lecturer, the philosopher, and the debater who were the culture shapers, today we make way for the poet, the painter, and the song writer. Hence the domination of the “American Idol,” and the aging of Alec Trebek.

This is not to say that the arts and the intellect are in some way apposed, in fact the opposite is true. Art flows from the intellect and the intellect from art. True art stirs not only the heart but also the mind and this is key. In a postmodern milieu, we find ourselves ministering in an age of anti-intellectualism. The diet on campus no longer tolerates intellectual stimulation let alone a “discipleship of the mind” worldview. The greatest danger in this is not the dumbing down of a generation, but rather the implications of what this dumbing down will do to the imagination.

Without the arts, imagination crumbles and so does the soul’s ability to connect with the sublime. The result of this tragedy is violence, lust, and a culture of death. Dr. Francis Schaeffer made this connection in his day to his generation and so we must in ours. We gotta have art-lots and lots and lots of art! Art, in an anti-intellectual climate, is the sole means of salvaging the mind and re-connecting a generation with their own soul and the Artist who painted it in the first place!

In a time where it seems student culture is extremely open to the Christian message, is it counter-missional for Christians to address or have a position on certain issues that may alienate non-Christians? Should a Christian student group publically articulate a stance, say, concerning abortion or homosexuality? How are these issues different from taking a public stand on the issues of sexual slavery, child soldiers, the environment, AIDS and AIDS orphans, malaria, or bonded labor? The former list is seldom addressed any more while the latter is very much a driver for lots of organizations and churches seeking to make a real difference in the world today.

It seems as if there are issues that increasingly Christians are awakening to that really connect with and serve our mission to non-Christian main-stream culture. The “party-line” set of issues (abortion and homosexuality most notably) for conservatives is increasingly out of style and being treated like an ugly, embarrassing step-daughter, kept out of the light of day for fear of offending those who would venture into our midst. Why is this and what happened to bring us to this state? I believe there are five powerful forces that have come together to cause young evangelicals in particular to abandon their parent’s set of issues for a new vision of world-engagement.

1. Exclusionary Treatment: For young evangelicals who are increasingly aware of the realities present in the rest of the world, there is no doubt that issues like modern-day slavery and the suffering of the poor and the marginalized matter to God. They care about the world and want to bring God’s Kingdom to bear on places of injustice and suffering. However, when they see traditional evangelical leaders speak, act, give, and coordinate against traditional issues AT THE EXPENSE of what they know to matter to God, it causes them to resent the “old guard” and draws those very issues into question. “What makes abortion a greater evil or a more worthy issue to address than slavery?” “Hasn’t the issue of abortion seen its day?” “Aren’t there enough people passionate about ‘those’ issues in the Church?” These often-internal dialogues shape how young evangelicals consider the personal relevance traditional issues have for them.

2. Lack of Coherence: As long as young evangelicals fail to be led into a cohesive worldview that connects sin and brokenness across the board, it will appear as if what to care about is a matter of personal preference. Helping the next generation understand that abortion is as evil as the sexual slavery of a child is one task, helping them understand the relationship between the dehumanization of the unborn and the wanton commoditization of the child after birth is another. The currently approved panoply of missional issues are often no more thought out in terms of how they fit into a comprehensive Christian worldview than their former counterparts. There is good work being done to ground the abolitionist movement in theology but too often there is no work being done to connect the issue of slavery with, say, abortion or the disproportionate number of Blacks imprisoned or the environment, each of which have a strong relationship to the rise of modern-day slavery. The lack of intellectual cohesion in our thinking historically allows evangelicals to compartmentalize issues and thus these issues eventually come to cannibalize each other as they compete for allegiance, dollars, and people resources.

3. Ethical Ambiguity: Issues like abortion and homosexuality are often addressed by the same people with the same passion as issues like immigration, gun control, home schooling, women in ministry, and government spending. These latter issues are fused with a lot of political energy and often divide Christians from various denominations and certainly along socio-economic and ethnic lines. The rising conservatism that defines itself around issues like these is often an angry conservatism and one that assumes all Christians must have a certain view of temporal issues. These realities have caused many to exclude abortion and homosexuality from substantive dialogue for fear of being lumped in with the rest of the ‘old guard’ or the new ‘angry conservatives.’

4. The Two Extremes: For quite some time, culture makers, leaders, and super-star pastors have intentionally distanced themselves from issues like abortion and homosexuality and in so doing they have become silent on these issues. Young evangelicals growing up in most churches today have never been given the tools to put together a cohesive, Biblical Christian worldview that would allow them to conclude that abortion and homosexuality are forms of brokenness. Far too often, they are either force-fed the belief that abortion and homosexuality are sinful or their leadership is silent while addressing other issues or no issues at all. These two extremes nearly ensure the young evangelical will reject the view that abortion and homosexuality are sinful. In the one instance, it is unlikely they will receive without question a particular view that is so counter-cultural that they are often alone in their communities and in the world. On the other hand, the experience of silence in the Church coupled with the wide assumption of the legitimacy of abortion and homosexuality in the world allows the young evangelical to comfortably allow for these assumptions to be their own.

5. The Power of Personal Experience: Far too often, young evangelicals, given these other four realities, are disproportionately influenced by the power of personal experience. In high school, a young girl has a close friend who has come out of the closet and is practicing her homosexuality with joy and personal satisfaction. “How could this be wrong?” she asks. Far too often, young evangelicals arrive as freshmen on our college campuses without the tools to apply a Christian worldview to large, influential, and unquestioned communities championing a certain way of life. They are celebrated, given certain rights and protection, and many of which seem very attractive and well adjusted. “How could this be wrong?” he asks. The battle for their hearts and minds was lost long ago and what should be expected at this point in their journey is an acceptance of a worldview that is incompatible with the Scriptures.

These five forces have given rise to an environment, for better and worse, where young evangelicals have begun to branch out into new areas of ethical responsibility. Rick Warren coined the phrase “Whole Life Christian” in contrast to “Pro-Life Christian” when asked why he was addressing issues of slavery and AIDS orphans while refraining from being more vocal on the issue of abortion and homosexuality. It is good to broaden the areas of ethical responsibilities in the church and it definitely seems that God is using this emerging generation of Christians to establish His Kingdom in ways traditional evangelicalism could not or would not.

Certainly, when building coalitions around initiatives and projects like “Justice Invitationals,” issues like the environment, slavery, poverty, natural disasters, and the like are going to build more consensus, allowing for us to re-build the bridges burned by so much demonizing in the past. However, we have a responsibility to both publically denounce the practice of homosexuality and abortion as well as give our young evangelicals the tools to learn for themselves why these practices are not the way God intended the world to be. Speaking and writing such in today’s secular milieu is certainly more dangerous than it used to be but it is still our responsibility before God.

We as spiritual guides to culture must never diminish our faith to a matter of mere rhetoric or a mere expression of practice devoid of truth. This is the true crisis in U.S. evangelism today. The “attractional” model of evangelism which has dominated the West for the last several decades is providing diminishing returns on investment. The Church’s self-serving and individualistic message of pragmatism is increasingly irrelevant to a generation that is more globally minded then ever before. Classic evangelistic rallies, though still sizeable, show a decreasing percentage of attendees who are truly non and anti-church individuals, typically less then 10%.

Churched people are also growing disillusioned by the concept of evangelism proper. Service, programs, and relationships are increasing values but the idea of being personally responsible for people’s souls is seen as antiquated. Why has this shift occurred?  I believe that it is the natural end of a sub-Christian culture-one of mere pragmatism. The impact this has an increasingly value driven culture is an increased marginalization of the role of religion in everyday life. The exaltation of pragmatism at the expense of values (e.g. compassion, justice, contrition, advocacy…) has finally begun to demonstrate just how hollow the American Church has become. 

In an effort to be fun, attractive, and “normal,” much of the American Church has simultaneously found itself ironically irrelevant.  For all its pursuit of relevance, the Church has missed its goal because the understanding of relevance was based on an individualistic, inwardly focused personal relevance. The relevance that is increasingly sought, however, is communal and global.

While in New York City, I happened to share Christ with Jerome. After sharing the good news with Jerome, he said these haunting words, “I not only understand what you are saying, I actually believe that it is true. I just don’t care that I’m going to hell. I care more about what’s happening right now with the poor in this city and the fact that people are dying around the world for lack of clean drinking water..”

Jerome mistook in my words for the stagnant, words of detached religion. Flowery words of worlds to come and a mere escape from hell. While this eschatological reality is the pressing reality we will all one day have to deal with, Jerome verbalized what many feel-the need to seek a bit more Heaven on earth. The litmus test for this emerging generation is the cultural, ecological, political, economic, sexual, and social application of Jesus Christ-only then will he be seen as also personally relevant.

When we reduce our faith to mere rhetoric we have participated in this hollowing out of the Church. The greater mistake the new pursuit for relevance will be the backlash against the power of the written word, doctrine, and a clear articulation of faith. As we scramble to embrace a spiritually hungry generation who is, in fact, in hot pursuit of a Kingdom vision in their hearts, we must not lose our commitment to Christ’s personal impact or the great eschatological realities. This generation has tasted God’s vision, in a dream perhaps, and will not be satisfied easily by much less then the fulfillment of this mysterious longing.

We need to transcend the mere rhetoric of the populace Church and press toward true transformative action. We need also to avoid mere activism that is void of the real power to change the world around us.

The overall secularization of our society and the cultural shift into postmodernity have made our traditional models of discipleship and apologetics not only ineffective but quite honestly often an embarrassment. People coming to Christ and community are given a compelling experience with the Living God and radical exposure to authentic transformative community and are, with little resistance, coming into the Kingdom. After a decision to join Christ and community, however, the realities of the narrow path begin to threaten the authenticity of the decision and the lack-luster vision often casted through modernistic apologetics and discipleship tools gives the new convert the sense that they missed something at the checkout counter. An example of this is Brent, a third year student who came to Jesus after experiencing Christian community and being challenged to give his whole life to God during a sex trafficking outreach in the Midwest. After Brent’s decision to follow Christ and join community, he began to meet with the InterVarsity staff worker to study the Bible every week. Initially, this was a very exciting mark on Brent’s schedule but after a few weeks, Brent began to be combative, wrestles, and resistant. What began as a place of joy and excitement turned into a battle ground for Brent’s soul. Brent began to come face to face with the hard teachings of Christ and the Bible concerning sex, sexual identity, dependency on the Spirit verses drugs and alcohol, the necessity to be kind and honest, and a variety of other personality and ethical issues. The staff worker became confused and even wondered if Brent’s conversion was real. “Did we sell him an easy-believism faith or water down the gospel?” He asked himself. After carefully reviewing the facts that led up to Brent’s decision and the high call to Lordship placed in his call to Christ, the staff worker was convinced that this wasn’t the case. The staff worker decided to give Brent C.S. Lewis’s “Mere Christianity,” remembering his own first encounter with the book and how reading it was like a second conversion for him. When meeting with Brent, however, he discovered the book had little interest to him and even intensified his growing resistance to his new found faith. Brent continues on with Christ and the InterVarsity community but on both sides, there is an uneasiness and uncertainty that wasn’t there even before Brent’s decision. What is happening here? Did Brent get “converted,” and is he “being converted?”

The normalization of ramped sexual promiscuity, the entrenchment of homosexuality into our understanding of diversity, and the laissez-faire approach most familial and academic authorities have taken in their lives have placed significant challenges before us when it comes to discipling postmoderns. In order to establish a more integrated discipleship approach, we need to do more than download creeds and ethical instruction into their heads, we need to also deal with the spiritual and sociological needs of postmoderns. This requires us to simultaneously address a number of things in our time with new believers. Think of time spent with a new believer as a funnel by which we pour into their lives a number of distinct things. The essential things poured into the funnel initially are formative and will establish a person’s life-long trajectory. Though there may be other things added or added later, at least the following five contributions to a new believer’s walk with Christ and community should be repetitively addressed through the discipleship process:

1. Relational Equity: Postmodern’s place a high value on connectivity, authenticity, and dependability. They have become disillusioned with the hopes of mere cyber-relationships and are longing to connect with a transformative community through real, face to face experiences. Because of this, relational equity needs to be established through the discipler and the new believer but not in isolation from the community. Discipleship appointments, while not exclusively communal, should be normatively conducted with several others who share in this spiritual journey phase. The discipler should establish a prophetic and leadership voice in this community but should make space for learning to be done as the group processes together. In the past, relational equity was obtained through one on one mentoring, teaching, and coaching but such a strong emphasis on intense one on one relationship is foreign and will likely lead to suspicion and resistance. This is not to say that relational equity cannot or should not also include some one on one mentoring and coaching but this should be an added benefit to group membership to the new believer, not the central thrust of discipleship. Relational equity for the discipler grows as the new believer experiences his/her leadership in the context of community.
2. Relevant Instruction: It has been a long standing mistake to assume postmoderns are not interested in truth; it is just that they are first interested in relevance. For the modern, the assumption was that if something were true it may or may not then become personally relevant. For the postmodern, the first question is almost always, “Is this personally or communally relevant?” Once this question is answered, later on the question of truth will come. Because of this, much of our modernistic discipleship tools and paradigms that revolve around helping new believers understand the truth of God’s word will often seem foreign and create confusion. Teaching new believers the truth of God’s word and the beauty of the creeds handed down throughout Church history can never fade from our discipleship efforts but we need to help new believers understand first the relevance of God’s word and the question of the truth of God’s word will follow. For instance, the centrality of the tri-unity of the Godhead, while traditionally taught in a theological vacuum, is the perfect doctrine to help a postmodern believer understand her soul-need for connection and interdependence on other people. Because God is a community and she is created in God’s image, she is also communal. Since we are connected to others at a soul-level, we have a responsibility to their well being and owe them love and this will begin to go to build her sense of purpose and obligation to God and others. The doctrine of the trinity is relevant, extremely relevant, for postmoderns and needs to come to the new believer first as such and subsequently all of the glorious theological nuances and substantiations can follow. Discipleship into the theological truths of God’s word and the creeds of the Church can never be excluded from our efforts but we do need to place them first in their “real life” contexts if we hope to help new believers today have a world-view change.
3. Prophetic Leadership: Postmoderns do not reject authority as many have articulated-they reject authority positions that do not have the associated power or charisma figures behind them. Whether it is a political authority figure with charisma and power like President Obama or the powerful justice-ethic voice of rock star Bono, postmoderns do respond and respect authority. In discipleship, we need to establish our voice of authority and power based on our position in ministry, the presence and power of the Holy Spirit, and the relevance of God’s word. We can do this primarily through exercising prophetic leadership. Prophetic leaders speak and act on behalf of God consciously, intentionally calling people to change and action based on God’s call on their life. Prophetic leaders tend to speak for God instead of merely about God. With Brent as an example, a prophetic leader at one point would say, “Brent, God is doing a powerful work in your life right now. You may not fully understand it but you know what I’m saying is true-you need to embrace your doubts and take them to God. God is leading you to face the core of the decision you made and not to settle for a watered down commitment.” Brent doesn’t need merely endless arguments about the historicity of the Bible and how it is a trustworthy document, he needs to be prophetically led into the Scriptures with a voice of power. We’ve been given such power by God in our calling into ministry, through the presence and power of the Holy Spirit, and through the relevancy of God’s Word.
4. Prayer Ministry: Prophetic leadership goes hand in hand with prayer ministry. Postmoderns are mystically hungry. They aren’t interested in settling for a religious infrastructure or a mere spiritualized worldview-they want to hear from God and to have him touch their lives. Prayer ministry is the fundamental way postmoderns will be able to encounter God in the early stages of their discipleship. In the context of community, a discipler should make space for God to show up and move in power to continue the redemption process begun at the point of decision. Prayer ministry should also be experiential. Leading postmoderns through prayer should never be merely dialogical, but iconic. Postmodern prayer should include the arts and experiential learning such as the writing of poetry or the use of symbolic objects to help them grasp concepts concerning God and his work in their lives. While fundamentally written for evangelism and preaching, Mark Miller’s book, “Experiential Storytelling” can be contextualized to develop rich ideas for experiential and iconic prayer. Finally, postmoderns typically have a deep desire to change the world around them first and foremost. The redemption of the world around them is as important as the redemption of the world inside them so postmodern prayer ministry should never be entirely focused on the individual needs of the believer but should include an outward, missional focus.
5. Kingdom Involvement: Discipleship and mission should never be dichotomized. The best discipleship tool has always been and continues to be real, hands-on involvement in Christ’s Kingdom. From evangelism to addressing global issues of injustice and local manifestations of suffering and need, getting postmoderns involved in the work of the Kingdom is central. Kingdom work shouldn’t be seen as something that occurs after a person is rooted or grounded in the truths of Christianity-it is how those truths get rooted in their hearts and minds. Finding ways for new believers to do evangelism, serve, reach out, and apply their gifts and talents to real needs is as important as teaching them the Bible and how to pray for in so doing we connect who God has made them to be and their purpose in community with the truths and person of God. Often for this justice generation, kingdom involvement will actually play a significant role in their initial conversion but as they are being redeemed, continued involvement in community for the Kingdom will be key to their maturation. Missional Christians grow out of missional work led by prophetic leaders and to set this as a precedent at the point of decision and early on in the discipleship process is key. Regular application discussion opportunities in the context of community will bring such work into focus and help to avoid the all too common drift toward mere activism instead of discipleship to Christ.

Finally, we need to recognize that not only have new contours in our society emerged in terms of culture and values, but the old restraints of the Judeo-Christian worldview have eroded. Because of this, the typical assumptions we were able to make concerning issues like sexuality, honesty, and the intrinsic value of life can no longer be made. The boundaries of social convention aided us in discipleship in that we could begin with general assumptions concerning what was right and wrong-an appeal to the normative moral code or law. Very frequently now after a person becomes a Christian, they begin to wrestle with a new moral code that accompanies the new worldview they are adopting that is at odds with a lifetime of formal education and socialization, particularly concerning sex and sexual identity. At one event, after speaking I was approached by a young Latino student who, with tears in her eyes after professing Christ, asked sincerely, “Now, what does God have to say about the fact that I’m a lesbian?” Addressing such issues after conversion is difficult for some with still others disqualifying the conversion due to such evidence of known sin still lingering in the person’s life. However, the process of postmodern conversion can and should make room for approaching new believer’s lifestyle and moral convictions in the same way the old modernistic approach did for issues of intellectual assent and submission. This is to say that just as we expected a new believer to eventually come to understand and submit their mind to a good deal of core theological truths after conversion, like the doctrine of the trinity, so in this new postmodern age we expect new believers to repent and grow into their conviction concerning issues of sexual identity and sexual promiscuity. Evidence amongst the Corinthians to this end is ample and if we broaden the issues out to less controversial sin and worldview issues like financial stewardship, one can easily see how with all of us God has been, is, and will likely always be graciously in process with us.

Parade of Tears: Delivered at the Ohio State Price of Life Invitational for the Parade of Tears March along the historic Underground Railroad

• In my hands I hold the papers that document the slavery of my great great grandfather, Burrell Avery.
• He was ensured like cattle as the property of a Kentucky slave owner with the full knowledge and endorsement of the State of Kentucky and the United States government.
• As an African-American, I didn’t need to have these papers to know that my heritage was one of injustice, of servitude and suffering.
• My people were the victims of the last great global tyranny and now, today, there is another great rape of humanity growing like a darkness over the world.
• Over the last 10 years, I have sought to bring political leaders, business leaders, academicians, students and community leaders, religious communities and many other networks together to address the re-emergence of the global slave trade.  This is why we are here today and what the Ohio State Price of Life Invitational is all about.
• I believe that here on this campus and in this community, perhaps unknown even to themselves, are the next great abolitionists.  Women and men who like those who forged this Underground Railroad we walk on today will lead many to freedom in the coming years.
• The modern-day slave doesn’t work in sugar cane fields in the Jamaica.  We don’t see blood stained ocean-port auctions.  There are no public lynching’s or colored only drinking fountains but all around us, slavery is blossoming and re-establishing itself.
• In truck stops and massage parlors, children are being raped for pay.  Through Craigslist and on-line dating services young girls and boys who should be having bedtime stories read to them are being auctioned off.  In hotels and motels and condominium complexes young flesh is ripped from innocence and thrust into a modern-day nightmare of dehumanization.
• The commoditization of children as objects of sexual gratification demonstrates for us the real and enduring evil in the human heart.  In the state of Ohio alone, there are over 1,000 US born child prostitutes, many of which are sold by their own mothers, grandmothers, aunts and uncles.
• It is with this kind of wickedness as our backdrop that we march today.  We march to demonstrate that this kind of evil, this kind of darkness cannot stand.  We march today to say that children are not commodities, that they are worthy of a life of dignity and joy.
• The reality of the re-emergence of the commercial slave trade is beyond my imagination.  To think that in my lifetime as an African-American I would see simultaneously a Black man sit in the highest seat of power AND over 300,000 slaves living in my country-both of these extremes never entered into my mind until just a few short years ago.
• Today, we can do something as concerned citizens.  We can send a message to those who traffic in children.  We can educate ourselves and our community.  We can raise dollars and awareness, we can confront 21^st Century Slavery.
• We can take a stand against the socio-sexual pathology that gives rise to the appetite for the rape for pay industry.
• We can take a stand against ignorance and the kind of lazy tolerance that would allow the slave trade to re-emerge in our lifetime.
• We can take a stand against the inadequacies in our antiquated laws that literally punish the victim and set free the criminal.
• The state of Ohio is now the fastest growing state in the union for modern-day slavery.  Adjusted per capita, Toledo, OH is now the child prostitute capital of the United States.
• When we think about the fact that there are now more slaves in the world than were trafficked in the entire four centuries of the trans-Atlantic slave trade we have to ask ourselves some hard questions.
• Were those who allowed the last great global tyranny less educated than us? 
• Were those who bought gardeners and house workers to tend to their everyday needs less moral than us? 
• Were those who built out the infrastructure of slavery, who passed laws protecting slaves as property, who offered insurance to slave owners to protect their investments, were these US lawmakers less committed to justice and the ideals of the inalienable rights to life, liberty and happiness than we?
• I don’t think so.  There is every reason to believe that in our lifetime we could not only see the re-emergence of modern-day slavery but the acceptance of such and it is with this hanging in the balance this day and this week that we pledge ourselves to those eternal ideals of transcendent dignity.
• Today, we march to say that this evil cannot stand, that the act of selling a child into a life of sexual slavery is an absolutely evil.
• Today, we join our ancestors in the abolitionist movement, walking where they walked literally and figuratively.
• Today, we join a long Parade of Tears, stretching back into history.  We join a Parade of suffering, a Parade of injustice, a Parade of brokenness.  But we also join a Parade that celebrates the sacrifices of the average woman and man committed to the ideals of the inherent dignity and right to life and freedom for all.
• Throughout this week, we will confront 21^st Century Slavery. 
• We will address the commercial sexual exploitation of children from a variety of perspectives. 
• We will address trafficking from a political perspective tomorrow as state and federal lawmakers gather at our political Town Hall Meeting. 
• We will address trafficking from the legal perspective and business perspective in the business school and school of law. 
• We will address trafficking from an academic perspective, a medical and social perspective, and from a spiritual perspective.
• The complexity of the modern-day slave trade demands that to come together across religious and political lines, across ethnic and racial lines, across socio-economic lines, and across disciplinary lines. 
• The monstrous nature of the trafficking industry requires us to set aside our differences and give all we can give with what super powers we have at our disposal if we are ever going to end slavery before it takes root.
• Many of you in the audience this afternoon sit in places of great power and influence.  Some of you went into the world of politics, media, religion and journalism because you wanted not only to report, reflect and connect with what is happening in the world but through your efforts to change what is wrong in the world.
• Some of you have literary genius, technological genius, medical genius, legal genius, and the question of your life is this, “What shall I do with the super powers that have been given to me to make a difference in this world?”
• We all can choose to be super heroes in this epic journey, this story we call life. 
• We all have been given super powers to fight that creeping darkness that threatens to corrupt the very fabric of humanity.
• The abduction, commoditization, and the rape for pay of children are not just actions of injustice, they are an assault on all that it means to be preeminently human.
• Such actions threaten us all because the allowance of such opens the door for our society, our culture to be thrust into another dark chapter of hopelessness and despair.
• This next decade, I believe, will be marked by an all out war with those who would stand and fight against this great injustice and those who would seek to establish the slave trade. 
• I believe this there is a storm coming upon us that will test the very soul of humanity once again. 
• This storm will test us like our ancestors were tested in the south during slavery, like they were tested outside the death camps in Germany, and like they were tested in the open fields of Rwanda. 
• Every so often, a great evil rises up to test the resolve and character of women and men and I believe we are on the precipice of such a time of testing.
• I believe there is a coming storm that transcends the passing of legislation and the prosecution of those who would traffic in children.
• The storm that looms on the human horizon is one that rages around the hearts and minds of everyday citizens like you.
• Recently, while returning my computer for service I stood behind a man who was also returning equipment for service.  He joked with the attendant behind the counter saying, “Yeah, I think the Asian kid who put this thing together put some extra parts in it.  I hope his bowl of rice gets taken away!”
• While this joking attitude seems harmless at first glance, it reflects a growing comfort and acceptance that somewhere, someplace slavery not only exists but is a normal part of life.  
• I believe that in the coming decade we will need not only fight with all of our super powers the actual perpetrators who traffic in flesh, but more importantly for the hearts and minds of everyday people who will inevitably ask the question again, “Is it inherently wrong for some to live as slaves?”
• When we think that there are over 1,000 US born child sex slaves in the state of Ohio alone, the real issue we need to grapple with is why is there such a demand for the flesh of children?  What is it in the heart of a man who would pay to rape a child, what is it in the heart of a mother who would prostitute her young daughter out of the back of her mini-van?  This is the real question.
• We can legislate, protest, educate, and prosecute all we want but unless we address the appetite of a growing socio-sexual pathology, we will never truly address the issue of modern-day slavery.
• This week, I invite you Columbus, I invite you students, faculty, staff at the Ohio State University to dig deep, to get involved not only here today but to join us in doing righteousness. 
• I invite us all to a new Parade of Tears, a Parade of those who would choose courage over cowardice, those who would choose righteousness over convenience, and those who would choose to face the storm instead of ignoring the inevitable.