I read from the Pastor's Weekly Briefing Jan 25, 2008 provided by Focus on the Family Pastoral Resources where a new Barna Group report outlines, "What concerns Christians the most? The following new study from The Barna Group reveals the top 10 perceived important issues in the here and now:
(1-3) Three types of issues are of particular concern, perceived as "major" problems facing the country by three-quarters of the population. These include poverty (78%), the personal debt of individual Americans (78%) and HIV/AIDS (76%).
(4-7) A quartet of issues emerged as moderate concerns, including immigration (60% of adults said this is a major problem facing the country), global warming (57%), abortion (50%) and the content of television and movies (45%)."
I wonder if these are important to those who attend Wooster Grace. If these perceived important issues reflect most Christians then how am I helping to equip believers to address these issues and to teach them what God's word says. We are launching a two-week message series on prayer. I wonder if we could incorporate daily prayer themes through the month of February by taking the top seven issues and praying over them each day. For example on the first I would pray for the poor, on the second i would pray for personal debt, etc. I just might incorporate these requests into my prayer time.
We already offer a money management seminar. We offered a seminar on HIV/AIDS and regarding immigration or ethnic diversity we conduct an Internationals class on Sunday mornings as well as on March 1 we are offering a seminar on how to show Christian love to Muslims. So I believe we are helping to equip God's church to be people fully devoted to Jesus Christ.
