The Priorities of Prayer Seeking God's will in prayer
by Pete Winn
Frontline leaders in the worldwide prayer movement say Christian success in political activism must begin with seeking God's will.
The Church in America at the start of the 21st century finds itself in the same situation Dorothy does in L. Frank Baum's "The Wizard of Oz," according to Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary Professor N. Allan Moseley.
You may recall the novel — or more likely the film: A tornado has thrown the house containing Dorothy and her faithful dog way up into the atmosphere, and it falls into a totally "different" place — the mythical Land of Oz. It's a reality that takes Dorothy awhile to understand, as evidenced by one of the more classic passages of literature — when at last she utters that unforgettable line that indicates she does, indeed, get it:
"I don't think we're in Kansas anymore, Toto."
Like Dorothy, Christians find themselves in the Land of Oz. We find that we live in a post-Christian culture.
"Christians need to realize that the world is not the Church, and they need to realize that the world's way of thinking is not the way that the Church is designed to think," Moseley told CitizenLink.
Our real problem, however, isn't — to return to the "Wizard of Oz" analogy — the fact that the "Wicked Witch of the West" and her awful flying monkeys are after us. They are, of course. There are people and groups who would love to see Christians and the influence of Christ disappear from the planet. But after all, Moseley says, the first century Church was persecuted and martyred, yet it still managed to grow and prosper.
Our problem isn't even that we're in Oz, or that we have strange "traveling companions" we didn't expect, or that we tend to get sidetracked along the "Yellow Brick Road" — all of which are metaphors for challenges Christians face. The real problem, according to Moseley, author of "Thinking Against the Grain: the Biblical Worldview and Culture," is that we're tempted to forget that this world isn't our real home, and it is easy to settle for life here, in the glittering-but-fake "Emerald City."
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