Intro and Chapter 1:
Two words can easily describe my thoughts as I read these two sections. For the intro the word: sobering. I have heard before that the churches in England were ‘empty’ but I had no idea of the severity of the statistics. Even if there are some things in this book that may be controversial; if these statistics don’t rattle our cages then why would we even make an effort.
The word for chapter 1 is the exact word the author starts with: epidemic. This is truly what it is. We live in such a self-centered world. So how does a person fight an epidemic? For a medical epidemic to be stopped, people have to become immune to the disease; either through a vaccine or through a low level exposure to develop a natural immunity. However, there is not a vaccine for a spiritual epidemic; and that is exactly what the authors are describing. So how do we stop this; the statistics can seem daunting and overwhelming, but if we use them as a tool, and not let them be prophetic; then we are on the way to stopping the epidemic. First we have to keep our spiritual immunity strong; so we can help others that can so easily fall into this. I look forward to the rest of this book, my family has experienced this with Teresa (Tess) but we (myself and Keevin) are determined to not let her become a ’statistic’. And I want to be effective in keeping the AYM students from becoming negative statistics.
Just to clarify when I referred to spiritual immunity it does not mean being immune from spiritual things but rather from the worldly things. Sorry for any confusion.
LOVE the pink words. :o) Great insight though - those are two of the big things that stuck out to me too. I think the word "epidemic" is so effective and gives the right impact to the reader.
ReplyDelete