Fox News & CNN

We have witnessed many painful things through the last 30 years overseas.  These include famine, civil war, demonic possession, alongside internationally ingrained racism that defies imagination.

Yet it could that $10,000 has caused the most pain?

But is not about money.  It is about who sets the agenda for God’s people. Those early years in Somalia were horrific as we buried scores of children, witnessed an abuse of women which became the norm, and encountered an environment that was potentially worse when we left than when we arrived. As our ministry grew in Somalia, believers from all over the world responded spontaneously to the need. Sometimes as much as $10,000 a month was given to this ministry from unexpected places around the globe. Such sacrifice became the norm.

Then Black Hawk went down.

Our team was not very far away from that tragic event. Many young American Rangers lost their lives. Possibly more than 700 Somalis were killed. It was a horrible time. In such an environment, episodes as these were not unexpected, though this particular event broke our hearts and had unforeseen consequences. Immediately after “Black Hawk Down,” gifts to our ministry from believers and churches around the world went from $10,000 a month to $100. I was shocked, confused, and then hurt. For the first time in my life I understood clearly who sets the agenda for the church, for the bride of Jesus Christ. Perhaps I was naïve, as I believed that the church received her marching orders from the Bible and the Holy Spirit.

The truth was, and is, who sets the agenda for the church in the West is most often Fox News and CNN.

Believe you me I am not picking a fight! Well, maybe I am, but I want to pick the right fight. Can we pause a moment and ask ourselves, who sets the agenda for the people of God? Where do you get your information? What sources influence the decisions made by the church, where it goes and what it does? Please hear my heart as I speak through tears and hurt. Seldom do we as a church spend a great deal of time in prayer and Bible study before deciding where to go and what to do in regard to ministry. Is the church, across denominational lines, gathering together, informing one another, breaking bread together, reading our Bibles, and then deciding where the Holy Spirit would have us go both across the street and across the globe?

Or are we turning on the television, tuning in Fox News or CNN and then rushing to the famine of the week, involving ourselves in stopping human trafficking, or being inundated by the next civil war with the ensuing images of yet more women and children at risk? From where does the church get her agenda?

It’s not about the $10,000. It’s about the need for the people of God kneeling before the throne of God seeking the will of God that haunts me.