The Hole in Our Gospel...

I just finished another very challenging and excellent book, The Hole in Our Gospel, by Richard Stearns, U.S. President of World Vision.  I am having a hard time posting a review on this book, there is so much to share and it was so good I just really want everyone to read it for themselves!!

But here is one thing {of many..} that stood out to me.

After coming back from Uganda as the brand-new president of World Vision U.S., and after seeing firsthand the horrors of the AIDS pandemic in Africa, he begins discussions with his team about how to help the orphans and widows abandoned by AIDS. 

Before launching a national program to raise support for an AIDS ministry, they conducted a research study with the Barna Group.  Here is what shocked me:

"When evangelical Christians were asked whether they would be willing to donate money to help CHILDREN orphaned by AIDS, assuming they were asked by a reputable Christian organization that was doing this work ...

...only 3 percent answered that they definitely would help;
...52 percent said that they probably or definitely would NOT help."  

(The Hole in Our Gospel, 196)

This breaks my heart.  This literally made me well up with tears.  I read it over and over.  Are we so calloused, so cynical, so uncompassionate, that HALF of us say we will not help children, innocent, precious, helpless, dependent VICTIMS of a cruel disease? Oh how we must make the Lord feel, these are HIS innocent, precious, helpless children!  Ouch!

I have been reading some of the most amazing books {see book shelf to the left} and I can tell you that God is doing a work.  He is challenging me, I am being gloriously wrecked!  I am praying He will make me into something useful for His glory!!