Pastor, World Harvest Church, 12,000 member church, includes World Harvest Academy, World Harvest Bible College, Bridge of Hope missions and 100+ outreaches
Author of more than 50 books, his latest, Culturally Incorrect, (Thomas Nelson, 2007)
Daily and weekly TV show, Breakthrough, carried on BET, WGN, TBN, etc.
GUEST BIO
Rod Parsley: Engage Your Culture
The 700 Club
CBN.com
– SURVEYING THE BATTLEFIELD
Rod believes that America is engaged in two wars: one abroad and one at home. The first is a battle against global terrorism. The latter is America’s battle with herself.
“The minds and hearts of this generation have become the theater of conflict,” says Rod. “It is a war of competing, mutually exclusive ways of viewing the universe and man’s place in it. It’s a clash of paradigms, of value systems, and of visions of the future.”
What has simmered for the last decade has, in the last few years, come to a full boil. The 2000 election seemed to trigger a full-scale, multipronged cultural offensive aimed at removing traditional faith and morality from our laws, courts, schools and marketplaces.
Rod says that in his parents’ generation, 65 percent of Americans held Bible-based values. In his generation, that figure shrank to 35 percent. In his daughter’s generation, that figure will only be 4 percent.
Rod says the key lies in America’s churches and in the will to rise and fight that seems to lie dormant within the hearts of the believers who fill those churches.
“In other words, it lies in the willingness to be culturally incorrect,” he says. “I intend to call the church to nothing less than another Great Awakening.”
He says much of the church’s impotence, compromise and failure stems from a fundamental misunderstanding about what it means to be a Christian.
“The very gospel we preach is a mere shadow of the real thing,” says Rod. “And as a result, we have an entire generation of believers ill-equipped to engage the culture; unwilling to fight for their King.”
WORLDVIEWS MATTER
Rod says the church has forfeited leadership in even spheres of society: home, the church, education, media/the arts (including entertainment and sports), commerce, science and technology, and government and politics.
“The order of the day is comfort, not conviction,” says Rod. “The secular world looks to the church and to its chagrin, finds no love, no life, no laughter, no hope and no happiness. Gazing at the church, the world woefully exclaims, Why would I want to be a part of that? They’re obviously more miserable than me.”
Believers, says Rod, have been intimidated into silence because of their perception of being in the minority. They are unwilling to speak up when their point of view is not the prevalent one.
“We have to take the biblical truth and start applying it in the statehouse, the schoolhouse, and the marketplace,” says Rod. “We must move beyond thinking right and start doing right.” For too long, Rod believes that Christians have carried the flawed view that if you work at a secular job, you’re not doing ministry. Many sold-out believers have bought into the myth that if you really want to serve God, you need to find a way to quit your job and go into full-time ministry.
“Your secular job is your ministry,” says Rod.
Every sphere of life, including media and entertainment, must experience the healing, redeeming touch of God’s anointed people.
“First we must win the lost by preaching the Gospel,” says Rod. “Next, we must make disciples of those we have won, thereby reshaping the culture in which we live.”
Rod uses the example of the film Saving Private Ryan to illustrate the kind of sacrifice that is needed today. Many men put their lives on the line to save one. This kind of sacrifice is recognized as heroic. Today, Rod reminds us that God is looking for a few who will stand in the gap to save many.
“God is looking for His greatest generation,” says Rod.
There is no doubt, he believes, that God has a wonderful plan for our lives, but that plan involves making sacrifices.
“We must accept all of God’s will for us, not just those portions that happen to appeal and bring instant gratification and pleasure to us,” says Rod.
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