Kevin Weir, faculty member at GST-WC and totally into motor cycling all over Africa.

I read one of Kevin’s blogs and thought it was so “right on” that I asked his permission to post it on my blog as an article written by him.  He said yes.  Kevin completed his BA degree through the Global University distance education programme and then his MA in Bible and Theology at the seminary and now teaches in the GST-WC BA programme.

To give a little background about Kevin, he was born in 1953 in Cape Town and was a civil engineer for eighteen years.  By this time he was married to Linda and had three children. He started out with a diploma in Christian Ministry in the area of health care and was trained as a community nurse.  He had over one thousand hours in clinics and hospitals and began working with people dying of AIDS.  He was also an avid mountain climber and was a part of a team whose job was to rescue people trapped, dying or dead on mountains.  He has quite an extraordinary story and in addition to his amazing feats of mountain climbing adventure, he loves to ride his motor cycle all over the country of South Africa and beyond.

In October 2011, Kevin lost his wife Linda, of thirty-three years, to cancer.  She was perfect one day, and the next thing they knew, there was a diagnosis of cancer which was followed by forty days of illness (miraculously without pain) and then she was gone.  Even though Kevin says he is still on the grieving journey, he has made up his mind to use his remaining days on this earth to spread the Gospel and be used by God to promote and teach about the coming Kingdom and salvation through no other name, but the name of Jesus.

The following post is an example of his zeal for missions and his burden to see the Church rise up and complete her mandate to reach the lost for Christ in these last days:

Brace yourself: Angry sermon coming up!!! by Kevin Weir

Ask of me, and I will make the nations your heritage,
and the ends of the earth your possession.  (Psalms 2:8 ESV)

What an amazing promise! What a huge promise!  But how many churches take it seriously? How many churches dare pray the prayer: “Lord, give  us the nations?” Unfortunately, there is more of an attitude of “Here am I, Lord, please send someone else.” Emil Brunner said:  “The Church exists by mission, as fire exists by burning.” It seems as if many churches don’t know much about fire!

Somehow, the Western church has slipped into a kind of country-club outlook on life. I know that there are some churches that are fervent about spreading the Gospel but, unfortunately many seem to have lost the plot and mainly preach “Oprah” sermons and don’t really reach the world.

This song, written by Frank Houghton for OMF (Overseas Missionary  Fellowship) is a challenge to all the “comfortable Christians” in the world. It is sung to the setting “Aurelia,” the same as “The Church’s One Foundation.”

1)  Facing a task unfinished,
That drives us to our knees,
A need that, undiminished,
Rebukes our slothful ease:
We, who rejoice to know Thee,
Renew before Thy throne
The solemn pledge we owe Thee
To go and make Thee known.

2)  Where other lords beside Thee
Hold their unhindered sway,
Where forces that defied Thee
Defy Thee still today;
With none to heed their crying
For life, and love, and light,
Unnumbered souls are dying,
And pass into the night.

3)  We bear the torch that flaming
Fell from the hands of those
Who gave their lives proclaiming
That Jesus died and rose.
Ours is the same commission,
The same glad message ours;
Fired by the same ambition,
To Thee we yield our powers.

4)  O Father who sustained them,
O Spirit who inspired,
Saviour, whose love constrained them
To toil with zeal untired,
From cowardice defend us,
From lethargy awake!
Forth on Thine errands send us
To labour for Thy sake.

A certain bishop once said that our liturgy and our praxis reveal our theology. This sounds reasonable. Surely a reasonable human being does things in accordance with what he or she holds to be true. What does the inactivity of the church reveal about our theology? Is the pressure of being politically correct enough to stifle the call of the Gospel?

Few churches sing songs that challenge us to get out into the mission field. The Christian music industry is just like any secular industry in this fallen world. Whereas people like Isaac Watts, John Wesley, Martin Luther, et al., wrote hymns to help teach people the Gospel, modern Gospel composers rely on “planned redundancy” to ensure a steady income. If last year’s  happy marshmallow praise song doesn’t fall into disuse this year, there is no need for a new one, and, thus, there is a concomitant drop in the artist’s income.

Why does a Gospel CD cost at least as much as a secular CD (sometimes more)? Why don’t modern composers write some songs that challenge us to get off our behinds and spread the Gospel? As church members/attendees, we are being cosseted  and guarded from the grim truth that, every minute, people all over the world are dying and going to a Christ-less eternity. No one reminds us of the duty we have to spread the Gospel. It’s too easy and comfortable to be a Western Christian.

H. Richard Niebuhr summed up Liberal Christianity as follows: “A God without wrath led men without sin into a kingdom without judgment through the ministrations of a Christ without a cross.” Thomas E. Trask, when he retired as head of the Assemblies of God in the USA, echoed this sentiment: “Many churches in America today [are] offering a … new religion that guarantees no hell, requires no holiness. It is a limp, spineless Christianity that does not confront sin for fear of being judgmental. It is an impotent gospel that tells people everything is okay.” The US church is not the only church with this problem.

The bad news is that everything is not okay, and the Church needs to have the courage to say so. The Good News is that in a world that is not okay, there is salvation through Jesus.

It seems significant that Chinese Christians do not pray for the oppression to stop. They only pray for strength to remain faithful through the oppression, because their reward lies beyond their present suffering. Maybe the Western church isn’t oppressed enough!

Vuka Bandla! (Zulu phrase meaning, Awake Church!) “Soldiers of Christ arise and put your armour on!”

End of angry sermon. Relax!