We're leaving for tour tomorrow! ahhh!!

I'm still a little stressed out, but as I'm plowing through my task list and checking things off, my blood pressure is slowly decreasing :) It's wonderful to see that happen. :)

"So what will our audience be like in some of the places you will go?" you might ask.

Here's an e-mail excerpt from some of the Crusade staff in the region:

Bulgaria (Plovdiv, Smolian) – Smolian – strong Muslim presence; Plovdiv – the idea of a personal relationship is very foreign to them, Christianity=relgion=tradition; pray for the extra concert to come through in Smolian

Kosovo – strong Muslim tradition; hostility toward Serbia

Macedonia - Macedonians have an Orthodox background (like Greek Orthodox). Essentially it is a spiritual tradition but has become devoid of any relationship. Easter for example is a totally party weekend. You can draw a lot of parallels to Jesus’ response to the Pharisees. They were so committed to traditions that they had lost the concept of relationship. So it goes here in Macedonia. I have even heard students say they are “Christian atheists”. It makes sense to them because their tradition has also become their cultural identifier. They are Christians and not Muslims.

Most people believe in God. They know about Jesus dying on a cross. They don’t have a clue why that is the case. They might have read some of the Bible but since they have only been exposed to old translations it was really confusing for them. Besides, only the priest can read that. There is also an irony here. They are really committed to being “Orthodox” but they really don’t trust the priests. They see all kinds of wealth and scandal and think all the priests want is money.

If you talk about true faith, connecting with God personally rather than just through tradition, being dissatisfied with life and finding satisfaction and significance in Christ. I like to talk about the women at the well. Jesus told her that one day people would worship in “spirit and truth”. What does that mean?

• We are hoping to use this as a outreach to generate new contacts
• We are trying to target the concert to reach students who are from Skopje, the capital city, rather than just students from outside the city.
• We are also going to try and target those that are more socially strong leader types. (How do you say that in a sensitive way?)

Serbia - Ok, some things about the audience. Most of them will be people that have an idea about the main things in the Bible ( God, creation, sin, salvation, Jesus, afterlife and so on...) but it doesn't mean they believe in that. And again, most of them would say they are Christians but also believe in reincarnation, read horoscope or coffee, don't believe that the Bible is entirely authentic - you get the picture. Also the "personal relationship with God" is VERY foreign to almost everybody here.

They also believe that the orthodox church is the only one that is good ( Catholics and old protestants are ok too) but all the rest is cult.

As you can see, there is a lot of traditionalism, and the idea of God being a real person who wants to be in a relationship with them is a very foreign idea.

Pray the love of God would break through the fallow ground of their hearts and that His Word would take root.

Pray the light of Christ would shine on them and rescue them from the kingdom of darkness and bring them into the kingdom of light.

In Ephesians 5:14, it says,

for it is light that makes everything visible. That is why it is said:
"Wake up, O sleeper,
rise from the dead,
and Christ will shine on you"

This entry was posted by Christopher Wu, on Tuesday, March 13, 2007. You can leave your response.