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A Little Child Will Lead Them
By Dr. Wess Stafford
Compassion President Wess Stafford talks about politics and culture and the importance of helping children who will one day lead the nations.
During this presidential election season, Americans are once again being sliced and diced by political analysts into distinctly defined groups the candidates can target in order to squeeze out every possible vote.
I find the process somewhat fascinating … until they dissect the categories in which I belong.
Christians are one such scrutinized segment of our society, including evangelicals — part of the "values voters" bloc who share kindred concerns. Pollsters have traditionally pigeonholed us as concerned only about abortion and gay marriage.
The media perpetuate the sound-bite stereotypes and peg evangelicals as "anti-this" and "anti-that"; we seem to be known primarily for what we are against. Like other groups similarly oversimplified, we have been put in a box and labeled.
But this year's voters include the next generation of evangelicals, and current research findings are blowing the lid off that box.
Yes, young evangelical Christians do care deeply about moral issues, but within the context of equally important broader issues, such as social justice, care for our planet, and compassionate concern for the poor.
While this surprises many political pundits, it doesn't surprise me at all. And as a Compassion sponsor, it probably doesn't surprise you either.
I have witnessed firsthand a gradual transformation in the Church.
When I started working with Compassion more than 30 years ago, it was a much greater challenge to persuade God's people to care about poverty. To many Christians, the world's poor seemed very distant.
"Are they really our responsibility?" Attending to physical needs didn't seem a spiritual enough endeavor. "Why worry about the body? It's the eternal soul that really matters." Some questioned whether helping the poor was worthwhile strategically.
Didn't Jesus Himself say, "The poor you will always have with you"? Surely He was implying this poverty problem isn't going away, so it's pointless to waste time and resources fighting the inevitable.
Many evangelical Christians concluded that poverty wasn't their problem, wasn't important, and wasn't solvable.
There are about 2,000 verses in the Bible that speak about the poor and the injustice that is often the cause of their suffering.
God is clear about how this grieves Him and what He expects us to do about it. There are more verses about poverty than about heaven and hell combined.
Yet for decades it felt like Compassion was a voice of one calling in the desert.
I have often half joked that my job, traveling back and forth between the world's poor and the well-off, is a balancing act: On one hand I comfort the afflicted, and on the other I afflict the comfortable!
It broke my heart to see Compassion growing so slowly when I knew how greatly it would benefit both groups.
After fighting such an uphill battle for so long, imagine my joy now at seeing what the political researchers are also discovering — the awakening of the compassionate heart of God's people.
Younger Christians don't wrestle with the either/or of ministering to body and soul but rather embrace the both/and, as Jesus did.
They are not willing to let stand the narrow, negative labels by which others would define them but instead are creating a new definition as Christians whose faith naturally compels them to positively and personally engage in our suffering world.
Compassion International is increasingly becoming the ministry they choose to help them do just that. As a result, this ministry has doubled in size in the last four years.
Now we are close to our 1 millionth sponsored child! Every day, somewhere in the world, two new churches become Compassion partners — which means two additional churches in poverty settings, serving several hundred children in their local villages, are inspired, trained and equipped to be salt and light, an ongoing presence of help and hope for the poor all around them.
Over the past 12 months alone, those pastors and local church members have lovingly led 150,000 of their children in making decisions to accept Jesus Christ into their hearts as Savior and Lord!
These churches (4,672 at last count) are in a position to help these children thrive physically and to be discipled spiritually every day.
Jesus also said, "By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another" (John 13:35).
The world is taking notice — not of what we are against, but what we are for: God's Word lived out in word and deed. That's a label I am happy to wear!
We at Compassion are working diligently in anticipation of the awakening of all of God's people. Just imagine what He will do through the next generational wave of His followers — today's teens and young adults will be the ones to defeat global poverty.
Not only the children who have come through Compassion's programs, but your own children who, through your example, are having their hearts shaped to become compassionate, caring adults.
I pray I will live to see the day when, sure enough, "a little child will lead them" (Isaiah 11:6).
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