Here's a short essay written by Dustin Horstmann.
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America, Media and Evangelism:
I believe God is putting something on my heart today.
Media portrays our nations as cold towards Christianity in such a way that *it seems* that America doesn’t want to hear the Gospel. And this can discourage people from sharing the beauty and power of Jesus in their lives.
But I feel God is saying we need to be careful not to let the media convince us that the harvest is not ripe. The harvest, in fact, is ripe.
We don’t need to be afraid of a mocking attitude from others. Life is short and people’s opinions, though passionate, are not stronger than the gospel. Man acts confident, but man is not stable. We are truly weak creatures who understand very little, see very little and control very little. But the Gospel comes and speaks directly to the heart, to those things that we know: that we have done wrong, that there will be a reckoning, and that we long for love and acceptance.
The fact is, there are those who are culturally sophisticated who are longing to hear the Gospel and there are those who are not so sophisticated who are ready to laugh at you for sharing the Gospel. And vice versa.
Yes, media can help us understand our culture to some degree, but we have to be careful with how much we let it affect our eye sight. Is it really telling us what people are crying out for as they fall to sleep at night, alone and afraid?
There is a simple message. Just as Moses lifted up a serpent in the wilderness so that all who looked upon it would be healed of their disease, so too, Jesus Christ was lifted up on the Cross to bring an end to our guilt and the power of sin and give mankind everlasting righteousness.
What man couldn't do, God did.
And the Lord said to Moses that whoever looked upon this serpent would live.
May we evangelize, that is, may we lift up Jesus, that men would look to Him and live.
