“Some people have thought that … the gospel is preached and that the truth has a kind of general moral effect upon people … But it is not that. It is an operation of the Spirit upon the men and women themselves, in the depths … It is the Spirit acting upon the soul from within and producing within us a new principle of spiritual action.”

D. Martin Lloyd-Jones

“Not everyone who says to me on that day, Lord, Lord will enter the Kingdom of heaven…”

Jesus

Not everyone who says they are Christian are in point of fact regenerate believers. Not in America. Not in Mongolia.

The last numbers that I saw from the Barna group say that 45% of the people in America would fall into the category of “born again”. In Mongolia there are supposedly 45,000 Christians (which is still less than 2% of the total population). There is a sense in which these numbers are sadly low. We want to see many more people than this who are radically changed by the power of the Holy Spirit and who know the efficacy of the Cross of Jesus. However, in reality these numbers are probability outlandishly high, in that there is not near enough visible evidence to cause me to believe that there are even close to this many true believers in America or in Mongolia. Here, reports that came out at the end of 2009 state that alcoholism rates are up, poverty rates are up, murder rates are up and theft/crime rates are up. This doesn’t really jive with supposed increased in Christian salt and light.

In Mongolia we are finding that many of the people who have claimed Christianity in the past are not living a life which would give evidence of any sort of regeneration or new birth. Some of these people, including several we know personally, have flat out rejected the claims of the Gospel and are no longer making any pretense to follow Christ whatsoever. Some statistics that I have read are saying that in Mongolia there are fewer believers today than there were ten years ago. My guess is that all of those who have ever made some sort of profession of faith, even if that profession has been recanted, are still counted in the grand tally.

I was an American pastor once. I know how the numbers game works. But the stakes are too high, and this is far too serious of an issue to play games with numbers so we can impress donors at home.

I’ve heard various proposals for solutions to the problem of the troubling rate of attrition. We need to offer more training. We need to have greater discipleship. We need to plant more churches. While I am not going to say that any of these solutions are bad or that they will not help with the problem, I’m convinced more than ever that this will not come close to resolving the problem. The issue as I see it has little to do with these things and has everything to do with the nature of true conversion and regeneration of the believer. Those of us in Christian ministry are satisfied to count the coercion of profession, rather than actually believe God for true conversion.

It’s not popular, nor is it pragmatic (at least from a human perspective) to expect people to turn from sin and turn to God without some measure of human arm-twisting. At the very least there needs to be some sort palatable presentation of why Jesus “makes sense”. After all, people are pragmatic to the core and in order to properly contextualize the message, we should teach it in a simple practical way that folks will understand.

Please don’t misunderstand, I am a strong believer in and practitioner of contextualization. This is why we took two years of full-time language and why we continue to study and learn from the language and the culture. It’s never ending. That said, my convictions are becoming stronger by the day as we live here, and as we view the results of so much that has taken place here in the past. There is one key and crucial ingredient lacking in the so-called church: regeneration. True conversion. There’s been intellectual ascent to Christian teaching. There’s been the formation of churches. There’s even been the formation of a sort of “Christian culture”. There’s Christian publishing, Christian books, Christian music. However, I’m finding that there’s a huge differential between what is professed and what is actually lived out in terms of character and holiness. Not meaning to be unnecessarily cynical, but I feel sometimes like Nashville has been imported to Ulaanbaatar, minus the Starbucks.

I’ll qualify this. I am not talking about perfectionism. I am not saying that there are not inconsistencies in my own life and in my own spirituality. No question about this. It’s true for all of us. But my concerns and the issues that I am seeing in Christianity here (and in other parts of the world as well) is that there are not just small differentials. There are huge gaping divergences. There are “Christians” who are consistently getting drunk, lying to clients, sleeping with folks other than their spouses, continuing to practice idolatry and spirit worship, acting unethically in business and society. Some write this off to “culture” or “context”. But Bible trumps culture. Every time. This is true in America, where we have a culture of materialistic consumerism and it is true in Mongolia where the culture is rife with alcohol, spiritism and pragmatism.

The need of the hour is Gospel proclamation in the power of the Holy Spirit. Not a message of “only believe” or “Jesus can improve your life” or “come to church” or “let’s work together and see how quickly we get the church planted so that we can leave”. But rather a call for sinners to repent and prayer that asks the Holy Spirit of God to open up hearts and eyes to His holy awesomeness and our absolute helplessness and hopelessness any other way. The dead come to life and the blind are made to see. That’s the message of Christianity. Any other message is counterproductive and will hurt, not help the Kingdom.

I personally am not willing settle for less than Jesus raising the dead.