12.16 Director's View

By: Chuck Boatman

Happy Holidays?

Do you have your “Holiday Tree” up and decorated yet? It’s a little early for that, but now that we’re past “Turkey Day,” the children or grandchildren will soon be out of school for “Winter Vacation.” In our rapidly changing American culture, holidays with a Christian background have many of their spiritual overtones for a large part of Western society.

I’m not one to wring my hands and cry that the world will end tomorrow simply because our nation is no longer as Christian as it once was.  In fact, America was probably never as Christian as many of us would like to imagine. But we are definitely a more secular nation than we once were, and the popular ways of referring to Thanksgiving Day and Christmas are evidence of this.

Back in the day when CEM was a new ministry, many Christians were engaged in a “culture war” with American society. We lost the war! The Supreme Court’s ruling in favor of same-sex marriage in June, 2015, is perhaps the most striking proof that the “other side” is now the dominant force in American culture.

The good news is that all is not lost. In fact, as our culture becomes ever more radically secular, God has given us Christians an opportunity for our light to shine brighter than ever before. The responsibility to do so thrusts itself upon us most significantly in terms of how we guide the younger members of our families and churches.
Many fine Christian families have lost one or more children to the forces of secularization. Christian Encounter Ministries is not in the business of judging families for “what went wrong” in the case of their kids. Our calling is to be a lifesaver, rescuing—with God’s help—young people who are drowning in a sea of anti-Christian influences.
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So, while the world does what it will to decrease the effects of the gospel in our culture, we continue to thank God for Christmas, when he came to be one of us. We pray for him to enter our hearts with the Good News of his coming, and through us, to enter our culture once again in a way that changes lives. That’s what we’re here for, if and when you need us.