over the past few days i have been in dialog with a follower of islam. he lives in one of those countries where even owning a bible will get you killed. our conversations have focused on jesus, the cross and scripture. it has been a great experience, to see how islam sees christianity and jesus - but it has been an even greater experience for me in terms of seeing "modern evangelical christianity" as useless - well, maybe that's a bit harsh - not!

let me tell you what happened. in our conversations it came across that this individual viewed life with a "modern view" - meaning he wanted "imperical evidance" that christianity was what it said it was - and that jesus was who we claimed - so i turned to the "king of modern imperical evangelical" evidance and "demanded a verdict" - that's right, i punk monkey - the proclaimer of all things postmodern, of all things edgy, of all things in lace, turned to josh mcdowell for help - and did he let me down.

i visited his site to see if i could hook my new buddy up with something to help in his exploration - only to find that all www.josh.org is good for is spending money - minstry is defined by money, "the take," the big green buck - no place on his site was a copy, in amy form, of evidance - so, i needed to look in other places - and found them. but the experience left me cold - josh mcdowell is more interestred in money then in ministry - wow!! i would have emailed the minstry, but they had no email address on the site - no way of contacting anyone with questions or concerns - but they did have three ways to give. i called, and spoke with a really cool guy who actually cared about what i was saying - that was great - but the experience was not.

it seems we have gotten to a point in our walk with christ where we are becoming "money exchangers." we are concern with copy rights, money and who gets credit for what that we have forgotten that God is the one we follow - God is in control of our ministry and our lives. mcdowell ministreis missed a great opportunity to share trhe gospel with a person who needs to hear the message, but a desire for money too place over a desire to minister - it's sad.