The Choir Needs Preaching, Too

As a missionary family preparing to launch to an officially Christian country, will we be preaching to the choir?

For example, in our home country of Romania, on Easter morning and the weeks following, instead of saying, “Hello,” or, “Good afternoon,” everyone will greet each other with, “Christ is risen!” The answer is always, “He truly is risen!” Beautiful, right? In Ukraine, no matter what day it is, you’ll rarely hear people saying, “Hello.” That’s because Orthodox people greet each other with, “May Jesus be praised!” The answer comes joyfully, “May He be praised forever!” And yet, not once in our experience while introducing people to Jesus did they ever share their own deep beliefs with us. They would share how God healed them or led them in their daily activities, or they would proudly explain how they are fasting every week or the miracles they experienced when visiting a monastery.

The fact is that people are often deeply embedded in traditions and superstitions that they think are biblical but are not. They believe in the magical power of saints and spirits of the dead, and they perform meaningless rituals to ward off evil spells. Yes, this is happening today in the midst of many Eastern European countries where people consider themselves Christians. Some countries, like Georgia where we are heading, have an ancient Christian heritage, and yet they are still unreached with the true gospel.

So yes, we are going out to “preach to the choir.” It’s not because we’re better than they are. Not because they don’t seek God enough. Not because we want to make them all like us. It’s because we would like them to actually believe their own creed, which states that God is Almighty, and His Son is our Savior who was born, died, rose and is coming again. He can bring them freedom from mysticism, superstitions and tradition. There are many sincere truth seekers out there. Will you help us remind them about the good, simple news of salvation?

—Cristian Stroia

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