The Woodlands United Methodist Church outside Houston is one of global Methodism’s great churches, today, and in history, with over 11,000 members and missions around the world. Pastor Edmund Robb III, a former IRD board member and brother of IRD board member James, founded the church in 1978. His late father, Edmund Jr., was an evangelist who helped found IRD and who personally inspired my own entry into United Methodist renewal over 25 years ago.
Visiting Woodlands United Methodist is always enjoyable, and today was no exception. The church remarkably has several different congregations and worship spaces on its vast campus, from very contemporary to traditional, simultaneously reaching different audiences with sophistication and spiritual discernment. Naturally I chose a traditional service, meeting in the chapel, which was as large as most sanctuaries and easily seated several hundred, with the space pretty filled.
The preacher was Indian evangelist Peter Pereira, whose sermon was compelling. He shared several stories of Christians in India facing persecution. Although less than 3 percent of the population, there are perhaps 24 million or more Christians in India. By some measures there maybe more Christians at church on a typical Sunday in India than in all of Europe. India is democratic and legally affirms most religious freedom, yet Christians often face social hostility and sometimes violence.
Pereira spoke of a young girl walking to church and surrounded by a hostile crowd blocking her path, not relenting until she announced the faith in her heart would not change even if she could not physically reach the church. And he mentioned an evangelist preaching in a church surrounded by an angry crowd that threw rocks at the church while he preached.
Early Methodist preachers, including John Wesley and Francis Asbury, commonly faced rock throwing in Britain and America. They were undeterred, of course. Pereira noted the Gospel if proclaimed with power always provokes a reaction, negative or positive. As he preached, I glanced around the beautiful sanctuary, full of attentive, healthy, well dressed and seemingly well-heeled worshippers. And I noticed the huge glass windows facing into a wooded area, constructed obviously without fear of rock throwing mobs.
All of us at Woodlands United Methodist zoomed into the huge parking lot in our relatively new cars without fear of angry, hostile crowds. So too did tens of millions of other worshippers today in America. We are blessed in America, despite all our challenges, and most of us most of the time are fairly heedless of the blessings. But such peace and safety for Christians and for society as a whole are an aberration, not the historical or global norm.
The Christians in India live in relative safety compared to nearly all Christians in the Mideast. Christians of Syria and Iraq currently face the torments of ISIS. Their sufferings rightly deserve our prayers and outrage, and yet even their horrors probably amount to a slow week endured by the mostly globally ignored Christians of South Sudan and Sudan against whom the Islamist regime in Khartoum has waged war for a quarter century.
We who practice our faith in such affluence and safety must never forget the many, many who do not. And we should always recall and give thanks for spiritual ancestors who suffered and sacrificed so that we may worship without fear and freely hear the Gospel at great churches like Woodlands United Methodist. May there eventually be a day, by God’s grace, when Christians everywhere, even in the Mideast and Sudan, can similarly gather in sprawling, crowded churches with huge windows amid liberty and peace.
Comment by Paul Reese on March 2, 2015 at 8:01 am
Houston, Texas. The Mayor of that fair city has recently persecuted conservative pastors. They stood up to her and she backed down, this time. But watch and see, that was just the opening salvo.
Comment by James on March 3, 2015 at 10:36 am
Silly conservative. Objecting to being on the receiving end of a constant barrage of religious hate is hardly “persecution.” Try a bit of empathy: would you like churches full of hypocrites constantly preaching hate against you while so consistently turning a blind eye to their own moral failures?
Comment by Carlos on March 4, 2015 at 11:11 am
What form does this “constant barrage of religious hate” take?
Last time I checked, the greatest harm done to homosexuals was the self-genocide. Christians don’t give you people AIDS, you do that to each other. If you tallied up the death tolls of gay guys, your biggest enemy is yourselves. Some “community,” where you couldn’t care less if your sex partners die.
Comment by Carlos on March 4, 2015 at 11:08 am
She is a typical leftist – practicing hate while accusing her victims of being the haters.
Comment by polistra24 on March 3, 2015 at 7:19 am
No mystery. Rock-throwing mobs in US are leftists who have no problem with the United Marxist “Church”.
Comment by Byrom on March 6, 2015 at 10:23 pm
Mark, Peter Pereira also delivered a powerful message recently at my Houston church, the Westchase Campus of First United Methodist Church. As part of his message, he told about how people in India by the power of God are sharing their new-found faith in Jesus Christ with their neighbors and founding house churches. One of those people was an illiterate woman who used a tape recorder to evangelize others. Peter told us that by the power of God, each of us in our congregation could do the same thing. And Peter also mentioned that most of us in this country do not have to worry about being attacked or arrested on the way to our churches. Nor at church do we have to fear that someone in our midst may throw a bomb, as has happened in India. One clear message that I got was that if an illiterate woman in India by the power of God can share her faith in Jesus Christ with others, then surely I in Houston, Texas, can do the same.
I would rather talk about Peter’s message than our homosexual liberal Houston mayor.