As we Go Out and meet new people, we are always asked a series of questions:
- What is Pursuit of Character (P.O.C.)?
- What church are you a part of?
From here, the questioning can take several paths, but I want to stick with these two.
P.O.C. is an Outreach Ministry. Prior to 2022, we primarily fulfilled this mission through our website, PursuitofCharacter.org (beginning in 2015), The Hope Series of books (beginning in 2020), and our Worship Through Song ministry (beginning in 2021). In 2022, through Raising The Church, we began to lay the foundation of our next steps in His ministry. This last step has brought definition and direction to our answer to the first question, an answer I will attempt to clarify now.
We at Pursuit of Character are missionaries. We have committed to take the Truth of the Word of God into a nation that sorely needs it. Every day this nation is growing more hostile to those who would follow Christ. Every day those who would speak His teachings out loud are in ever increasing danger. This nation has a ruling class that sees the principles of Christ as a threat to their power and the teaching of them as a militant act. Every year this nation comes to more closely resemble 17th century England, with the government as the head of the church and its teachings written and sanctioned by that same ruling class. Anyone who “dissents” is identified and closely monitored. Here and now, like there and then, you are free to speak as you please… as long as you please to speak what the ruling class has mandated.
Many who have answered the call to be missionaries in this nation have found themselves facing prosecution for worshipping in the open, ministering in the street, or even as little as the crime of singing a hymn. Again, I say, this is a Hostile nation, a nation that will not tolerate Christ or His disciples. As is usually the case with such authoritarian nations, the casual observer may look and say, “But they have Christian churches.” Well, they have churches who proclaim to be Christian but who have long ago given over their authority to teach and live God’s Word to the ruling class. On the other side of their stain glass windows they teach from the Book of Man rather than from the Book of Life (God), and therefore, are as Adam was… DEAD. Their doctrines and sermons contain instruction that directly contradicts God’s instruction, and therefore, are more propaganda for the ruling class than discipleship tools of Christ.
We at P.O.C. have committed to be missionaries in a nation where it is unsafe for children to go into a public rest room without their parent, and even that is becoming more dangerous every day. What they call a school system is actually no more than the ruling class’s forced indoctrination into the thinking of the nation’s leaders… Karl Marx would be very proud! Again, dissenters will be punished.
Something we find amazing about this nation is that they allow public protests against the government. But they, like the churches, are not what they appear to be. If you look closer, you will see that all public assembly and demonstration is not allowed, only that which, ironically, fulfills Christ’s teaching, “If a house is divided against itself, it cannot stand.” (Mark 3:25) The ruling class knows the best way to keep power over the people is to keep the people divided. As a result, those who take to the public square to demand special distinction, even if their banner is unity, are not only permitted but encouraged. Meanwhile, anyone who would use that same public square to promote Christ’s standard of real and actual equality, “…glory, honor, and peace to everyone who works what is good…For there is no partiality with God” (Romans 2:10-11), will, at best, be shouted down and, at worst, be beaten and carried away.
More evidence contradicts the casual observer who sees tolerance for Christians in this nation where there is none: If you dare to live your life publicly in accordance with Christ’s teachings or run a business under the same, you, like the Jews in Nazi Germany, will find your business labeled, blockaded, and your family dragged before a judge. In every case where a citizen of this nation faces this, they are devastated. In most cases, their lives are not only torn apart, they are under constant threat and real danger.
The churches of this nation are allowed to fund missionaries to other countries, and at first glance, this too seems to indicate an openness to spreading the Word of God. Again, with a closer look, it makes perfect sense. While these churches are in continuous decline and the neighborhoods they inhabit grow ever more ungodly, they pat themselves on the back, convinced they are serving The Great Commission because they send money and people to other countries. In fact, in the communities surrounding P.O.C.’s home base, there are several churches that have been turned into breweries. Besides the obvious irony of the situation is the fact that this nation and its churches have grown so ungodly under their modern-day Caesar, they would serve God more by using their money to bring Christians, who had been evangelized by missionaries in previous generations, back to teach them what following Christ above all else actually looks like.
I think this brief and incomplete summary makes a solid case for the dire need for missionaries to this nation that is growing ever closer to the cities of the plains. While false prophets and modern day pharisees are well funded in this nation, missionaries who will stand against them and up to the ruling class find their piggy banks pretty quiet when shaken. There was a time when this nation was thought to be the hope of the world. We Christians should have known better, for this was but a wish (hope) in man, and True Hope comes only through Christ. While we are not optimistic about the nation as a whole, we are convinced that God has a “few” “seeds” there, and those seeds are worth the effort. Therefore, we are missionaries to that nation.
At risk of censorship, likely persecution, and possible prosecution, I will identify the nation we Go Out into as missionaries. This nation that we at P.O.C. have loved our whole lives. This One Nation no longer Under God. This nation no longer United. This nation of America!
As to what church P.O.C. Goes Out from? The one defined in the first Greek & Hebrew to English translation (Tyndale’s). We Go Out from “His Congregation.” (Matthew 16:18) Anywhere two or more of this Congregation is present, you are His Church (Matthew 18:20), and we are with you and Go Out as a part of you. Even though we may have never met, we are one Body, one Congregation (Ephesians 4:4), and together we will “make disciples” in His Name (His Character). (Matthew 28:16-20)