Lebanon (MNN) — During Lebanon’s endless financial freefall, people continue to suffer. In this time, God has worked to transform the church in Lebanon from spectators to participants.
Ellie Haddad, President of the Arab Baptist Theological Seminary, says, “I remember growing up in the church of Lebanon. I lived through the civil war in Lebanon. The Church was very much not involved in what was happening around it at the time. More recently, maybe in the last 10 years, God has been using these circumstances to really transform the Church and give it a different heart and outlook on what proclaiming the Gospel means.”
A new perspective
This is a crucial perspective, Haddad says, for any Christian body. Churches often can focus on survival or growth, not so much impacting society. Lebanese Christians have become more and more involved with life outside the church walls, repairing, cleaning, and feeding.
Haddad says this is a way of showing the hope of Jesus to a hurting country. “We understand that Christ is coming back. We understand that there is eternal life. We understand that at the end of the day, good will win over evil. But outside the church, they don’t have that concept. And they don’t care to learn about what’s going to happen at the end of time when they are hungry, and they’re starving. They have immediate needs.”
Ask God to provide for Christians in Lebanon and give ever-increasing compassion. And pray the same for churches all around the world. Haddad says, “If we want to look for the state of the church, or the health of the church in Lebanon right now, we don’t go to services on Sunday morning. We go to the streets of Beirut, where the big need is.”
Header photo courtesy of ABTS on Facebook.
