JD: Give me a quick overview of what he had to say and why its so key for the pastors of America.
SR: Well Jimmy one of the great points that he made was we over the past 50 years have lived in an exceptional era of Christianity. Being Christians in the United States of America we have had more liberty and more prosperity and quite frankly we’re the only Christians in Biblical history that haven’t been persecuted for our faith. As a consequence we’ve probably gotten a little lazy and a little lethargic. You look throughout church history and whether it be William Tyndale burned at the stake for translating the Scriptures. Whether it be the Separatist in England being persecuted for wanting to have their house church and not wanting to participate in the official Church of England. Or quite frankly whether it be the first church that was continuing to hang around Jerusalem in Acts 8 when God said no I’m sending you into Jerusalem, Judaea, Samaria yet they weren’t going anywhere. Well God wound up to me using in Romans 8:28 moment and allowing a little persecution on the church to get the people out of their comfort zone and to actually take the gospel into the four corners of the Earth.