[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"\u002Farticles\u002Fcall-waiting":3,"\u002Farticles\u002Fcall-waiting-surround":68},{"id":4,"title":5,"author":6,"bibleBooks":8,"body":12,"columnName":50,"date":51,"description":18,"extension":52,"image":53,"meta":54,"minRead":55,"navigation":56,"path":57,"postType":58,"publication":59,"publicationUrl":53,"seo":60,"stem":61,"topics":62,"__hash__":67},"blog\u002Farticles\u002Fcall-waiting.md","Call Waiting",{"name":7},"Dave Faust",[9,10,11],"Ezra","Psalms","Hebrews",{"type":13,"value":14,"toc":46},"minimark",[15,19,22,25,28,31,34,37,40,43],[16,17,18],"p",{},"Imagine how frustrating it would be to call 911 and get no answer.",[16,20,21],{},"According to a new study by the Barna Research Group, a hurting world may be calling the church for help, but nobody's answering the phone. Evangelical Press reports that contact with a human being could not be made by phone at 40 percent of America's Protestant churches. Almost half of these churches (44 percent) didn't even have an answering machine available to take a message. Researchers called 3,764 churches nationwide, and even tried multiple callbacks—as many as 12—in an effort to reach a person. It took researchers an average of 2.1 telephone calls to reach a human being during regular business hours on weekdays.",[16,23,24],{},"George Barna, president of the firm that conducted the study, points out that this raises serious concern about the accessibility of churches to the public. \"In a world where people are extremely busy and are suspicious of the practical value of churches, they are not likely to make three or four calls to a church before they speak to a human being,\" Barna says. \"When we make it difficult for people to get our attention, we send a negative message about the heart of the church while also training them to look elsewhere during their times of need.\"",[16,26,27],{},"There's something worse, though, than calling a church and getting no answer. What about the times when we reach out to God himself and he doesn't seem to answer the call? David's prophetic words in Psalm 22 echo through the centuries and touch the aching hearts of every believer who has ever felt distant from the Lord: \"My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me, so far from the words of my groaning? O my God, I cry out by day, but you do not answer.\"",[16,29,30],{},"Where can you turn in those joyless moments when God seems distant?",[16,32,33],{},"Ezra 3 tells how the Israelites gathered in Jerusalem and began to rebuild God's temple. Hostile enemies nearby threatened their survival and hindered their work. But Ezra 3:3 says, \"Despite their fear of the peoples around them, they built the altar on its foundation and sacrificed burnt offerings on it to the Lord, both the morning and evening sacrifices.\"",[16,35,36],{},"\"Despite their fear\"? We'd like to think that faith automatically wipes out every trace of fear and doubt. But sometimes faith means you worship God in spite of your fear. It means you hold onto your convictions even when your emotions mutiny against them. It means calling the Father \"my God, my God\" even though in the next breath you ask why he's forsaken you. It means trusting him enough to \"wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord\" (Psalm 27:14).",[16,38,39],{},"When the Israelites laid the foundation of the temple, some of the older folks wept aloud, while others shouted for joy. In fact, \"no one could distinguish the sound of the shouts of joy from the sound of weeping, because the people made so much noise\" (Ezra 3:12, 13). Life is that way sometimes—joy mingled with tears. At the heart of our faith is the risen Lord who \"for the joy set before him endured the cross.\" Because of him we can \"approach the throne of grace with confidence\" and \"receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need\" (Hebrews 12:2; 4:16).",[16,41,42],{},"Even when the joy seems gone, God is not. And someday the joy will return—guaranteed.",[16,44,45],{},"Just wait.",{"title":47,"searchDepth":48,"depth":48,"links":49},"",2,[],"From the Editor's Desk","2000-10-08","md",null,{},3,true,"\u002Farticles\u002Fcall-waiting","column","The Lookout",{"title":5,"description":18},"articles\u002Fcall-waiting",[63,64,65,66],"Church Leadership","Biblical Theology","Holy Week and Resurrection","Intergenerational Ministry","kUE60MbaKg_1ZbIB6ZyDNaN5LY-19FjqRG6XwOW2VEw",[69,74],{"title":70,"path":71,"stem":72,"description":73,"children":-1},"Call Me Old-Fashioned","\u002Farticles\u002Fcall-me-old-fashioned","articles\u002Fcall-me-old-fashioned","I must be old-fashioned. I would rather not wake up in the morning with nausea and a pounding head from a hangover. To me, that would override any so-called \"fun\" of drinking the night before.",{"title":75,"path":76,"stem":77,"description":78,"children":-1},"Can't Stop the Clock","\u002Farticles\u002Fcan-t-stop-the-clock","articles\u002Fcan-t-stop-the-clock","How will you feel at 11:59 p.m. on Friday, December 31, 1999? How will you feel when, like scissor blades, the hands of the clock prepare to snip off the end of another decade, another century, another millennium?"]