Would you recommend a movie you had not seen, or a restaurant that you had never been to? And if someone gave you a recommendation without trying it first, how much would that recommendation be worth?

This has been brought to my mind because of 2 things I have heard in the past week, from two different Vineyard pastors. The first was our own Chris Reeves. He commented that if the Vineyard model was working like it should, we would see dozens of people coming forward for prayer every week.

The second was from Columbus Vineyard Paster Rich Nathan. I have been listening to him online for the past few weeks and I really enjoy his sermons. Allow me to paraphrase... "The people out there, the people who don't know Jesus, no longer care about the truth of Christianity or the facts of Jesus' life and death on the cross. They don't want a reasoned, logic debate about the existence of God, or a treatise about sin and redemption. What they want to know is, do you know a power that can free me from enslavement to the filth of this world, that can give me purpose, significance, peace, and if you know that power, I will follow that power."

So, I come back to that original line of questioning... Have we as Christians experienced the freedom, and do we continue to experience the freedom, from the fear, the pain, the degradation, the hatred of this world? Not that we do not experience those things, but that they do not rule over us. That we continue go to the Power that is greater than these powers, and find freedom. And if we have not, if we do not, why would anyone ever listen to us when we tell them about Jesus.