{"id":231,"date":"2008-09-01T07:00:21","date_gmt":"2008-09-01T11:00:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/?p=231"},"modified":"2015-06-19T15:07:23","modified_gmt":"2015-06-19T18:07:23","slug":"christianity-in-the-military-truth-with-feet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/2008\/09\/01\/christianity-in-the-military-truth-with-feet\/","title":{"rendered":"Christianity in the Military: Truth with Feet"},"content":{"rendered":"

The following article\u00a0uniquely addresses the spirit of “evangelism” promoted by many Christian\u00a0military ministry organizations–the evangelism of life example<\/em>.\u00a0\u00a0Christian officers\u00a0are encouraged to\u00a0witness with “their feet”–the often silent witness of their everyday words, choices, and actions.\u00a0 While there may be an appropriate time and place for cracking open a Bible and explaining the Gospel, far more often the Gospel is seen when Soldiers, Airmen, Sailors and Marines observe the lives of the military Christians in their midst.\u00a0 Encouraging military Christians to live\u00a0as models of Godly character–so that their example might influence others–is the heart of military ministry.<\/p>\n

This article was written by Lieutenant Colonel Tom Schmidt, USA (Ret.), and\u00a0is reprinted here in its entirety.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Truth with Feet<\/strong><\/p>\n

In his short, personal letter to Gaius, the apostle John commends his friend for walking in the truth. \u201cIt gave me great joy to have some brothers come and tell about your faithfulness to the truth and how you continue to walk in the\u00a0truth\u201d (3 John v.3).<\/em><\/p>\n

Truth has feet.<\/strong> More than information merely shoved into our heads, truth is meant to \ufb01ll our hearts and spill into our entire lives. John expounds on Gaius\u2019s walk in verse 5 writing, \u201cYou are faithful in what you are doing for the brothers, even though they are strangers to you.\u201d In his walk of truth, the feet of Gaius apparently stepped beyond his comfortable circle of friends, serving others who intersected with his life.<\/p>\n

Truth with feet cannot help but be seen by others, serving as a transforming agent in their lives.\u00a0 John says those who saw Gaius\u2019 walk both bore witness to his love and responded by also going out sacri\ufb01cially \u201cfor the sake of the Name\u201d (3 John v.7).<\/p>\n

While on active duty serving as an infantry battalion executive of\ufb01cer at Fort Riley, Kansas, I came to observe and admire a young lieutenant known as EJ. I had known EJ for some time in OCF fellowship, and admired the depth and maturity of his personal faith. EJ\u2019s professional excellence, moral character, and maturity led to him being selected to command an Infantry Company as a \ufb01rst lieutenant\u2014a position normally held by a captain. In that position I saw EJ\u2019s truth wearing feet.<\/p>\n

In earlier duties he earned the reputation as an able and morally strong of\ufb01cer. But much more became evident in his new responsibility. Although only slightly more senior to the junior of\ufb01cers in the unit, and much younger than his senior NCOs, EJ took time to coach and mentor the of\ufb01cers and personally lead the NCOs. Those who were believers seemed to grow visibly in their faith. Others began taming their language and growing in responsibility and sel\ufb02ess service as leaders.<\/p>\n

Some of these leaders began searching actively for the spiritual answers raised by the witness of EJ\u2019s life. I watched with intrigue as their language, personal demeanor, and response to stress began to look\u2014over time\u2014more and more like EJ\u2019s language, demeanor, and stress response. They saw the boss, liked what they saw, and felt it was worth incorporating into their own lives. It was impressive, seeing a relatively junior and inexperienced of\ufb01cer living out his faith in action and literally transforming the leadership and culture of that 120-man unit.<\/p>\n

In OCF we \ufb01nd strength in our small group fellowships. There truth is ingested and reinforced in our lives. Such fellowship is vital to all believers, yet it is meant to be played out in our daily walk. As we receive the Truth\u2014Jesus Christ Himself\u2014and are transformed through His Word, we will do well to walk it everywhere we go beyond the holy huddle of the OCF fellowship.<\/p>\n

Just as John responded to Gaius\u2019 walk and its effect on others, I want to encourage this fellowship of truth bearers we call OCF to continue to take the truth of Jesus Christ to the world with our feet<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Originally published in the August issue of Command magazine, copyright 2008, Officers\u2019 Christian Fellowship of the USA, Englewood, Colorado. Reprinted\/Used with permission. For subscription information, call 1-800-761-1984 or visit www.ocfusa.org<\/a>.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The following article\u00a0uniquely addresses the spirit of “evangelism” promoted by many Christian\u00a0military ministry organizations–the evangelism of life example.\u00a0\u00a0Christian officers\u00a0are encouraged to\u00a0witness with “their feet”–the often silent witness of their everyday words, choices, and actions.\u00a0 While there may be an appropriate time and place for cracking open a Bible and explaining the Gospel, far more often the Gospel is seen when […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":30193,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,5136],"tags":[4,2],"class_list":["post-231","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-christian-living","category-commentary","tag-churchandstate","tag-military"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/231","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=231"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/231\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=231"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=231"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christianfighterpilot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=231"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}