Rick Warren at GC2 Refugee Summit: 'If We're Not Helping, I Doubt Our Christianity'
He also insisted that the "whole business of Christianity is to go out into the sores of life, where people are bleeding, and hurting, and dying, and take up the cross. And if we are not doing that, I doubt our Christianity."
Another video message was delivered by David Platt, president of the Southern Baptist Convention's International Mission Board, who said that people need to realize that the migration of people occurs "under the ultimate governance of God."
"And Acts 17 says God is doing it all for a reason — that people might seek Him, feel their way toward Him, and find Him," Platt told the audience.
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"Our God aims to be sought, found, and enjoyed by all the peoples in the world, and He oversees their travels toward that end. In His goodness, God even turns the tragedy of forced migration into the triumph of future salvation," he said.
At the same time, he suggested that the Church is also called to take care of its own.
"It is all together right for the Church to consider specifically how to care for our brothers and sisters in Christ. Such care for refugees is not only right, it is required," he said.
Platt also brought back the discussion to the story of Jesus, and His family's plight as He was to be born.
"He came as a baby boy. First story we have about Him, following His birth, is the exodus to Egypt, driven to a foreign country by a murderous king," he said.
"This God is not distant from us, God is not detached from the people we are, and the pain we experience; God is present with us. He is no stranger to suffering, He is familiar with our pain. He has not left the outcast and the oppressed alone. In a world of sin and suffering, God has come to us, and He has conquered for us."
The International Mission Board's president further called on people to choose justice and mercy when thinking about refugees.
"We all know the story of the Good Samaritan, and all he did for the man in need — he took him, cared for him, provided for him, paid for him. He sacrificed everything he knew, without question, or hesitation," he noted.
Several of GC2's afternoon sessions focused on more of the specifics surrounding the refugee crisis, and included discussions on understanding Islam and IS, questions around domestic refugee resettlement programs, and featured the testimonies of refugees.
Richard Stearns, president of World Vision, warned that if the crisis is looked at only through a geopolitical lens, there will be a failure to see "the faces of the people" in need.
"We will fail to see these individuals made in the image of God as mothers and fathers and brothers and sisters and aunts and uncles. We will put a label on them — we will label them refugees, migrants, Muslim; label them with something that allows us to take an entire class of human beings that God created and write them off or put them on a shelf somewhere where we don't have to look at them, we don't have to think about them, and we can treat them as a class instead of as individual human beings," Stearns warned.
He also shared a letter he received from a 10-year-old Muslim girl that moved him deeply, which read:
"Peace be to you, I am talking to you on behalf of the Syrian children, I am calling on you, the people of the other world, have you ever thought of the children of Syrian? Syria is in pain. Syria is bleeding. Syria is crying for her children. Her children were her candles, and they have faded out. We are crying, and Syria is crying blood," the girl writes, sharing that her father was killed and she won't see him again.
Stearns insisted that the girl deserves an answer, and invited all listeners "to be an answer to this little girl's desperate cry for help."
He said that answering such a call "will put a smile on the face of God."
Bill Hybels, the founding and Senior Pastor of Willow Creek Community Church, was one of the last speakers of the night, and specifically addressed church leaders and pastors. He talked of the importance of church leaders experiencing "second conversions" in life, which he described as "life-altering, heart-shattering movements of the Holy Spirit."
"One of the most important things in the life of a leader is to live submitted enough to the Holy Spirit, that on a fairly regular basis, you get your heart wrecked over something, that you then bring with passion and sincerity to your church," Hybels said.
The Willow Creek pastor added that leadership is about moving people, about encouraging and inspiring them to get directly involved in an important cause.
"When you first become a Christian, God gives you a new heart," he said. "God increases your capacity for love, to wrap your head around more than just one issue in your church and in your life."
Hybels concluded by stating that he is proud that he sees the Church standing up for the refugee issue.
"I just hope and pray you make sure it fires up in you first, not just conceptually, but deeper than that," he added, and said that compassion and justice are not a burden, but "an opportunity for God to expand our hearts."
The conference also promoted the National Refugee Sunday event, which is scheduled for June 5, and will include awareness, prayer, and videos that churches around the country can get involved in.
