Why should you read this book? Because you want to change America. Don’t you? That’s why you picked this book off the shelf and started flipping through its pages or clicked on the hyperlink and peeked inside for the Table of Contents or Introduction. You saw the title with the words Last Hope for America, and somewhere inside of you, deep down in the secret places, you know we’re getting dangerously close to our last chance, our last chance before the gavel of God’s judgment falls not only on the culture at large, but on his own people as well (that’s you and me).

You know this. You watch the television, you follow the elections, and you read the papers and the blogs. You’re no biblical scholar, but you know evil and perversity when you see it. You cringe as our culture bathes itself in orgies of lust; you step back in fear as the average citizen spits in disgust at the law of God; you burn with anger as our youth parade their atheism and godlessness before the world; you stand—mouth gaping—as our so-called leaders defile the holy Creator by reforming him into a passionless, lawless wimp. You know the time of reckoning is quickly approaching.

But you want to do something about it. You want to see it change.

Not only this, but you are beginning to see the pathetic state of the church in America as well. You don’t remember the last baptism at your church, and you aren’t sure when you had your last visitor. You know the “mega churches” are growing, but something tells you it’s not mainly through new conversions. You’ve seen the church buildings for sale and know of others not far from the auction block. As you’ve visited other churches, you’ve felt the chill of death and smelled the stench of irrelevance. Once again, in that secret place in your soul, you know our days are numbered. It won’t be long now.

But you want to do something about it. You want to see it change.

More than anything, you want to see your friends believe. You hurt because they reject all you hold dear. You mourn as they dismiss Christ without even hearing him out. It saddens you that your invitations to church fall on lifeless ears. You want to talk to them, but you don’t know how; you don’t even know where to start. And that frustrates the life out of you. When you do talk, they hit you with a stone wall of questions and objections. You don’t know what to say, so you’ve learned to say nothing at all. But you know this is not God’s will for you. You feel helpless, overwhelmed, defeated.

But you want to do something about it. You want to see that change too.

That’s why you need this book. This book is about America and American Christianity and how you—yes, you—can do something that will bring lasting, biblical change to our land. How does that sound?

I must warn you. Some of your idols may be dashed along the way. The first will be politics. We live in a land of political action, and that action has become the modus operandi of the Christian community these days. Just today I was listening to a political radio program, and a caller called in praising the host for his conservative views. This caller said he had received a lot of resistance to his efforts to promote conservative ideals in his sphere of influence. What’s the problem? This man was a Christian minister who was taking his “gospel” into the pulpit of his church.

As good and helpful as Christian political action can be, you won’t find that solution presented here. The politicized faith of the average believer is not found on the pages of the New Testament. Red and blue Christianity has failed us in the past and will continue to fail us in the future. Ballots, judges, laws, elections—these are not the answer.

You may also have to say good-bye to your popular notions of church growth and personal outreach. Many models of church growth exist today, from growing through transfers to growing by relaxing the “unacceptable” parts of God’s Word. However successful at filling seats, these models fail miserably in biblical terms. The same is true for common approaches to personal outreach. Some think the church will grow automatically while others hold to a “museum” outreach technique (displaying a holy lifestyle without directly engaging others). None of these are found in the Bible, however, and, consequently, none have worked as methods of extending the kingdom and changing the culture.

So what will work then? What can you do to turn all of this around? Well, I don’t want to give away the end at the beginning, but, in simple terms, you can accept a very old directive: the Great Commission. What will save our culture and our churches and provide God the applause his perfections deserve is when you and I adopt a personal commitment to the Great Commission. Churches grow and cultures change when the hearts of people are transformed. And the only instrument that can do this is the gospel of Jesus Christ—the gospel you and I are called to promote aggressively with our own lives. In other words, a forcefully advancing kingdom is the last hope for America and American Christianity.

What Does This Book Do?

To this end, this book will do the following:

1. Shock you with a clear picture of the future of our nation if things continue on their present course. You’ll go on a journey with a man named Carter Fitzgerald as he receives a vision of the future of America. You’ll be stunned at the perversity, idolatry, and godlessness of our once promising nation as you see what Carter sees in a small town thirty years in the future.
2. Educate you with a detailed analysis of church growth and cultural change philosophies that exist today. Each model will be critiqued against biblical principles to determine its validity. Through this process, the single, scriptural answer to our pressing concerns will be deduced and outlined.
3. Equip you with a natural, widely applicable (meaning the average Joe Christian can do it) approach to promoting truth to others. This model, called the Forcefully Advancing evangelism strategy, is built around a genuine friendship with the lost and will give you a low-pressure way to engage others with God’s truth. You’ll learn how to make friends, start conversations, transition to spiritual topics, answer questions and objections, and share the message of Jesus with relevance and impact.
4. Show you a way to organize your church or small group to engage the lost around you in an ongoing, consistent way. Many evangelism strategies fail because they don’t create a system that brings believers together for ongoing training, communication, and accountability. To overcome these weaknesses, you’ll learn how to implement a Forcefully Advancing Action System (FAAS), a detailed plan to create teams in your church or small group for not only ongoing training, communication, and accountability within the team, but also for communication with church leadership for planning and resource allocation.
5. Encourage you by taking you back to the future with Carter to see what America could be like if the Forcefully Advancing strategy is implemented across the nation. You’ll be inspired by what he sees on his second visit to this small town. The transformation you will observe, built on biblical principles, will give you hope for the future and good reason to be bold and courageous as you adopt your own personal commitment to the Great Commission. 

The Outline

To accomplish these important objectives, the book has been organized into four sections. In “Part 1: The Core Issues and Their Real Solutions,” we’ll be introduced to Carter’s first vision, analyze church growth and cultural change philosophies, and take a hard look at our failure to keep the Great Commission within our own land. Then, in “Part 2: The Necessary Foundation,” we’ll work through three issues that will undergird our success in transforming the church and culture: hypocrisy within the church, sacrifice and risk as principles of kingdom advancement, and a biblical view of the conversion process. Laying out the detailed Forcefully Advancing strategy is what part three is all about. Here we’ll review befriending the lost, discovering and overcoming objections to faith, and presenting the gospel. Finally, in “Part 4: Claiming the Future Now,” the FAAS will be explored in detail, and we’ll join Carter again for his second, powerful vision of America.

One other thing before we get started. This book has been designed and written to facilitate group study. There are a total of thirteen chapters, which easily fits into a typical church semester, and each chapter ends with discussion questions that can be used to facilitate dialogue in a group setting. So start thinking about how you can use this book as a resource in your group or church.

Well, it’s time to get started. Turn the page, and start making a difference in America and American Christianity.