Why Should We Care?

Seven years ago, Warren was serving God as a counselor, Sunday school teacher, and public speaker, and was comfortable ministering to women struggling with spiritual and marital concerns. In fact, she and her husband planned a trip around the world, bringing counseling and encouragement to overseas missionaries. Warren was content with her ministry and her future.

She claims God had other plans.

All it took was an article in a magazine to convict Warren about the plight of those suffering from AIDS. "It was a like a bucket of cement landed on my head," she said. Pictures of the dying haunted her dreams, and a single statistic was never far from her thoughts: more than twelve million children have been orphaned by AIDS.

Warren says she was fully prepared to serve God where she was comfortable. But AIDS? She knew nothing about becoming an AIDS advocate. Yet try as she might, Warren could not shake the conviction that God wanted her to be involved in fighting the epidemic.

Finally she came to a crossroads: "I could either go with the plan I had—and it wasn't a bad plan at all—or I could acknowledge that God had opened my eyes."

Seven years later (and despite her continuing misgivings), Warren has become a powerful voice in the effort to fight AIDS. At the Baylor conference, she argued that if Christians are to truly follow the example of Christ, they must look past the stigma of AIDS and see that people are suffering and dying.

Too often, Warren asserts, Christians tend to view AIDS as a natural consequence of sin. They feel badly about the children who are orphaned or contract the virus through breastfeeding, but have little compassion for adults whose deaths are the result of extramarital relations. Warren thinks that few dispositions are less Christ-like.

She compares the situation to a reckless driver whose car has careened off the road into a tree. If we happen upon such a scene, she says, should we cluck our tongues and drive on by because they seem to have brought that upon themselves.

She believes that Christians are to follow the example of Christ in caring for the hurting without judgment. She says, "Jesus never asks someone, 'How did you become sick?'"

To hear Kay Warren’s talk during a main session of the Next Big Idea Conference, go to Big Idea.