Give Me All

The journey to the cross evokes awareness of sacrifice; the complete, total sacrifice of Jesus. Followers of Jesus, committed to leading people in new life with Jesus, accept the call to give up life as we presume it should be - life as we think it would most benefit us - for something that is greater, more purposeful, and more in line with who and what God designed us to be.

C. S. Lewis said, it better than I ever could: "The Christian way is different: harder and easier. Christ says, 'Give me All. I don't want so much of your time, so much of your money, so much of your work. I want You. I have not come to torment your natural self, but to kill it. No half-measures are any good. I don't want to cut off a branch here and a branch there. I want to have the whole tree down...Hand over the whole natural self, all of the desires which you think innocent and all the ones you think wicked - the whole outfit. I will give you a new self instead. In fact, I will give you Myself: my own will shall become yours.'" (From MERE CHRISTIANITY.)

I'll see you around the next bend in the river.

End of the "Worship Wars"!

Sometimes God speaks by the simplest of means. Something we happen to see around us just becomes vivid, clear evidence of the heart of God. I saw such a thing a couple of weeks ago. Through this seemingly innocuous vision, God seemed to be saying to me, "I really don't care about the 'worship wars.'"

For those of you unfamiliar with the "worship wars" that refers to a battle that has been raging in various Protestant congregations throughout North America for the better part the last quarter century. It is the conflict between those who want "traditional" elements of worship and those pushing for "contemporary" styles of worship. Depending on denominational affiliation, "traditional" worshippers want songs/hymns that have been around for many decades and elements of worship (styles of dress, types of prayers, organ and piano accompaniment, orders of worship, creeds, etc.) that have remained in use and unchanged for whole lifetimes. "Contemporary" worshippers push for newer music, usually involving electric and string accompaniment, percussion, use of video technology, etc. Congregations will divide into virtual armed camps around this, and thousands of churches have fought or are fighting this mission-distracting war...this despite the fact that all "traditional" worship was "contemporary" at some point in history, and most of what passes for "contemporary" really isn't! (Ask any worshipper under 25 years old!)

Anyway, a few weeks ago, while worshipping in a service I will not label, I happened to look to my right to a little girl in the same service. She is new to faith and to Christian worship, having come to our congregation on the invitation of a neighbor. She was singing praise with absolute exuberance and gratitude for the chance to do so. She understands little about faith and church at this point, but she gets the fact that Jesus is someone real and someone who seeks her and invites her. I realized looking at her, that she is the goal. It doesn't matter what style of worship is used, as long as that little girl and people like her experience what she was experiencing. (And, no - I'm not going to tell you which style of worship she was in.)

So, best wishes to all my brother and sister Jesus-followers who think the most important thing is to keep fighting the worship wars. I'm out. It's not the main thing. I'll see you around the next bend in the river.

A Meal A Week For Mozambique

I often hear people ask, "How do I know if God is speaking to me?" That's a good question, and God speaks in multiple ways. Sometimes God speaks when factors converge.

As with many congregations of Jesus-followers, our church is observing the season known as Lent. Lent is a period of roughly 40 days leading up to the observance of the death of Jesus of Nazareth, and our belief that God raised Jesus from death. Followers of Jesus often use Lent as a time of reflection, penitence for our distance from God, and sacrifice. Some are in the habit of making specific sacrifices, such as giving up certain food or practices, or maybe giving up a meal a week.

In a community called Mucocane in the poverty-stricken African nation of Mozambique, there is a church community of our particular denomination. Against widespread disease, hunger, and want, this church is growing with vibrancy in reaching people for Jesus. Like many places in Mozambique, the absence of fresh water in Mucocane is a constant battle. People have to make a 6 kilometer walk one way to get any fresh water at all. Reliance on tainted water results in constant disease and death. In addition to what the church people in Mucacane can scrape together, $10,000 given through our denomination's Mozambique Initiative would facilitate the digging and operating of a well.

If 200 people in our church gave up a meal a week, named $10 as the cost that would go into that meal each week, set aside that $10 a week, then brought the accumulated money on Easter weekend, the well would be bought! For the price of sacrificing a meal a week, lives would be saved for generations to come.

Where the need of people God loves intersects with our ability to meet that need, that's God speaking! I'll see you around the next bend in the river.

A Kayak!

I began this blog on February 23, 2008. In that post I explained that I spend a lot of time canoeing Missouri Ozark streams. At the time, I was dreaming about a kayak as my next vessel of choice for rivers. Last Thursday - March 3, 2011, I brought home a ten foot fishing kayak, a little over three years after first posting my future hope.

It took longer than I expected to get it. At times over the last three years I came near amassing the right amount of funds to get it done, only to have some other financial need in our household put be back to square one. Sometimes I thought it would just be better to give up on the idea of owning a kayak. Now I can hardly believe that it is actually sitting out on our back porch.

Similarly, God's vision for our future rarely happens according to a time line or project plan that we would select and prefer. It would be easy at times to give up on it. When it finally arrives it may not be as we would have pictured it. Yet God's future most certainly will unfold.

I'll see you around the next bend in the river - in a kayak...finally!