This morning I had the privilege of getting to know Stephen Lungu of African Enterprise. Jack Loo of Presbyterian Church of the Master arranged for a group of us to have breakfast together so that we could hear more about what this group is doing to evangelize Africa. Stephen's life is an amazing story of deliverance from death to life. In these days of suburban slumber, it was refreshing to hear a story about how Jesus Christ transformed his life! I'm interested to see how we might partner with this group in the years ahead.
I've been reading a challenging book over the past few days. It was strongly recommended by my friend John McKeague, who was also at the breakfast this morning. It's a book by Mark Labberton titled, The Dangerous Act of Worship: Living God's Call to Justice. I'm only half-way through but I've found it to be as challenging and as it is encouraging. Here are a few of the highlights:
"We presume we can worship in a way that will find God but lose track of our neighbor. Yet it was this very pattern in Israel's worship life that brought God's judgment. Biblical worship that finds God will also find our neighbor." (21)
"To be centered on God means first discovering that God is our center and then living lives focused on the things that matter to God." (27)
"As we allow worship to do its transformative work in our lives, we can stay where we are [in relation to our location] and yet move into the places where the heart of God dwells. ... Worship means dwelling where God's heart is and showing it in lives that embody his loving righteousness and merciful justice. This is the worship war for which Christ died and rose. So why do we still sleep?" (39-40)
"Too often we just want the padded pews, the call to giving that sounds challenging but doesn't have to be too sacrificial, the sermon that entertains and moves us without indicting us, services that are just long enough but not too long and great lattes when it's all over." (57)
and finally,
"Christians confess that they would desire an encounter with God. But the church's avoidance of this kind of transformation, underscored by its avoidance of daring encounters with God, suggests that we choose to live something other than what we confess. We say we offer God our whole lives, but our practice (the evidence of worship that matters most) shows that we don't really want God to do what we ask--to take us, mold us, fill us, use us." (64-65)
Mark's words should cause us to really think about what we sing on Sunday. Are we prepared to make a commitment or are we just singing the word? Something to think about.
