A Little Bit of Africa...and Heaven on Earth
To some people, this might seem to be an unusual way to spend a Saturday night. But my heart was beating a million miles an hour with excitement because there was nothing else I would rather do more.
As I watched all the people around this circle in which I sat, I saw some sitting and some standing, some talking quietly and others laughing loudly. All seemed quite comfortable and at home. I hated to break up the conversation, but I started strumming my guitar in order to bring everyone in. To some people, this might seem to be an unusual way to spend a Saturday night, but to us, it was perfectly normal.
"This reminds me a little bit of Africa," I said.
Of course it was a lot cooler, a lot less dusty. We had fluorescent lights instead of the blaring sun and carpet instead of red dirt, but it was the hearts that were the same. We all wanted to worship.
"When I went to Africa this summer," I explained, "it was a mission trip unlike any other I have ever been on." Most mission trips are task-oriented. You have a project that you see to completion before you go home. This trip was not that way at all. I woke up each morning wondering what on earth I was going to do that day. It was a whole lot less task-oriented and much more relationship-oriented. "When we didn't have anything to do, we would sit around and worship." Us and the Africans. Us and the orphans. Us and our brothers and sisters in Christ. When we had people over, we would worship. When we went to dinner parties, we would worship.
The Africans I met this summer who really knew Jesus loved to worship. It was their past-time, their go-to, their just-for-fun activity.
"So I want to set the mood tonight," I said. "This is not so much a sanctuary-and-pew-type worship, but an African-dust-and-dirt-type worship.
"And we're not doing this because we have nothing better to do on a Saturday night. We are doing this because its how we want to spend our Saturday night."
My dad chimed in as he sat on his box drum, "I'm just a wanna-be drummer." "And I am just a wanna-be guitarist," I added. "Mistakes will be made, but this is about Him, not us."
With that, we entered into an hour and a half long session of song-worship to the God of Africa, the United States, and the whole wide world.
I had a hard time going to sleep that night. My heart was taken back to Africa, where I fell in love this summer all over again with the God who is absolutely worthy of worship. If you've ever been on a life-changing mission trip, you probably remember that one take-away truth or lesson that you learned - something that changed your life, something that you wanted to share with others once you got home, something that you never wanted to forget. For me this summer, it was this: a lifestyle of worship. I wanted to come home with a passion and obsession with worship that was contagious. I wanted worship to become something that we do for fun at our social gathering and parties. Sometimes planned, sometimes spontaneous.
The problem is that most of the time our "take-aways" from mission trips get lost along the way. We quickly forget that one thing that changed our lives and that we wanted that one thing to also change the lives of others we know. Sometimes we just get caught back up in the familiar and forget that our lives have been changed. Sometimes we get discouraged because other people don't understand what we've seen and experienced, and they aren't changed like we were.
But...
Sometimes, even months later, that life-changing truth is lived out and shared with others, and they get it.
That's what happened Saturday night. There was worship - heart-felt, spirit-filled, just-for-fun worship. And I got to see it lived out back home in the United States like I had originally experienced it in Africa.
So it makes me ask: what is that "life-changer" or "take away" that once burned in your heart? Maybe it is something you learned long ago, but it is has slowly faded over time. Maybe its something that you've gradually forgotten, or simply lost hope that anyone else will ever understand. Maybe its time to stir those coals and let the heat of emotion rise once again. I now know it's never too late.
I heard it said once that "for those that love Jesus, worship is not an obligation; it becomes an obsession."
For those of you who weren't there Saturday night, don't worry. We'll do it again. And you're invited. For those of you who still think it's a crazy thing to do for fun on a Saturday night, you're invited, too. Just come and see. And for those of you who came and worshiped, thank you for bringing a little bit of God's kingdom right here to earth. I can't wait for next time.
As I watched all the people around this circle in which I sat, I saw some sitting and some standing, some talking quietly and others laughing loudly. All seemed quite comfortable and at home. I hated to break up the conversation, but I started strumming my guitar in order to bring everyone in. To some people, this might seem to be an unusual way to spend a Saturday night, but to us, it was perfectly normal.
"This reminds me a little bit of Africa," I said.
Of course it was a lot cooler, a lot less dusty. We had fluorescent lights instead of the blaring sun and carpet instead of red dirt, but it was the hearts that were the same. We all wanted to worship.
"When I went to Africa this summer," I explained, "it was a mission trip unlike any other I have ever been on." Most mission trips are task-oriented. You have a project that you see to completion before you go home. This trip was not that way at all. I woke up each morning wondering what on earth I was going to do that day. It was a whole lot less task-oriented and much more relationship-oriented. "When we didn't have anything to do, we would sit around and worship." Us and the Africans. Us and the orphans. Us and our brothers and sisters in Christ. When we had people over, we would worship. When we went to dinner parties, we would worship.
The Africans I met this summer who really knew Jesus loved to worship. It was their past-time, their go-to, their just-for-fun activity.
"So I want to set the mood tonight," I said. "This is not so much a sanctuary-and-pew-type worship, but an African-dust-and-dirt-type worship.
"And we're not doing this because we have nothing better to do on a Saturday night. We are doing this because its how we want to spend our Saturday night."
My dad chimed in as he sat on his box drum, "I'm just a wanna-be drummer." "And I am just a wanna-be guitarist," I added. "Mistakes will be made, but this is about Him, not us."
With that, we entered into an hour and a half long session of song-worship to the God of Africa, the United States, and the whole wide world.
I had a hard time going to sleep that night. My heart was taken back to Africa, where I fell in love this summer all over again with the God who is absolutely worthy of worship. If you've ever been on a life-changing mission trip, you probably remember that one take-away truth or lesson that you learned - something that changed your life, something that you wanted to share with others once you got home, something that you never wanted to forget. For me this summer, it was this: a lifestyle of worship. I wanted to come home with a passion and obsession with worship that was contagious. I wanted worship to become something that we do for fun at our social gathering and parties. Sometimes planned, sometimes spontaneous.
The problem is that most of the time our "take-aways" from mission trips get lost along the way. We quickly forget that one thing that changed our lives and that we wanted that one thing to also change the lives of others we know. Sometimes we just get caught back up in the familiar and forget that our lives have been changed. Sometimes we get discouraged because other people don't understand what we've seen and experienced, and they aren't changed like we were.
But...
Sometimes, even months later, that life-changing truth is lived out and shared with others, and they get it.
That's what happened Saturday night. There was worship - heart-felt, spirit-filled, just-for-fun worship. And I got to see it lived out back home in the United States like I had originally experienced it in Africa.
So it makes me ask: what is that "life-changer" or "take away" that once burned in your heart? Maybe it is something you learned long ago, but it is has slowly faded over time. Maybe its something that you've gradually forgotten, or simply lost hope that anyone else will ever understand. Maybe its time to stir those coals and let the heat of emotion rise once again. I now know it's never too late.
I heard it said once that "for those that love Jesus, worship is not an obligation; it becomes an obsession."
For those of you who weren't there Saturday night, don't worry. We'll do it again. And you're invited. For those of you who still think it's a crazy thing to do for fun on a Saturday night, you're invited, too. Just come and see. And for those of you who came and worshiped, thank you for bringing a little bit of God's kingdom right here to earth. I can't wait for next time.
This is wonderful, Ashli. Two months into our time in Burkina and Lord just spoke to me this week, "Plenty of people came here to do. You came here to love." Like you, I was seeking the program, the task at hand, but he freed my heart with a change of desire.
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