I’m getting acquainted very quickly to the time change here in Kampala . Both mornings I’ve made the decision to be on the go by 7am. This is so unlike me but here there is so much to do and so many people to be with.
It was suggested that I attend a church of mostly university students today. This week the Kampala International University has finals. Some students do university on the weekends so that they might work during the week—hence even today, Sunday, they have final tests. Because of the test schedule church started at 7:30am. They are committed to church!
I went to grab some toast for breakfast and met an American pastor who would be preaching at the University church. His name is Terry Chapman. He has been a pleasure to be around today. He is graduating with his PHD from a school in San Francisco and his dissertation was written on something like “the hermeneutic of Sabbath in a post-modern time”. I’m sure I didn’t get that exactly right but close. He is interested in Spiritual Formation or “Christian Formation”. I was sitting there listening him talk and just thinking “wow, God already I’m meeting people who are far beyond me on the journey…but we are on the same journey”. He thinks God is preparing him for something that will stretch him, pull him deeper, even cause some pruning pain. I get the sense that there are many people out there thinking the like him. It is the thought that I’m about ready to emerge into something new and it may not be easy but ‘let’s go’. We know that God has more for his church, and we are anticipating his call to something more, something deeper, something wider, yet we are just waiting to see this call with “flesh on it”. If this is what “emergent” is about—emerging into something deeper and wider as a follower of Christ—then I’m especially delighted to be apart of the conversation. Hopefully it will be more than just a conversation.
The church service was beautiful. I only wish we could have spent more time with the students. I love their music. It is “call and response” oriented. A choir got up and sang several songs. They sang a song about being “God’s vessel”. Then Pastor Chapman got up and preached from John 15. He talked about the three fundamental desires of all humanity. It doesn’t matter what cultural, economic, social, gender, or religious background we come from we do all desire at least three things; to make a difference, to be connected to the transcendent and to have a sense of belonging. He highlighted especially that third one in terms of being connected to the “vine”.
After the preaching we talked for a little with students. This University Church reminds me of our church in Korea. It is made up of people from many nations— Burundi, Congo, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Ethiopia, and more. They don’t yet have many non-students. Yet they are working towards this. They too have the issues of transition. Students come, they are discipled and ready for leadership and then they go back to their home countries. I’ve been spending some time with the University Church’s pastor. He has this vision to impact Africa by discipling their future leaders. I see the vision. As I talk with ministers in Africa they are saying something like, “It is not that we don’t have money or other resources, we do. The problem is that we don’t have good leaders who know how to live out the Christian Ethic.”
I talked briefly with some of the ladies. I so love University students. Some of them asked me if I knew about the Campus Crusade Conference in Seoul this August. Ha. No, I had no idea! They said they know there will be an international conference with that organization in Seoul this summer. It is ironic that I’d find out about something like a conference in Seoul from a Congolese student in Uganda.
When I returned to the Guesthouse Pastor Chapman, and Pastor Musa(from the Congo ) a Student from the Congo and a student from Burundi and I sat around a table and just shared a snack and an awesome conversation. I’m learning so much. What is so interesting is that they types of things that are of great concern to them are the same things that are of great concern to me and others like me. It makes me realize that our God really does have a “mission” for his people. When God’s character and his purpose are lived out in his people across the world, we share like convictions, don’t we.
Pastor Musa is actually not pastoring these days. He is leading a ministry in the Congo dealing with leadership development and reconciliation. The Congo has conflict and war within the last 10 years. Both he and the student from the Congo talked about Christianity in Africa as being "miles wide but an inch thick
". Pastor Musa spoke to the dire need of discipleship. He suggested that pastors have put the emphasis on their work in the wrong place. Preaching is the pedastal of pastoral ministry and in Pastor Musa's estimation we've missed something. Our work is to invest in discipleship even it is only a few. (He is a baptist pastor) He cautioned that the church has focused too much on what it does while forgetting to be who it is in Christ. We’ve focused our energies on “outreach” while forgetting “in reach”.
As we were talking a though occurred to me which feels profound for my own life. Often we talk about “having a call to ministry” or when asked “what do you do?” we say,” I do ministry”. Yet what if instead of focusing on what we “do” in ministry we focused more on how we “live”. We are called to “live” over and above our “doing of ministry”. Of course, I’m not just talking about any type of “living”. I’m talking about living out the character and purpose of God. In being called to “life” we are invited to participate deeply in the life and purpose of God. I’m wondering, “How does God’s life intersect and fill into the whole of who we are?”
Often we are so focused on doing the purpose of God that we forget to foster a life lived out of his character. Right? We are not just called to “do ministry”. We are called to “life”. The problem is that the way we define “life” is not a God formed and God lived life. More and more I believe that “life” outside of God is not “life” and all. It is something less than life or life as God intends for all humanity. In this way our ministry and our life are not two different areas of who we are and what we do. They ARE who we are and what we do. This way of thinking, as I listened and talked to my Congolese friends causes me to take interest in more things than just typical church stuff. It causes me to look at how I “am” with my world around me; even those parts of human life I often do not “care” about because it is so “other” than “church”. This could be things such as economics, politics, health, conflict, etc. Especially as I’m in this African context I feel that church and all of life are profoundly connected. People are starving. People are dying of AIDS. People are steeling millions of dollars and running off with it to another country. People are killing other people groups. People…. God’s mission is for people. Admittedly, I’ve been the first person to have “a disconnect” between Church and state politics. I don’t like state politics! It is easier to just not have a voice. There are other “disconnects” that I’m aware of like: “church and environment”, “church and economics”, “church and sexuality”, “church and culture”—just for starters. Yet, is this really “living” when the way of following Jesus enters into absolutely every part of who we are—individually and collectively? What a challenge.
The conference hasn’t even started. Yet the conversation has already begun.
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