It had been a pleasant visit
which I felt certain should conclude with a prayer. My guest that Friday
afternoon was an ordained pastor, “Pastor P”. Pastor P. had been conversing
with me in English for all of our visit. We discussed the call God had placed
on his life, which led him to become ordained. He had started a church in
Delaware, but heard the call of God to help another pastor in Wisconsin who
needed someone to serve while he was on an extended medical leave. So, Pastor P. came. When that assignment
ended he heard the call to start another church in the same city in which I
serve. And now he looks for a church building in which to build a new congregation.
Sometimes God has a way of
humbling me in a mighty way. I sat in my
comfortable chair in a study lined with shelf upon shelf of books, where I had
spent the afternoon on my computer preparing for Sunday. I am blessed to serve in a beautiful church with
many dedicated families. And here,
across the desk from me, was this much younger man who works four days, twelve
hours a day, so that he can devote his weekends to trying to start a church. No
salary. No study. No computer. Just an
unshakeable faith that God is preparing to open doors so that the
Spanish-speaking people in our city can have another place to worship. I think of the time that Jesus sent out his
disciples with only the bare necessities and told them they would be taken care
of. I always marveled that they would
obey such a command. Now, sitting across
from me was a modern day disciple sent out with the bare necessities. Sometimes people really do take the words of
Jesus literally. Go figure.
The ironic thing about the
timing of this visit is that I am in the middle of preaching about how Jesus
taught his disciples that the barriers society puts up, barriers like language
and race and even religion, need to be torn down if we want his Kingdom to fully
come. It is one thing to preach this in
the abstract, as if it applies to someone else. But now it applies to me. Today.
Do I dare shake my comfortable world by beginning a conversation with our
leaders about opening the doors of our church to people who worship in a
different language, who look different from “us” and who will worship in a
style foreign to what we know to be the way to worship God?
I asked Pastor P. to pray for
us. “I normally don’t pray in English,”
he said. So, I suggested he pray in Spanish.
In that prayer I got a little peak behind the curtain of what is to
come, people from every tongue and tribe praising God together. “What do you
think, Pastor Bill? Will your church be
able to help us?” Whose question is
that, really?
