Your life as ministry

Knowing I was suppose to speak on Sunday I was waiting for the message I was suppose to deliver, its just the way it has always worked out. I know I need to speak, I get a divine revelation, search the verses, write it out, and deliver the message from my cheat sheet.  The days rolled by and nothing came. I started to think about recycling a sermon. The one that made the most sense would have been loving the church but I had a problem, I wasn’t doing it. I commit unnoticeable sins all the time, just like everyone else, but I have a deep personal issue with hypocrisy and won’t engage in it if at all possible. For me to teach a sermon on loving the church would have been pretty hypocritical since I am harboring unforgiveness at this very moment, so that was out. On about Wednesday I heard the words, your life as ministry and felt very strongly that I needed to deliver a message about how we needed to depend on Jesus for the strength to live our lives as ministry like we are ultimately called to. It wasn’t completely clear so I waited for clarification. By Saturday evening I was getting nervous. I started to write out all the words that were coming to my mind, telling the congregation “your life is ministry”, I had no verses.

I am far from a bible scholar but I have a general idea of how to support anything I want to say with scripture. Jeremiah has a handy dandy program on his computer that allows you to search EVERY verse with any word you are looking for.  I asked to borrow it but the power was out and his computer was dead. During feedback that night I got the distinct sense I was just suppose to go up and wing it. I wish I could do a movie montage for you of the times in the past where I thought I would just “wing it”, it would be a funny and embarrassing montage and you would quickly see that NEVER works out for me.  I asked for prayer for discernment of the right way to proceed and then proceeded the way I know how. Right before bed the power came back on and Jer brought me his computer, I started to search and was simply not finding anything close to what I was looking for even though I had typed in what I was sure was half the verse. Then the mouse froze. I was overwhelmingly tired so I closed the computer and set it down to charge and went to sleep.

I am not an early bird so when I woke up full of energy (or nerves) at 5am I took it as a sign I had better get to work. I grabbed Jer’s computer and my bible and headed out to the living room to find my verses. Jer’s comp was stuck on the same page as the night before so I turned it off and restarted. The mouse worked for a total of 60 seconds before freezing in the middle of the windows menu. Jer was still asleep so I was on my own left to watch his screen saver slide show. I pulled out my bible, consulted the concordance and found nothing. Somehow it was suddenly time for breakfast and then we had to go to the church for morning group. I still had no verses, I had scrapped my notes knowing I couldn’t read them fast enough. Then sitting in the circle of women it hit me like a bolt of lightning “YOUR LIFE AS MINISTRY”, not a general statement but actually my life. I needed to tell them about why I couldn’t deliver my normal sermon, about not listening when I was told to wing it and being thwarted in finding verses. I needed to tell them about all the ways I had failed and how God had used it anyway.

As we sat through the eruptive worship and dynamic addressess waiting for our turn I thought, I want to deliver my message like that, followed by the immediate thought, “that’s crazy”. I LOVE to talk, but I don’t like to be “the speaker”, because I’m scared, I’m more of a clown in the back type. In Busia I hid (very effectively because I’m so short) behind the podium, I engaged the congregation in a game of truth so that we were all equally off guard. In Lira I brought a chair on stage with me, gathered the crowed in, made them sing with me and gave my message seated so I could pretend I was addressing my family. I had been thinking for a few weeks that it would be fun for one of us to try and imitate Sumbawanga style preaching, even if just as entertainment for our group and to see if we could do it. As the service went on I went from fear to excitement, I wasn’t going to imitate the preaching style, I was going to do it. Pastor Amos called me up, I had my bible turned to Galations (the section it would be hypocritical to teach on), I walked up behind the podium, plopped my bible down on it and strolled to the front of the stage like I belonged there.

I don’t remember 90% of what I said, I started with  “Your life is ministry”, I bombastically explained how we have given our lives over to it when we decided in our hearts that we would follow Christ. I explained how we like to compartmentalize our lives and only give parts to God when He paid for the whole thing. Then the point came out, my hands dropped, my voice dropped  like Usher and I dramatically said “This is MY life as ministry” , I read them Galations 5:13-26, as I did so the thunder rolled and the rain began to fall. I told them that I was not qualified to teach on these verses because in my life there is unforgiveness and there is contentiousness, I told them what I could teach the about was how I needed more Jesus in my life.  I explained all my failings, even with searching for verses and how all of it is used for God’s glory. At some point we were all yelling together “MY LIFE IS MINISTRY” and then like a too cool rock star dropping the mic, I closed my bible and walked away. Then I came to my senses and realized I am not a rock star and my African audience had no idea what my high drama exit meant, so I turned to my translator said, ok that’s all and a brief Asanti sana (thank you very much) to the crowed and I was done.

That is the most comfortable I have ever been speaking in my life.