“For the kingdom of God does not consist in talk but in power“
1 Corinthians 4:20
The first time Pastor Sande and I met, we exchanged words the full weight of which I would not realize until later.
“People from your country have what we lack,” he said. “You have wisdom, you have knowledge. That is what I want.”
I stared intently into the lively brown eyes of this Ugandan pastor, a bit embarrassed by his words and unsure how to respond. For many years he had been preaching the Gospel, rearing a family, and faithfully pastoring a tiny flock of widows and orphans. I suspected I could learn a thing or two from him.
So I responded, “Well, I’m sure that you have what I lack, too. We can bless each other.”
In a month’s time, those words proved true as my friendship with Pastor Sande flourished. Maybe I did have what he lacked—theological education. But I came to realize that by and large I lacked what he had—Spiritual fervency. And so we blessed each other.
I’ll tell you the story.
Late one night—or perhaps I should say early in the morning—I awoke to the sound of a man’s voice off in the distance that seemed to be amplified by a radio or a loudspeaker. The man was praying (or was he preaching?) with a feverish torrent of staccato syllables, each sentence followed by a brief re-gathering of air, and then by another fortissimo outburst of the same pace and power. The clapping and the rhythmic exclamations danced endlessly into the night; and, far from waning, they only seemed to gather strength as they thundered along.
I learned the next morning that it was no radio recording that had reached my ears the previous night. The praying man was Pastor Sande. The evening air had carried his husky voice from the empty church to our little dormitory, and he had spent the better part of the night worshiping, interceding for his congregation, and warding away evil spirits. As an aspiring pastor, I gained a profound respect for Pastor Sande that night which has not left me since.
Well, Pastor Sande found out that I had some seminary education under my belt. He asked if I would teach his people, and I happily agreed. I preached for six afternoons straight. Sometimes there would only be a handful of old ladies present; at other times my voice was drowned out by the crows of roosters or the bellowing of cows! But the one constant was that the people had an insatiable craving to hear God’s Word. Time and again they told me how much the teaching was blessing them. As more than one person explained, “We have evangelists aplenty, and not a few prophets, but teachers…Well, we don’t have many Bible teachers.”
That is the sad disparity: in the West, every denomination has its seminary, and almost every pastor has his master’s degree. But in Africa, which is no stranger to physical hunger, there is a greater famine for biblical knowledge. Generally speaking, congregants lack Bibles, and pastors lack training. They have a great deal of experiential knowledge, and by the power of the Spirit they preach effectively from Scripture, but by their own admission they are limited by their paucity of resources. So I think there was some truth in what Pastor Sande said: Western believers have something the Africans lack.
But in the cultural exchange between Pastor Sande and me, I insist that I gained more than he did. For Pastor Sande has something that by and large we lack, and it’s Spiritual power and fervency. You see, when Pastor Sande prayed, he hollered; and when he worshipped, he danced; and when he preached, he roared. Here was a bottomless volcano of a man, an inexhaustible wellspring of Spiritual energy.
I hope I never forget Christmas morning in Uganda. Pastor Sande proudly donned a new suit that a generous parishioner had bought for him. (It is probably the only suit he owns.) That morning he danced like a thunderstorm and preached like a freight train. But what really impressed me was what he did before the service: manning his usual post at the front of church and lifting up holy hands, he cried out to God and rebuked demons at the top of his lungs for the better part of fifteen minutes. (When’s the last time a Christmas service in the States began with some good old fashioned spiritual warfare, anyway?) At one point in his prayer, Pastor Sande exclaimed to some invisible foe, “I render you POWERLESS! Fire!” And in my mind’s eye I saw a vision of a demon fleeing from the church premises as though mortally wounded by Sande’s words, with a stream of fire cascading down from the throne of God and engulfing him as he whimpered away.
There was power and authority in Pastor Sande’s voice. He didn’t exchange pleasantries or mince words with the devil. Instead, he told him where to go—just as Jesus did. And what he was doing was very real.
A few days later I found out just how real it was.
But if you want to hear the rest of the story, you will have to read part two of my blog!
(By the way, in the link below you will catch a glimpse of that Christmas service I mentioned!)
