Tears Vs. Texts

This past Sunday I experienced a strange phenomenon in church.   I must admit up front that I was already pretty emotional when I walked into the worship center.  You see, this past Sunday I told many of my friends that I was leaving our church to take a new position as Associate Pastor at a small, nearby, struggling church.  For some people, this Sunday was the last time I would be worshiping with them.  To add to that emotion, as I walked into the worship center, I was made aware that one of my students at The LoveLady Center had been sent back to jail.  It was news that tore me apart on the inside.  It was really no wonder, then that as we began to worship, and as we began to sing of the grace and holiness of God, that tears began streaming down my face.

OK.  I need to be honest.  I am a guy that – at least every now and then – cries.  Not always, mind you, but under certain situations.  For example, I ALWAYS tear up during the airplane crash scene of The Incredibles.  Don’t judge me.  I can empathize with Mr. Incredible losing his family.  It is a very emotional scene!  It makes my wife laugh.  But despite the ridiculous times that it happens, I do cry every now and again during worship.  Not every time, and usually not at church.  Usually I cry when I am worshipping alone and I am overwhelmed by my own sinfulness and the magnitude of what my savior did for me on the cross.  Maybe it was all the other stuff going on, but this past Sunday it was just simple worship that sent me over the edge.

To understand what happened next, you have to understand that I truly believe that worship – both personal and corporate – is still a very intimate act.  While worshipping together, I typically find that I am singing alone to God.  While part of a larger body that is praising in unison, I find that there is no one around but me and God.  That is where I was Sunday, with tears rolling down my face.   I don’t know what happened, but right in the midst of this incredibly wonderful time of worship, something broke my concentration.  For a short moment, instead of being lost in the worship of my savior, I was just a guy in a big room full of people. 

It was at that moment that I began to notice those people.  Some of those people were just like I had been – completely lost in their worship to the King of Kings and Lord of Lords.  Most of the people were at a place not quite as remote.  They were clearly worshipping – well, they were at least singing with the rest of the crowd – but I cannot say that they were lost in their worship.  Maybe it was real and maybe it was ritual, but that is not for me to judge.  It was not this group that bothered me.

As I looked around, I saw another category of people that I will not even begin to classify as worshippers.  There was a lady reading her bulletin.  Really?  Oh look, another man doing the same.  Have I done that before – that is, read the bulletin when I should be worshipping?  Probably.  I continue to look around - yes, I know I should have gone straight back to worship, but I was now fully distracted.  As I looked around, I saw people texting!  TEXTING.  Wait a minute.  Two seconds ago, I was lost in worship to the point of tears and these people are texting?  Were they in the same worship center as I was?   

I had to ask the question: How could it be that one person is so lost in worship that he is crying while another is texting?  The easy answer is to point the finger at them and make accusations about their spiritual wellbeing.  That may be part of the answer, but the real answer of course is personal preparedness and participation.  Worship is a participatory activity and it requires the worshipper to prepare himself or herself to enter into the presence of the living God.  Then the worshipper must choose to actively engage in that worship.  To fail at either of these points runs the risk that you will be texting while others have tears streaming down their faces.

Are there days that I walk into the worship center completely unprepared?  Absolutely.  On those days, I probably end up being just one among a host of singers.  I may be participating, but I am probably missing the blessing of being lost in worship. Don’t get me wrong, I almost always make an active choice to participate in worship.  Sometimes though I have a hard time focusing on God because I am not adequately prepared for worship.   Even then, like this Sunday, being prepared does not make you immune to distraction.   Likewise, are there days where I choose not to participate at all?  Well, I did just say almost always… that’s not my desire, but I am human… let’s just say that I would much rather have tears than have texts.  

Reflections on Designs for Hope

When I first started working with Designs for Hope (www.designsforhope.org), I really had no idea what God had in mind or where he would take my involvement in the ministry.  All I knew was that God’s hand was moving in the work that Designs for Hope was doing and I wanted to be a part of it.  Even though I haven’t done any real engineering in many years, my background and education is in electrical engineering, and so the very nature of the goals and vision of Designs for Hope intrigued me from the beginning.  I was captivated by the thought of using engineering designs and skills to develop simple, low cost solutions that can be used to enhance the lives of impoverished people around the world and could even be used to further the spread of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Although I will always be an engineer at heart, my first calling is to my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, who has called me into the service of his ministry.  As such, one of my passions is missions.  Imagine the joy of being able to combine that which is imprinted on you through education and years of secular employment with your divinely inspired passions.  That is how I first saw Designs for Hope.  To be honest, when Chris Bond first approached me about his ideas, I must admit that I was a bit jealous because he had come up with the idea and I had not.  More importantly, when Chris first came to me with the idea and was asking for some electrical engineering help with the design, I was more than a bit embarrassed that I was so far removed from actual engineering design experience that I really couldn’t help him.  I distinctly remember sitting in a Milo’s restaurant with Chris and thinking (a) what a neat concept and (b) I can’t believe he came to me for help and I’ve got nothing really to offer in return.  I shared a few elementary things that I am sure made no difference whatsoever to his design and he graciously listened.  It was a little bit disheartening.  That was a little over a year ago.

God, however, had other ideas about how I should be contributing to the Designs for Hope effort; and as is always the case, his plan has been far more fulfilling than whatever simplistic plans I might have desired.  It took until this past March before my involvement with Designs for Hope became “official”. In the last seven months, I have been talking about Designs for Hope just about everywhere I go.  When I do, it never fails that someone will say, “Hey, I know someone you need to talk to!”  As a result, I have been making all kinds of connections that I never dreamed possible.  I have talked to everyone from missionaries and pastors to finance wizards and lawyers.  I’ve spoken to people directly involved in missions in two different states in India, in Uganda, in Zambia, in Nicaragua, in Peru, and in Haiti.  In addition to missions ministries that I already knew about – such as E3 Partners (www.e3partners.org) - I have learned about all kinds of ministries out there that I never knew existed,  such as TLA Ministries in India (www.tlaministries.org), African Children’s Mission in Uganda (www.africanchildrensmission.org), and Zambikes in Zambia (www.zambikes.org).

I think that sometimes here in America we get an unfortunate case of tunnel vision and forget about what God is doing all over the world.  Yes, the economy is bad.  Yes, college tuition is insanely out of control (trust me, I have two in college).  Yes, it seems like our moral standards have fallen off the proverbial cliff.  These things are all true.  However, maybe we need to take a moment to open our eyes and see the handiwork of a Sovereign and Almighty God who is still very much at work in this world and is still faithfully carrying out his plan despite our blindness and narrow vision.

Designs for Hope is very much a young organization, still struggling to get off the ground and make an impact on the world for the gospel of Jesus Christ.   Sometimes it seems we are moving too slow.  Fundraising is not an easy task.  However, God owns the cattle on a thousand hills and I have no doubt in my mind that Designs for Hope is progressing at exactly the right pace that God wants in order to carry out his plan.  I am just excited to be a very small part of that.