I am not anyone important. If you search my name you won’t find awards or Dr. before it. I am not a perfect believer. I am a worship leader. I love the church body and the beauty of communion with believers. And yet, I am suddenly heavily impressed with a burden from the Lord. I am a broken vessel, and yet I simply dare to pray that God might use me in the smallest of ways. ~Heather

A Letter to the American Church

I have entered your buildings for over 25 years, and I have been a part of your activities and services. I have served and I have been served. I have been in your large gatherings and I have been in your small gatherings. I have been uplifted and I have been hurt. I have been exhorted and I have been discouraged. And yet, I find something so beautiful about the way God uses it all. But I come burdened. I come hopeful. I come knowing that God has birthed an amazing thing in his church body, for his word does not return void. And yet, His word must be unapologetically communicated to not return void.

I have traveled and seen many things. And I am constantly reminded that I am nothing. I am selfish and I am greedy. I am American. And although there are exceptions to every rule, I have seen the greed of our culture permeate our buildings, fill our halls, and knock on the doors of our church offices. I have seen those given much hold onto it with white knuckles for the sake of comfort and self-sufficiency. I have seen those that have been given little barely surviving. And yet, God uses us in spite of it all. He works in spite of our mess, and in spite of the grandeur of many of our gatherings. But I wonder what He might do in our midst if it wasn’t so often “in spite” of our sin and failure.

We have not been called to simply do great things, but faith things. We have been called to live lives abandoned to the call. We have been called to not be dependent on a comfortable salary and plush living conditions. We have been called to a greatness that calls us to leave it all behind. As Mother Theresa said, “Our Lord gives us a living example: From the very first day of His human existence He was brought up in a poverty which no human being will ever be able to experience, because “being rich He made Himself poor.” Christ being rich emptied Himself. This is where the contradiction lies. If I want to be poor like Christ, who became poor even though He was rich, I must do the same. It would be a shame for us to be richer than Jesus, who for our sake endured poverty.”

And yet, there we stand, arms outstretched with unholy pride and a spirit claiming faith but living with a spirit of entitlement. I have been there; and I battle it daily. But I keep coming back to the humility that our saving grace displayed. I can see Him shaking His head at us as we stand before Him unappreciative and with an ultimatum of what we must receive to do his work. Dare we stand before God with a sense of sacrifice over what we deem to be much? I sense God saying to His people, “it wasn’t the amount of the widow’s offering that made her giving so beautiful. It was her sacrifice. She gave when it hurt.” In the same way, our consumeristic nature as the Body of Christ must stop running our buildings as mere organizations and start living as demonstrations of the great faith that we claim. We must get serious about being salvation to the lost, bringing healing to the hurting, and help to the poor. And we can’t stop and get comfortable when we think we have done something big. But we must strive to do more and more, because the work that God has entrusted us with is never finished. And there are lives living on borrowed minutes.

We must stop trying to compensate for the Holy Spirit with our programs, big screens, catchy phrases, and our light shows. They may draw people, but it isn’t the numbers that are proof of salvation. Even Jesus would draw large crowds at first. But it was the few that lingered in the midst of persecution that were the real deal. It isn’t our traditions and our opinions about God that moves His heart. It is His presence and our surrender that is breeding ground for an awakening. It occurs in the positioning of his servants before Him and before others. We don’t just need more education. We have become so learned that we have often elevated our knowledge over our love. And it is our love that reaches a heart. It is the Holy Spirit alone that we need to move in someone’s life. I am convinced people are tired of our lame excuses and our stiff answers. They want to see it. They want to touch it. They want to feel it. And they want to experience it. And although knowledge, and tradition, and beautiful buildings can be wonderful and glorifying to God, when did it become ok to elevate it above the very things that made up the mission of Jesus on this earth? Have we unknowingly become the very Pharisees that we speak out against? For I feel the guilt of heaven crying out over the lives that are daily being lost due to stomachs that have gone unfilled, and souls untold of the Gospel. All the while, missionaries who are willing to give it all up can’t seem to gain enough funding to reach the unreached. We are the called. We are the equipped. And we are blessed to be a blessing.

We are praying for acts of God across our land. And as someone recently pointed out, is God not possibly saying, “You have lost your first love?” I sense Him saying, “Come back to me. Seek my face. Turn from your wicked ways.” We are a people called to be great, and yet we have been lulled to sleep by our theology and our presentations. We have succumbed to the tactics of this world instead of getting on our faces. We have defended ourselves, when God has called us to love those who have thrown stones at our buildings. Wake up! The time is drawing nearer and nearer for the return of the one whom we call salvation. We can’t surround ourselves in comfort and stop up our ears hoping to not hear the hungry cries or feel the guilt of gluttony and prosperity. We are called to live beyond ourselves. We are called to think heavenly thoughts and dream heavenly dreams. We are called to confront our sin and to turn from it. We are called to stop being such busy bodies that we are too concerned with the sin of others and the inadequacies that they possess. Don’t you know that God specializes in using those very people? His word is full of calling the unequipped and equipping the called.

So today I come a simple person. A person that knows what it is like to be up front and to blend in. I am the chief of sinners. I don’t release this message into the air without a sense of utter conviction myself. I guess that is when you know it is God and not you. I am unworthy to even admonish in and of myself. And yet, I hear the call of heaven so clearly tonight. Why me? I don’t know. I am undeserving to be awakened to the call that is crying out over our land. But for whatever reason I have been given a word, and I can’t leave it unsaid. It is all about Jesus. And Jesus is all about His Body and the expansion of it.

So may we stop living as if it is about us. Believers across the world are living persecuted lives, while turning the other cheek when they can barely stand up to do so. They are surviving in poverty with no “church” building to call their home. They are living out their lives in great faith and meeting where they can in secret… when they can. They have no beautiful plaques and no ornate walls with dedications to the faithful. They are the faithful. They are soldiers in the heat of battle. And God is moving. God is honoring their sacrifice. But of course they wouldn’t call it sacrifice. They would call it an unworthy honor. Revival is happening in the most unlikely of situations. So I beg of you to wake up!

Some of you are joining me with an outcry for revival. Some of you are being revival where you are. It isn’t all bad and it isn’t all good. But with the love that God has given us for his fame, and for our good, we must go! We must let go. And we must surrender all that we are and all that we own for His glory. God is among us. We have been called, equipped, and commissioned. Now is the time. May we live in faith, and faithfully may we purge our lives and our buildings of all that is hindering a move of God. It isn’t our learned knowledge and it isn’t our grand entrances and exits that will encourage change. For in the end, all those things are not what create an act of God. They will burn away with the destruction of this earth. But it is He and He alone that is the answer. He is the source. He is our fire. And our desire must be He and He alone. It is for His Honor, His glory, and our good.

 

“And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. And awe came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles. And all who believed were together and had all things in common. And they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all, as any had need. And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved.” ~Acts 2:42-47