In the past two months, I have become more aware of God’s global activity than ever before. In July, I had the opportunity to travel to Guatemala and lead worship and work alongside a student group from Brentwood Baptist Church. After spending a week there, it is clear that God is moving throughout the inner-city streets of District 18 in Guatemala City. It was a sobering sight to see houses assembled with scrap medal for roofs and walls whose dimensions were the size of a walk-in closet functioning simultaneously as a living room, kitchen, bedroom and bathroom. In a city where the public high schools are breading grounds for drug trafficking and prostitution, we worked with Shalom Church and School pouring concrete, painting, and digging wells to provide room so that the existing body of students which is already well above 700 could accommodate more students providing them access to a first-class education while connecting them with the message of Christ. Because of this school and church, entire families are embracing salvation, and the economic patterns of poverty that have existed for years are being broken by children with skills to go out and make an honest wage as mechanics, beauticians, farmers, and in some cases pastor’s and missionaries.
During my time there, four guys at Shalom Church and School especially impacted me. After a student pastor was asked to step aside for church discipline reasons, these four high school guys ranging from sixteen to seventeen years in age stepped up and together took on the role of student pastor. On a weekly basis, they organize student services, lead worship, teach bible studies and mentor their peers. I stood back and watched on a Sunday morning as a humid and musty concrete block room was filled to capacity with students smiling, laughing, and singing. It was a reminder that outside our borders, and thousands of miles away, God is being proclaimed and people are being impacted with his truth, and much of it is being done through the student generation.
Just two nights ago, I sat in an international prayer service at Providence Church where citizens of Japan, Russia, Vietnam, and the Dominican Republic came together to pray and take communion. Once again I was moved by the greatness of God. A citizen of the country Georgia that is now under siege came forward and together with believers from every corner of the globe present, her country and fellow citizens were lifted up in prayer. We prayed for the hospital and pastorial training center that is now being erected in the Dominican and the movement of God that is currently taking place there. I often fail to realize all that God is doing beyond our shorelines but on my way home to Nashville that night, I was reminded of how God’s glory truly does fill the whole earth.
My good friend Cody Deese has a fundamental belief and saying that “God is active.” After this summer, it’s never been truer, and my hope is that in this comfortable and often passive culture in which we live, we will wake up to the work of Christ and personally become active in the activity of God.
If you’re looking for a place to begin, I encourage you to check out One Vision International at www.onevisioninternational.org
