Mike’s Sea2sea Blog

Yesterday I found myself in “Cadence”, the weekly worship chapel of the Muskoka Woods Sports camp leaders. It occurs every Saturday, after most of the kids (700 or so) from the week prior have left, and before the next batch of eager children and youth arrive to enjoy every kind sport and skill development you can imagine. 

I was surrounded by 300 or so blue shirts (they are all in uniform on Saturdays), mostly young adults in their 20’s. Can you imagine  how tired these people must have been after leading cabins full of kids and youth, or instructing all day each day outside? And here was supposed to be this “sacred space”, where their leaders (John McCauley, president and Chris Evans, director) could encourage, teach, rebuke, and build up their hearts.

I’m reminded of a very similar situation I found myself in April – the last chapel before exam week at Ambrose University College in Calgary. Another (somewhat smaller) group of young adults, but again, with so much on their minds: final papers or exams, tickets home, rooms to pack up, jobs to find, etc. 

In both cases there was so much potential – an army of young people who need to see how God wants to use them to change the world, yet so much distraction and tiredness! In both cases, the worship team were their peers, singing these songs full of  radical words about surrender to Christ and transformation. Were they realizing the significance of this? At Ambrose I wanted to just get up and scream “do you realize how important you are in Christ’s plan? Are you aware of the blessing this particular period of your lives can be!?” I wanted to both thank and challenge the faculty, letting them know how badly we need Christ-formed leaders in our churches in Ontario. It wasn’t so much a desire to rebuke, but a shout of encouragement from the crowd of people in need of these students to launch out as leaders, affecting change all over Canada…. I wanted so badly for them to hear God’s rythm “thrumming in the mixture” (Berry); the unfolding plan to redeem the world through the church.

During the worship at Muskoka, they began to sing  “Hosanna” (Hillsong United) which has been a favourite of mine  for the past couple of years – an expression of sorts of the vision for which God is calling Michelle and I to work in hope:

“I see a generation,

rising up to take their place

with sefless faith, with selfless faith

I see a near revival,

stirring as we pray and seek

we’re on our knees, we’re on our knees”

At that point I was undone. I’m fairly sure with all the distractions facing them, the young people at Ambrose and those around me at Muskoka last Saturday didn’t fully appreciate the value and promise in those words….but I hope I’m wrong about that.  

The bridge in that song is a prayer:
“Break my heart for what breaks yours,

Everything I am for your Kingdom’s cause.

Show me how to love like you have loved me”

The task for us in the church is to appreciate the necessity and the urgency of the spiritual formation of this next wave of worshippers. Because when these young people pray this prayer in earnest, they re-shape the church.

Zwemer’s been on my mind, since a colleague sent me a short message from the Urbana archives – from the first Urbana ever – 1946, in Toronto! (http://www.urbana.org/articles/the-cross-in-christs-commission-1946) Interesting that one of the great missionaries to the Muslims was preaching here, and now it is a city with Muslims from all over the world.

Zwemer was a missionary pioneer who devoted his life to Muslim evangelism. Just today I looked up some things about him and found out he was a gifted writer, motivator and recuiter for missions and believed in the power of the printed word to make a difference in reaching Muslims for Christ. He lost his two young daughters to the rigors of living overseas (dysentery), and in his lifetime saw limited spiritual fruit in terms of new believers.

I recall having  coffee with my grandfather and one of his friends – a man who was an alumni of Nyack College ( the Alliance school in the U.S. founded by Simpson as Missionary Training Institute), I would guess from the late 1940’s or early 50’s. We were having a wonderful conversation about God’s heart for the world, the next generation, emerging church stuff, and in the midst of it he told me a story of a chapel service in which Zwemer spoke. Here’s my best recollection of the story:

Zwemer (who must have been old, nearing the end of his ministry) comes up aisle in a big overcoat. Just before taking the pulpit, he takes off the coat and plops it right onto the altar/chancellery thing (something fairly important in the chapel anyhow). It was kind of shocking. Then he proceeds to preach  on the story of Elijah and Elisha, and relates it to the great need for missionaries to the Muslim world. After the message he asks, something like “Who will take up the mantle?”. Then he leaves, back up the aisle, leaving the coat there. The person telling me the story said “The moment was electric.”

Honestly, I feel pretty small when reading about heroes like this. This guy created his own missions board when he was rejected as a young man. “Samuel never stopped writing” his wife said. 38 years of living in different Arabic countries like Yemen, Iraq, Bahrain and Egypt. Two young daugters are buried there. He worked constantly for churches and new pastors to see the need to reach Muslims for Christ – even dying of a heart attack in his eighties after preaching three times in one day for an Intervarsity group in New York.

On the other hand, his story is like many of ours. In a college chapel service, he heard the challenge of the many who are dying without having heard of Christ. A missionary from India came up with a large map and a metronome as an object lesson. As the metronome kept time, the students were told that for every “tick” another person perished without hearing about Jesus. Zwemer rushed forward to the call, a prompting that time has not changed – we know it well.

Are we really up for what he is calling us to? I guess, from what I’ve gathered about his writings, he would say that is not the most important question. He would call our attention instead to Christ, and if Christ is still sufficient, then all we need has been considered.

So there is the coat, still waiting for you and I and this next wave of missionaries.

(And if you are interested in learning more about Zwemer here’s a good start: http://www.ciu.edu/muslimstudies/samuelzwemer.html)