Last Update from Africa

It is Thursday afternoon...I will begin my trip back to the US tomorrow.

Here's what some of the conference attendees have said:

"I've been a pastor for a long time, but I feel like I need to go back and begin leading!"

"I feel like my heart has received a complete engine overhall!"

On Wednesday evening one said, "I feel like I need to go home now, I already have so much to do differently!"

I taught my last session last night. They realized it was the 4th of July in America, so they pulled up the USA on a computer encyclopedia, displayed a big American flag on the screen, and played our national anthem. At the end they all cheered...It was more moving for me than any fireworks display!

I had been praying about a topic all week and really felt led to discuss it, even though it would challenge thier assumptions about church. Every one of these pastor's feels constrained by financial resources and often this revolves around a building for their church. Here's what the Holy Spirit had placed on my heart in a nutshell:

"If your vision is to build a large church, I can just about guarantee that vision isn't from God. God isn't interested in buildings, he is interested in building people. It also occurs to me that the larges church in the world never has all of its members together in the same place (in S. Korea), and the fastest growing churches in the world are in China & India where they usually meet in homes or other locations other than their own building, and finally that the original first century church didn't have church buildings...they had been kicked out of the synagogues and had to meet in homes or whereever they could. If also occurs to me that most of the great cathedrals of Europe are now empty and the churches they once housed are now all but dead. We need to ask if we are tying to build structures to serve our growing churches, or trying to grow our churches in order to build our structures."

To be honest, I was nervous sharing this...I knew it would be a hard message. However, many of the pastors confirmed that this message really was from God. One said, "When you said that, it finally clicked with me that I was focused on the wrong thing." Another said, you have challenged what I have always just assumed, and God is using that to show me a better way." "Thank you for reminding me that God is more interested in building people." I was humbled by their reactions and the deep impact it appears to have had on them.

This morning I met with Sitali and Alfred and we are putting together plans for two weeks next Spring in which we will teach biblical leadership to a large government agency, several dozen of the key Pilgrim Wesleyan leaders in Zambia, and then participate in another ILI conference for leaders of many denominations across Zambia. I am very excited about this plans...they hold great potential for impacting the Kingdom!

When we awoke this morning, the power was out throughout the city...It finally returned about 2 pm. I learned this is normally the case on Tues, Wed, and Thurs...we have been lucky this week. The outages are the result of "loadsharing" since the country doesn't have enough power to go around. The economic situation continues to worsen here every day, and it is likely that the country will practically come to a halt in the next few weeks as the political and economic crises takes its toll. The believers here will need our prayers as their family's brace for this unfortunate prospect.

Thanks for your continued prayer...I have remained healthy and each day has been great. I will return to Florida where my family has been, rest for a couple of days, and then work on my fall leadership curriculumn for a few days before returning to Memphis the following weekend.

Blessings from Africa!

Matthew