In a recent Facebook post, my daughter, who is living and working in South Korea, casually mentioned that there were Uzbeks at a restaurant she was at. I was shocked and asked her, There are Uzbeks in Gimahe, South Korea? She said there were quite a few.
OK, you may be wondering, What are Uzbeks? And, What does this have to do with the church you used to pastor being cutting edge? Fair enough. Uzbeks are the people from Uzbekistan. What? You’ve never heard of Uzbekistan? All this got me to thinking about being an innovative church and I immediately thought of three ways that we were on the cutting edge.
Contemporary Worship. We were by no means the first church to ever use contemporary music etc. We may well have been the first in York. But that wasn’t our goal, we just wanted to encourage people to worship the Lord - so, we went contemporary and casual before it was the cool thing to do. But we messed it up by insisting on having Scripture reading and prayer time in our services! This has obviously become popular and “in.”
But, being true to myself, I also latched on to two other “cutting edge” practices that have not as yet gained wide spread approval.
Praying Through the Window. For years I had been using Patrick Johnstone’s Operation World in my private devotions. And they began to talk about the 10/40 Window (“The 10/40 Window is located from 10 degrees south to 40 degrees north of the equator. There are 69 nations across northern Africa, the Middle East and Central Asia in the 10/40 Window. Nearly 4 billion people live here, including 90 percent of the world's poorest of the poor. It is estimated that 1.6 billion of these people have never had the chance to hear the Gospel of Jesus Christ - not even once! The seat of every major non-Christian religion - Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, Animism, Atheism, and Sikhism - is headquartered in the 10/40 Window. Two-thirds of the world’s population (4 billion) live in the 68 nations of the 10/40 Window” click here for more info ). I believe we began participating from the beginning. Window International Network provides a 31 day calendar with information about and prayer points for each nation and people group in the window. We made calendars available for personal use and then prayed as a church during these 31 days. Since Uzbekistan is in the window we prayed for them.
Ramadan. As a church we observed Ramadan. Not really. But we did participate in 30 Days of Prayer for the Muslim World. And these 30 days always took place during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. This grew out of Praying Through The Window and I’m sure that is how we heard of this. And since Uzbekistan is 96% Muslim, we prayed for them then too. So we prayed for Uzbekistan at least twice a year.
I know they are out there, but I have never known another church that participated in Praying Through the Window or 30 Days of Prayer. (We also took part in the Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church. I knew of one other pastor who did as well). That has got to be the definition of cutting edge – being out in front of everybody else! Although honestly, that was not why we participated. We were part of the Christian & Missionary Alliance and our motto was Pray · Give · Go. So we were praying for the unreached of the world.
Anyway, I thought it was cool that my daughter had met Uzbeks in Korea, even though they were in her words, “super drunk.” And it got me to thinking about Uzbekistan and how I knew of it and I realized, "We were cutting edge." Just not in a cool way! My hope is: that it was truly a good work; and if it was a good work, in the promise, For God is not unrighteous to forget your work and labour of love, which ye have shewed toward his name; and most of all, that our prayers were in some way effective and that there will be Uzbeks in that day singing with me:
I’m redeemed, I’m redeemed,
Jesus saves me and keeps me just now, Hallelujah!
And I join with the throng round the throne
In the song, I’m redeemed by the blood of the Lamb.
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