Sunday Morning Challenge

It’s our second Sunday morning at Verbo worship in Managua, more energetic than last week’s. In the front row, a man in a lime shirt dances to the fast beat. A woman swirls aloft a long and graceful scarf. 

I clumsily clap and move to the unfamiliar rhythms. But, when the message begins, I enter home territory for a Kuyperian Calvinist.  The Guatemalan guest preacher, James Janckoviak, describes two kinds of Christians:

• Believers, waiting for Christ’s return with folded arms
• Disciples, 100 percent committed to doing Christ's work until he returns.

However, this home territory has a twist.

Pastor James says he had an organic farm 25 years ago. “I loved that farm. It was my project.”

Wanting to serve God, he tried donating 14 acres for a Christian conference center, but that fell flat. A church elder said, “You want to serve God? Sell your farm. You are married to it!”

He sold his farm for double what he had paid for it.

His church treasurer called on him. “You sold your farm?”

“Yes…”

The treasurer cited Acts 2 and said he should give it back to Jesus. He started to sweat. The whole thing?

Two weeks passed.  He sat in the back pew of church. He didn’t hear what the pastor was saying because he was having his own conversation with God.

“Lord, I’ll give you a tithe. All of it would be a lot of money.”

God was silent.

“Lord, I’ll give you a tithe AND an offering.”

Still silence.

He bargained upwards. 20, 30, 40, ... to 100 percent.

And at 100 percent, he heard, “No, not 100 percent.”

“Oh, what a good Lord, I have!” he thought. 

He pauses for the congregation to stop laughing and continues.

God added, “I don’t want 100 percent of your money but 100 percent of you.  That includes your money, your wife, your past, your future….your all.”

He answered, “Lord, I don’t want to become a fanatic. I really hope you are coming soon!”

Scripture verses and exposition follow. And then a challenge: Any congregation member wanting to commit all to Jesus today is asked to come forward. 

They may already be Christians. This isn’t a commitment to be a believer, but to be a disciple—to work instead of sitting with arms folded, waiting for the coming of Christ.

During the prayer that follows, these members file before him and he places his hand briefly on each head.

At lunch following the service, I ask two students from a Kuyperian Calvinist campus if they see differences between the Central American Biblical worldview and the one on their North American campus. “I think on campus there is more talk and less action,” one of them answers.

And from what I’ve seen both on Nicaraguan streets and in its sanctuaries, I couldn’t agree more.