Church, Ugandan style

what i experienced last Sunday morning will stay with me forever. and i want to share with you just a glimpse of what it was like for me and the Mocha Club team i was with. so as you are getting ready for/coming home from/taking a break between/or skipping church, take a peek into the Acholi tribe of northern Uganda, and get a taste of what worship is like there.

i started praying a few years ago that God would give me a glimpse into His global Church…to let me see what corporate worship looks like all over the world. He started to answer that prayer pretty quickly.

from infant tribal churches on small remote islands in the South Pacific to the largest house church in China…I’ve gotten to not only see amazing expressions of the Church, but i’ve also gotten to meet worship leaders that lead in ways that would blow your heart away.

The Acholi have been through more than any of us reading this have been through in a lifetime COMBINED. They have hardly anything…yet they have everything. Their war-torn lives and disorienting situations have only boosted the level of joy and passion. What touched me the most was that every time a person entered into the “worship hut”, they would fall to the ground…knees bent, face to the dirt…and pray… for about 10-20 seconds…. and then they would rise to their feet…singing and dancing….like they meant it! it was truly authentic. There was no stage, no hymnals or screens…nothing. There wasn’t even a main worship leader… the whole community just led themselves… and in each moment, a different person would “lead” the song, but it flowed from one person to the next very organically.

To see this… and to know their stories and what they have put up with … this led me in worship. They have to CHOOSE to worship… and they don’t need the latest songs or the coolest video setups to do it. It was crowded…many of them carried their own chairs or benches….they walked for miles, having been very sick the night before or having a dying family member left back home (one man i prayed with lost his brother to AIDS during the church service…he found out when he got home). Like i said, they have to CHOOSE TO WORSHIP. No where in America have I seen worship like this. it was more than refreshing.

i guess the light looks different in the darker places.