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Archives: September 2009
Aware...
Archives: September 2009
You're not allowed to swim...
By Matt Nixon-James
Imagine for a moment what a normal person would have said if they found out that a whole bunch of UK peeps were paying to go to Durban, South Africa, not for a holiday, but to get their hands dirty. Just imagine the looks on their faces when you told them that they were not allowed to swim in the beautiful Indian Ocean that beats upon the Durban shore.
Imagine if you were that person. What would you think? Well, if I was that person I would say that they were all a little bit strange and that they’d have lost the plot.
And that’s exactly what went through my mind when Mike and a local pastor from Durban dreamed up the idea of SOULINTHECITY Durban. Who in their right mind would come to Durban to work. I’m from Durban myself and I know that last thing you want to do in the city is work… you want to hang out on the beach of course!
So back in July I stood gob smacked outside a local Durban hotel as 353 crazy people from the UK and other parts of the world got off a bus and got themselves ready to serve their King in a foreign land. It’s awesome, wonderful and touching, but you have to admit, it is flipping madness!
Over the past few months I’ve been working with Soul Survivor and have had the privilege of travelling around the city visiting projects and seeing the vibe whilst SOULUINTHECITY Durban was happening. I saw happy, smiling delegates who were in love with Jesus and in love with doing his mission.
All of my expectations were shattered over the two week period. My ‘inner cynic’ just couldn’t understand why 353 people from the UK and other parts of the world would pay a load of money to come and serve in some pretty dark places around the city when they could spend the same amount of money on an awesome holiday. It’s crazy, absolutely crazy!
However, once I traveled to each project things started to make sense. Jesus called us to go out to do the stuff and he says in John 12v8 ‘that the poor will always be among us’. Now I have always used that verse as an excuse to accept the poverty around me, to maybe even make me feel better about the dire situation that many South Africans are faced with daily. But what does that really mean for us today?
The radical statement that Jesus made was not an excuse for poverty but a calling. A calling to make sure that the poor will always be among us, actually physically with us… they will always be with us as they are where we are. It’s a calling to go, a calling to be with the poor and to serve them.
If we read the passage this way then the point is so much harder to ignore. It means that by being among the poor we are serving them where they are at, not at our convenience. It means that our walk with Jesus is not a summer or weekend walk but a lifetime of serving those that Jesus served. It means doing something stupid in the eyes of the world to ensure God’s Kingdom advances.
That is what I found so amazing about SOULINTHECITY Durban. We did something stupid. We payed to fly to Durban (also known as Africa’s playground) and we painted, dug, cleaned, fixed, cried, fed and prayed. Now that is crazy, but we were among the poor just as Jesus had said we should be.
For two weeks my soul was on fire. The worship times in the evenings were electric and the hang out time after was awesome, but I could not put my finger on why. After a while it clicked. We were having electric worship times and awesome hang out times because our days were devoted to doing the stuff that Jesus called his followers to do. We were among the poor, feeding, clothing and telling people about our amazing God. The gospel made sense… by doing what Jesus called us to do in the day, giving him glory with our lives and actions, it made worshipping him in song each evening totally amazing. It was a expression of all we’d been doing that day and as we sought after God amongst the poor we found Him. We found him through serving, through making new friends and through our songs of worship.
For me, it took 353 people from other country’s to realize that doing everything Jesus did and spoke about is the only way to live life. When we live that way it transforms us and everything about, from our friendships to the way we think. Basically it took a whole bunch of crazy people to wake me up and to see that living a ‘normal’ life that the rest of our society says is normal isn’t what Jesus was always about. I guess at times, as we follow Jesus, we’ll make people think “that guy is crazy, he is flipping mad”. So, are we prepared to do and be like that? I’m hoping I can be…
Soul Survivor is a Christian charity that puts on events for young people. Our registered charity no. is 1080720. We are also a company limited by guarantee in England & Wales. Our company registered number is 03991111, which is nice. Thanks for caring.
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