It’s been amazing how God has led me here.
About 7 years ago, I met Pastor Yoy Alberastine in a cafe to talk about worship and the city. We must have sat there for about 4 hours just dreaming about what it would be like if worship leaders across the city connected together. The spiritual implications would be huge. Yoy had some personal involvement in something like this in the Love Singapore movement, but could it be done in Perth?
As things go, I got too busy with my own ministry to even pursue that dream. The dream got shelved like those books you buy but never get around to reading, but every now and then it catches your eye as a gentle reminder that it’s still there.
Last year, I had the privilege of being part of the Commonwealth Prayer Initiative which saw a huge number of churches get together in a 24/7 prayer movement (known as Converge) over the week that CHOGM came to Perth. It was a foretaste of what could be achieved when the church of Perth stands in unity.
This year, I found myself on the organising committee of Converge 2012 to help organise the program for one of the days: an entire day devoted to worship and magnifying God in the city. On the one hand, I’m excited because it’s like God reminding me to finally dust off that dream and start getting into it. But to say I’m daunted by the task is to put it mildly.
The theme for this year’s Converge is “Knit Together”. It takes its inspiration from Colossians 2:2:
[For my concern is] that their hearts may be braced (comforted, cheered, and encouraged) as they are knit together in love, that they may come to have all the abounding wealth and blessings of assured conviction of understanding, and that they may become progressively more intimately acquainted with and may know more definitely and accurately and thoroughly that mystic secret of God, [which is] Christ (the Anointed One).
True unity in the church can only be achieved when the hearts of God’s people are “knit together”; intertwined. It is the key not only to abounding wealth and blessings (which in this context is secondary), but ultimately to knowing and being intimately acquainted with Christ. As John says, we can’t really say we love God unless we love our brothers and sisters.
Christ and His grace is the mystery of God hidden through the ages, but revealed through His body – the church. Paul says in Ephesians 3:8ff:
Although I am less than the least of all the Lord’s people, this grace was given me: to preach to the Gentiles the boundless riches of Christ, and to make plain to everyone the administration of this mystery, which for ages past was kept hidden in God, who created all things. His intent was that now, through the church, the manifold wisdom of God should be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms…
Through the church, united and knit together, God displays His manifold wisdom to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realm.
I believe that as the church joins together in apostolic worship and intercession, God will make a statement to the spiritual realm of this city that Perth belongs to Jesus and that the gates of hell will not prevail against the church.
So seven years later, it seems that God is leading me to take steps of faith towards seeing the dream of the church being united in worship. It’s not going to take just one event to make it happen, but at least the process has started and the future is glorious.
The Worship Revolution 