Are You Choking in the Smog?
Oscar’s church is located in a rough-and-tumble section of Managua. Nicaragua is a country known around the world for the terrible earthquake that rocked Managua in 1972, for the Sandinistas’ subsequent rise to power, and for the scandalous Iran-Contra affair that marked the Reagan administration in the mid-1980s. What is often overlooked about Nicaragua is its terrible poverty. Oscar’s church is located in one of the most desperate and impoverished sections of Managua. Oscar felt led to serve the people in that difficult part of town, and so he planted a church right in the middle of it.
Trash and filth line the streets. Groups of men—young and old—loiter on corners and pass the time by drinking and harassing the young girls and women who live nearby. It’s not uncommon to find 8-12 people—usually women and children—living in makeshift shelters no larger than the average American kitchen. They make easy prey for the men hanging around just outside. It’s a terrible area.
And there in the middle of all the despair is Oscar’s church—Rey Solomon (King Solomon). Actually, Oscar’s church also houses a Christian school and center for special needs education. Oscar, his family and staff all live among the people they serve. They share their poverty. But for nearly twenty years Oscar’s ministry has brought hope to countless souls in their area.
A few years ago, I had the privilege of worshipping in Oscar’s church. It was a Tuesday night and the little room was packed with well over a hundred eager worshippers. You need to see this in your mind to appreciate it—a one-room church building with a small, raised wood platform in front. There was an ancient sound system that didn’t work very well, but did work best when cranked up to full volume. A battered wood floor was covered with cheap plastic chairs. The room had no air conditioning and poor lighting.
But the church that met there was very much alive. For the better part of three hours we sang, danced, chanted, jumped, cheered, clapped, celebrated and screamed at the top of our voices to the God who was the hope of those desperate people. Rarely have I been in such a joy-filled worship setting.
Please keep in mind that this little church was something most of us would be ashamed to enter if it was in our town. It wouldn’t meet our comfort standards. We certainly wouldn’t leave our kids there. And we’d never invite our friends. We demolish church buildings like Oscar’s. But the people of Rey Solomon will not let themselves be defined by their material standing. Their suffering and desperation were expressed in their passionate and heartfelt encounter with the living God. It was the kind of worship encounter, I should add, that I have rarely experienced in my cozy church confines back home.
During the three-hour worship and preaching event, I had a vision. That I had any type of spiritual encounter at all is nothing less than a miracle. The church service was held entirely in Spanish, which means that I was able to pick up about every 10,000th word. Beyond that, there was some serious speaking in tongues going on around me. I’m not one who has any specific type of tongue-speaking or interpreting ability, but I recognize that many of my Christian brothers and sisters do. I’ve prayed in enough denominationally-mixed Christian settings to feel very comfortable when those around me are praying in tongues. Actually, I think it’s kind of cool. My point is that between the Spanish and tongue-speaking, I wasn’t really set up to have a profound spiritual experience. But I had one, nonetheless. During the worship, I saw a vision, a picture, in my mind. I’ll never get over it.
I saw my homeland from a great distance, as if I was actually looking at it from Nicaragua. I saw our cities, our beautiful landscapes, our homes, and I saw our churches. Covering the whole scene, shrouding everything in our great nation, was a thick blanket of smog. It clung to our cities, our families and our churches like the death angel in Exodus. There was no place that wasn’t being poisoned by it. It was a very distressing sight. It was as if this dense cloud of smog was choking the very life out of my country.
What was this smog? What did I see that was choking the life out of our great land? Materialism. The shroud that I saw that was killing the life in our families, cities and churches was in fact the financial and material prosperity that so many of us enjoy. We’re dying from it, drowning in it, and we don’t even see it.
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