“Why are you cast down, O my soul? …Hope in God” (Psalm 42:5).

I haven’t valued hope as I ought, and suspect that many of you haven’t either. America, after all, has so many resources that we usually calculate some human way forward out of our problems. Being hopeless first sunk into my mind in the early 1990’s when I was in Caracas, Venezuela and was taken to a barrio. Orphaned children, no home, fed themselves on garbage dumps. Little children condemned to hopeless lives.

This past Sunday I worshipped and preached in Dukem, Ethiopia. No Gothic cathedral, no American mega-church with screens and slick presentations, just a rough and unfinished building. Some of the walls were corrugated metal. The altar and pulpit were like ours at home, though much, much simpler. In place of pews there were resin chairs, the kind we use to relax outdoors in summer. With the marketing mentality of the American church, you wonder who would come to such a humble place. Who? Over 2000 people! Most were young or middle age, and many little children. I can’t describe how troubled I was by my comfortable practices of faith in America.

After the service, over 2-hours-long, people were milling around, including little children fascinated by the visitors. I sat down on the step of the chancel and motioned them to come and sit by me. They did. You can see the photo on my Facebook page. Getting back to my lead, some of these children – I can’t quantify how many – would have little or no earthly hope were it not for this congregation. Ethiopia is the second most populous country in Africa and one of the poorest. The congregation in Dukem and the Ethiopian Evangelical Church Mekane Yesus is committed to holistic ministry, body, soul and spirit. They have schools from pre-school to graduate programs and sponsor programs to teach people life skills and ways out of poverty. For many of these little children the church of Jesus is their only earthly hope. “The Son of Man came to seek and save the lost” (Luke 19:10).

“One generation shall commend your works to another, and shall declare your mighty acts” (Psalm 104:5). Is our American church so pewed-in to Sunday mornings that we’re not going out to bring hope to the least, the last, and the lost?

From The Meyer Minute, 3/12/2019
Rev. Dr. Dale Meyer, President, Concordia Seminary, St. Louis