because this was worth more than merely a post.

today at Adullam, Brad Corrigan taught. He’s from this band called Dispatch, which used to big on the East Coast, until they broke up a few years ago. Recently they got back together to play a benefit concert for the country of Zimbabwe. All the money from every single ticket sale went to help with relief in the country. They sold out Madison Square Garden.

Three

Nights

in a row.

So I am going to tell you a little bit about the service. If you can call it that. I learned so much, and we all cried together. It was beautiful. Brad talked about his fellow band members, Pete and Chad. I think we’ll start with Chad, just a month before the three met and started their band.

Chad went to Zimbabwe for about 6 months and taught English. The children there taught him this song thtat they sung all the time. Since he was their teacher, and a musician, they wanted him to have it so he could bring it bakc to the States. Chad came back, and after they started up the band, he wanted to record this song. The first two minutes are in the Zimbabwean dialect, and the next five are about this gardener that Chad met and grew close to while in Africa.

A few years after the band broke up, Brad, the only Xian, attend a missions conference. A Zimbabwean pastor spoke, and when he prayed, he prayed in that same dialect. Brad heard certain words and recognized them, and I guess things started clicking. He went up to the pastor after the talk was over. Before even introducing himself, Brad starts singing this song. The pastor whirls around, “brother! How do you know this song?!” and Brad just thinks, with eyes wide open, “oh my gosh. it’s for real.”

This song, which is one of their most beloved by fans, is a praise song. It’s about Palm Sunday, and if that were going on today, what would we say to Jesus. And they had no idea.

Fast forward to the benefit concert: Hugh, a worker at our church, was talking with Brad about this, and he said, “I think it would be so great if some sort of a blessing could be said over Zimbabwe. And I just picture all the people, holding up their right hand, and blessing Zimbabwe.” Well, brad laughed and said he would see what he could do, but after all, he is just a man.

One of their other most beloved songs is called the General. And one of the lines, which they say over and over is, “Go now, you are forgiven.” Well, they were singing that, and all of sudden, the audience is singing along and they are holding up their hands and there are 20,000 people saying blessing over Zimbabwe, just the way Hugh imagined. But without knowing it. [I am listening to a recording of hte concert, and I can hear the audience singing now. go now you are forgiven, go now you are forgiven, go now...]

Let’s back up: part of the reason the band broke up was due to arguments, and pride. Brad told us pride can be really destructive, and not to let it infiltrate our lives. Brad has felt for the longest time that his friends, who had become like brothers, would never come to faith in christ, because of what he had done in pride when the band broke up. But the night of hte concert, they are still backstage, and hte walls were literally reverberating with the sound of everyone inside. and Pete, seeing this candle, sort of nonchalantly says he wants to lit it. So he does, and he puts it in the middle of the floor, and then shuts off one of the lights. And then they all sat down, and Pete grabbed Brad and Chad’s hands. Then, sort of looking up, he mumbles, “uh, God? Thanks for bringing back my brothers.”

And there are a dozen other things that happened. Like the Zimbabwean children’s choir who sang with them. They were all Xians, and they held a praise influenced warm up session every day, for half an hour before practicing their ten minute routine. And Elias, that song which is partly in Zimbabwean? Yeah, the man who it is about is a Xian. There is a line in the song that says, “Elias, could you answer all the questions of the world in just one word? ” Brad once asked Elias what he thought of that line. Elias grinned, his bright white smile, and laughed. “That’s easy, Jesus.”

So God really works, even when we don’t realize it. Even when we feel like we are tilling soil and tilling and tilling, and nothing is happening. God is working. Even when we think we are screwing everything up, and destroying all that could have been beautiful. God is working. Because, we aren’t