Umfundisi wenjabulo : a tribute to Elliot 'Bafana' Sonjica

 

I heard today that Elliot Sonjica's life here on this earth stopped suddenly yesterday. Dreadful Covid-19 claimed another victim. This is devastating and we are heart broken for Dolly and Grace and their families, as well as their Hilton Christian Fellowship family.

We can rest assured that Elliot woke up in the presence of Jesus. For those who die in Christ, death has lost its sting. Death will be like waking up from an afternoon nap with the sun streaming in through your bedroom window. Absent from the body, present with the Lord. 

But for those left behind, there are storm clouds of grief that obscure rays of resurrection hope. This grief-hope storm is a God-permitted weather pattern. This too will pass, but we cannot will it to pass. With hope, we must walk slowly through valleys of grief because of the huge gap a man like this leaves in our lives. We grieve exactly because he was a ray of resurrection of hope on this earth, that is now gone.

 One of God's common graces in grief is to celebrate a person's life in tribute, as we bless the One who gives and takes away. In the next week, the tributes will pour in, I know, letting Dolly and Grace and their family know of the giant faith legacy of Elliot Bafana Sonjica. I wish to add my voice to the chorus, if I may.

A Shepherd of Joy. Elliot was to me, Umfundisi wenjabulo, a shepherd of joy. The photo above, posted by his daughter Grace, captures that remarkable smile that would light up a room and chase the shadows out the door of any soul. A deep belly laugh was always just below the surface in the man and it didn't take much to get his feet going with his Madiba moves in worship. He had serious rhythm and soul, even though he couldn't sing quite as well as Dolly or Grace!  How he managed to do that with our white-boy-worship-music that had so little African groove is a miracle, but he did!  Elliot's life reminds me of simpler times. Simpler joys. Not a life of uninterrupted happiness, mind you, but a steadfast trust in His God through every season that produced contagious joy. 

A Gentle Giant. Elliot was a big man with a small ego. He was humble to the point of being self-effacing.  That is a rare virtue for a man from the proudest most powerful tribe in Sub-Saharan Africa.  He always underplayed, and most likely under-estimated, the giant influence he had on so many sons and daughters as a spiritual father. 

You need to know that he is something of an urban legend at Southlands, the church I pastor here in Southern California. Over the years we have hosted many conferences where people visit and minister from different nations. During one such conference, Elliot and Dolly were part of the ministry team and were hosted by a family in the area. The strange thing was that this particular family were not actually in the church. Their son had just got radically saved and so he asked his Mom and Dad to host a couple visiting from South Africa. This salt-of-the earth family had always been hospitable, but they had no idea what was about to hit them as Elliot and Dolly arrived on their doorstep. The Sonjica's faith and love made such a dramatic impact on them that by the end of that week the salvation dominoes had begun to topple in remarkable ways. Within weeks of their visit, the Mom and Dad, brother and sister were all saved and added to the church. They still see Elliot and Dolly like a spiritual father and mother to this day. Nobody else I know has made such a deep and lasting impact on our church in such a short space time. And not from behind a pulpit, mind you, just from around a dining room table. 

The Boy who Believed. Elliot Bafana Sonica. Bafana in Zulu, means boys, but not in a disrespectful way.  In essence, it means, one of the boys! It is the name used for South Africa's national soccer team. I'm still not sure whether this was Elliot's actual middle name or just a nick name. Whatever the case, it stuck, because it was true. He was one of the boys, a man with a noble bearing who had such a common touch. Who could forget the way he wore his jaunty tweed flat cap with such style?  But bafana also speaks to me of Elliot's simple, child-like faith. At the end of the day this gentle giant was simply a son of the Father who believed in Jesus with all his heart. I remember a message he once preached at a conference in Bloemfontein on faith and obedience almost twenty years ago. It was so simple, yet unforgettable, because it was spoken from a life of integrity. He believed God and obeyed and was therefore believable. 

Amidst so much ugliness on social media, there is the beauty of having a record of your interactions with the people you love and may lose. I went straight to my interactions with Elliot after hearing of his death. The last one was brief, yet affectionate. It was a message saying he hoped to visit us in the USA. It was a visit that sadly never came to pass. He ended with  the simple words, 'I love and miss you,' and I believed him.  Even his Facebook profile says, "A man with few words and I love my God and my family." The thing about about the man, was that his life, his faith and his few words were just so believable. Perhaps this was Elliot's most precious gift to us. Perhaps this is what God would most want multiplied through his life into ours, in our current faith famine of integrity.

So, Bafana, we salute you as you receive your crown from your King! 

Ndabezitha isiZulu! 

Hamba kahle, umfowethu!

California Calling: Reclaiming a Theology of Place for the Golden State

I'm told that U-Haul in California can't keep up with the demand from people hiring their trucks and trailers to pack up and leave for greener pastures. That trend hasn't been helped by two recent and very public departures of two very influential Californian residents; Elon Musk and Joe Rogan. Musk, the South African born  CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, is one of the wealthiest men in the world. He's also one of the most vocal and was never going to leave quietly. In a series of tweets in May 2020, Musk  threatened to move the company's headquarters to Texas or Nevada, where shelter-in-place rules were less restrictive. "Frankly, this is the final straw. Tesla will now move its HQ and future programs to Texas/Nevada immediately," Musk tweeted. A few months later he sold two of his homes in Silicon Valley and announced he was moving to Texas and building a new plant in Austin.

 Popular podcaster Joe Rogan of “The Joe Rogan Experience” cited overpopulation, traffic, and “the need for freedom” as the reasons he has been persuaded to move from his current home of Los Angeles to Texas.“I just want to go somewhere in the center of the country, somewhere it’s easier to travel to both places, and somewhere where you have a little bit more freedom,” he explained on his podcast.   

Officially, California added 21,200 people from July  2019, to July 2020, increasing the state’s population a paltry 0.05% to 39.78 million people — still by far the most of any state. But the bigger news is that 135,600 more people left the state than moved here in that period. It’s only the 12th time since 1900 the state has had a net migration loss, and the third largest ever recorded. * 

That's peculiar when you consider the many positive things California has going for it. Historically, people have flocked to the Golden State for its prosperity, its beauty, its creativity, its diversity and its weather. 

So, what are the primary factors people are giving for leaving the Golden State? I'm no expert, but I would suggest at least 5 Big factors.  

• Cost of Living - the high price of housing and taxation is driving people to cheaper States
• Progressive Politics - California has been a Blue State for years and that doesn't look like changing soon,  which makes Conservatives especially, feel controlled, labelled and claustrophobic. 
• Erosion of Morality  - Many people have a fear that raising kids in a culture that has lost its moral compass is not worth all the beauty and opportunity that California has on offer.
• De-Urbanization - Covid has swiftly reversed the pull that the urban centers of Los Angeles and San Francisco have had as major companies have allowed their employees to work remotely. Why live in expensive cities when you can earn the same and live in a small town in another State?
• Zeitgeist - This one is harder to put your finger on because there's no stat you can point to. But it's in the air. It's where the mind tends to go and where the conversation tends to flow. It's a pervading mood. Basically, it's become fashionable to hate on the Golden State.  

I've written about this extensively before, but Californians by nature, tend to be less rooted and more transient than other people from other places. John Steinbeck, the California native, called it 'an incurable  virus of restlessness. The urge to be some place else.'  The five factors above have simply made our latent virus of restlessness more contagious and it seems like we are at some kind of tipping point. 

It's against this bleak backdrop that we find ourselves fasting through the Book of Joshua as a Church this week. There is a promise from God to his people before they cross the Jordan river into Canaan that, "Every place you set your foot I have given to you. Only, be Strong and Courageous." Of course, there are giants in this land flowing with milk and honey. They have already caused the ten spies' hearts to melt with fear. But God calls Joshua, Caleb, and the people to walk in a different spirit of faith and courage. 

There are significant parallels between Canaan and California. A land flowing with milk and honey and with many giants. There is a great need for the Church in California to recover a theology of place if we are to continue to make disciples of Jesus faithfully in the face of increasing hostility to the gospel. Our call is not to conquest, but to cultivation of gospel fruit in this revival-rich soil, even as the giants loom large. 

 Perhaps our State has lost some of its California Dreaming allure? What is needed then is for the people of God to recover a sense of California Calling. Jesus is still deadly serious about His people fulfilling His Great Commission in this place of promise.  

I see California Calling working itself out in a few different ways. 

• It should involve people calling on the Lord in prayer to awaken and revive California again
• It should  involve Californians consecrating themselves to God's calling on them to make disciples and to 'seek the peace and prosperity of the place where He has carried us into exile.' 
•  It could involve calling people from other States and nations into the mission field of California. 

California Calling should be an ethic that operates in an opposite spirit to California pessimism.  

Why not amplify the beauty, diversity, prosperity and opportunity that is on offer in the Golden State while being discerning about the reality of spiritual and moral giants in the land? Why not change the narrative by speaking well of the place God has called us?

California Calling ultimately amplifies Jesus as the Golden hope of this Golden State.

There is no God forsaken place on the planet unless God’s people have forsaken it.

Who's with me?

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/12/16/californias-growth-rate-at-record-low-as-more-people-leave.htmly

Turning the Tide on Wednesdays: Revival in a Time of Upheaval

Someone should write a book called "The Four Wednesdays." 

That's what my wise friend, Jonathan Shrader said today. Jonathan is a church planter, but in his past life he was a press secretary on Capitol Hill during the Bush administration. That gave his words a lot more weight. What he was referring to, of course, was the massive upheaval caused by four consecutive Wednesdays in January 2021. 

It began with insurrection on Capitol Hill on the first Wednesday, the impeachment of President Trump on the second, the inauguration of President Biden on the third and the Game Stop Stock Market Surge on the last. These four seismic Wednesdays sent shockwaves through America's political, economic and cultural landscape.  

I am not writing to make commentary on these four Wednesdays or to catastrophize these events.  There has already been enough of that. What I want to do though, is call out the sense of upheaval that they have brought to our already uneasy times.

They have caused a rising tide of fear among us. The sense of faith that God is at work seems to have drained from God's people. Many people are in survival mode just longing for some respite from the relentless wave after wave of bad news. Most pastors I talk to are also in survival mode. They are doing everything in their power to gather the scattered, comfort the grieving and piece together some semblance of unity in congregations that have been shredded by the ripe tide of Covid dissension and political tribalism. Churches are generally hanging on by the skin of their teeth and they expect that 1 in 4 will close in the USA because of these tides. 

So why call our church to study and pray through a 10-week Primer on Revival then when so many are fighting for survival? Isn't that insensitive? Isn't it expecting a bit much? 

I think it all depends on how you think about revival, really. Most Christians have been taught to think of revival as a kind of crescendo of spiritual fervor, in which the strength of the Church and the favor of the culture blend in perfect conditions to create the perfect wave. Yet, if we study the history of revivals we find that they generally occurred when the tide of God's presence was at at its lowest ebb and the tide of culture threatened to engulf the church. Think about it. The very word revival infers that something is about to die and needs to be resuscitated back to life.

Historically, revival starts when a remnant, finding their lives at this low ebb, begins to experience renewal as they cried out to God in desperate faith. This renewal then grows to become a contagious awakening to the presence of God. At some point, by God's mercy, the tide begins to turn and swells to become a tidal wave of God's presence that crashes into a world in upheaval bringing hope and healing.

In that sense, there's never been a better time than now to pray for revival.  

We have been gathering weekly around the Rend the Heavens revival primer in 24 groups humbly asking God to revive us and turn the tide through us. Our group meets in our back yard on Wednesdays. It wasn't planned that way, but it has been so encouraging to sense a rising tide of God's presence despite the waves of upheaval taking place every Wednesday in our world.

 

This primer is aimed to help small groups of people to pray for revival with both faith and wisdom. It explores ten examples of revival in the Bible and connects them with similar contemporary examples in history which will stir people to pray, "Do it again, in our day, Lord!" It is designed with practical prayer prompts and questions for group discussion. We encourage you to gather in any one of the 24 groups on different nights of the week, or perhaps to begin a revival primer group in your church.

We cannot manufacture revival. It is a sovereign act of God. But we can prepare the conditions of our hearts to be ready as the tide begins to turn. We believe that this primer will be a catalyst for a tidal wave of God's presence and healing to flow through the Church and into a world of upheaval.

Rend the Heavens: a primer for revival prayer is available now on Amazon.