By Marshall Brown, Pastor

A couple weeks ago our church staff took a field trip to downtown LA. Our Director of Hope for LA, Dave Kleinknecht, had planned an afternoon and evening for us eating, touring and serving in the heart of downtown.

We began with a walking tour. We started on Broadway and were told of the golden age of the theaters – including when the Oscars were hosted downtown. In the distance, we could see Disney Hall. We walked by City Hall and the adjoining park that ‘occupied Los Angeles’ this past fall. We saw the LAPD headquarters and heard that there are 267 churches in downtown LA.

And then we crossed into “Skid Row,” or as the LA City Council would have it called: “Central City East.” Our entry into Skid Row was abrupt. One moment you are walking along relatively unpopulated downtown streets. The next you are in the midst of a mass of humanity. There are 17,000 people in the Skid Row area – 4,000 who sleep on the streets. The men and women we passed seemed like they were doing nothing. The smell of marijuana was strong. We saw almost no police presence.

One woman – humorously – followed us for about a block trying to identify the perfume that one of the women on our staff was wearing.

At the Union Rescue Mission (URM) we served dinner after hearing the testimony of Jeremiah “Jerry” Johnson.

Jerry was hilarious. As a young man he had fathered two children before losing himself to drugs on the streets. For decades, he was in and out of prison and at one point went 13 years without seeing his children. But he loved his children and wanted them back in his life. And to do so he knew he had to change. Something he had been unable to do before then. He had tried programs and did not particularly relish the idea of trying another one. But he went to URM hoping this time would be different, fearing it wouldn’t.

But it was.

If you have read stories like this before, you know what is coming next. He did not want to stay but he did. He was not particularly excited but he “worked the program” nonetheless. And he got clean. 8 months later, he reconnected to his children.

He did so well in the program that after he finished, URM hired him to a full-time position. A position he still holds. That was a decade ago. Since then, he has not only connected to those children, but he has married and has more children. Everybody loves a redemption story and Jerry has one. And he delights in telling it.

But what stood out to me was how he experienced what Rankin recently called “the transforming moment.” He was at URM doing his thing and he started to attend the worship services. And the penny dropped. He said simply, “I just started to worship.” And his life was changed.

Something about that comment struck me as so right, so biblical. In the midst of our disordered lives what we need above all else is to worship God. More than we need to do acts of service, more than we need right thinking that is based on good teaching – we need to worship. To worship God as the Lord of the universe, the One who creates and redeems, is to acknowledge the order of things.

For various reasons I have been reading and thinking about worship lately. One book that I recently re-read is James Smith’s “Desiring the Kingdom.” The thesis of Smith’s book is that human beings are NOT first and foremost believing or thinking creatures – first and foremost we are desiring creatures. Creatures who are defined not so much by what we think but by what we love.

A corollary of this reality is that the way we change is not so much by changing our thinking (as needful as that is) but by changing what we desire. Which is exactly what happened to Jerry. He experienced “the expulsive power of a new affection” – his former habits and desires were expelled as he fell in love with something, someone greater. Worship changed him.

Now you may wonder: “How do I do that? How do I change what I want? Surely you are not saying that I just need to force myself to worship?” The scope of those questions is beyond this blog post, and it is ultimately a work of God’s Spirit. But I can say that one of the best ways to change is to worship God for who He is and what He has done.

In closing, let me illustrate from my own devotional life this morning. I woke up tired and grumpy – far from “delighting in God.” But went ahead and read my Bible (I am a pastor after all!). Initially there was no effect; I was still grumpy and far from feeling ‘worshipful.’ Part of my Bible reading was Psalm 145. Before rushing off into my day, I decided to linger for just a moment longer and re-read the Psalm. And verse 3 grabbed me: “Great is the Lord and worthy of praise; His greatness no one can fathom.” As I turned that over in my mind, I started thinking just how far past finding out God’s greatness is. My heart began to warm. I realized I could spend the rest of my days searching out God’s wonders and I would never exhaust who He is and what He has done. The more I chewed on that thought, the more I got excited. Without even meaning to do so, I was starting to worship – to declare to my own heart the greatness of God.

The movement may have been small, but it was something. I worshipped. And was changed.