Rise Up, Church is a dramatic reading meant to inspire the Church to live out loud the Kingdom here on earth as it is in Heaven.

Rise Up, Church

Bend down, Church. Bend down low.
Serve the way it matters most.
In prayer for peace, cry out for wisdom,
with silent confidence, provision.
For revived lives of holiness and truth,
anchored firm in the Gospel’s Good News.
Repent for ways we’ve stood complicit in
this mess that is explicitly ours to own.
Ask the Lord in goodness great
to break through enemy strongholds.
Stop not at all the outward places
that need His graces. Look hard. Lean in.
Find the sin that lies therein
then root it out and stand forgiven.

Rise up, Church. Reclaim the place
you were never supposed to leave. Lead.
Be a builder of bridges, a maker of peace.
Champion the lowly, defend the weak.
Get up you lazy bones. Find the high roads.
This new day dawns and it’s time to stand strong.
Stop cowering beneath the shadowed doors
of sacred spaces, and sanctuaried graces.
Get out and be the Bride. Set aside what divides.
Seek justice. Walk humbly.
Watch wide this world with mercy eyes.
Be not stirred by party or politician,
preacher, plan, or premonition-
it has always, ever, only been Jesus.

Be bold, Church. Lend your humbled hearts
and stretch out holied hands to heal.
Shout loud for freedom in His name.
Loose the captives bound by shame,
filled with hatred, sin and fear.
To those unlike you – draw them near.
Speak life for sick and dying souls,
those forgotten – Orphan, Widow,
Prisoner, Immigrant, Refugee,
those who’ve chosen unbelief.
Fight beside the Unborn Child,
the Poor, the Aged, Disgraced, Negated,
Brothers, Sisters loved the same by God
despite the color lines that we’ve created.

Bend down, Church. Then rise. Be bold.
The future of this land we hold.
Through prayer, lead well, and live to heal.
May His kingdom here in us reveal
a different people bound in love,
by Spirit, through Christ, beneath God above.
Spurred to action, the lost to reach –
courageous and strong, yet wise in our speech.
This day is ours, the hour at hand.
God will move throughout our land.
Will we join in what He’s doing?
Living, loving where He’s moving?
Dear God, have mercy. Wake us up.
Rise up, Church. Rise up.

Author’s Note

I wrote this piece as a response to all of the social and political upheaval that we experienced as a country in 2020, and as a plea to individual believers and the Church at large to set aside all of the division and live like Jesus.

But he’s already made it plain how to live, what to do, what God is looking for in men and women. It’s quite simple: Do what is fair and just to your neighbor, be compassionate and loyal in your love, and don’t take yourself too seriously – take God seriously.

Micah 6:8 (MSG)

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