I am on the mailing list of Simon Guillebaud, who works with Great Lakes Outreach in Burundi, Africa.

Here is a YouTube video and written extract from the email I received yesterday:

Do check out this incredible (very short – 4mins) film called Total Surrender, which I’m sure you’ll find really challenging.

It makes me ask afresh whether I’m actually following Jesus or rather expecting him to follow me. Back in the nineteenth century, the Archbishop of Sierra Leone had a life expectancy of 18 months – disease was such that most people died a few months after arrival. Those were the days when missionaries would leave British shores with their belongings packed in their coffins.

Who would do that nowadays…?

Because in our generation, as a friend put it, “We’re more concerned with happiness than holiness, with security than souls. We seek to be served rather than to serve. We want a church that makes us feel good rather than one which challenges us. So often we opt for a religion that costs us little. ‘Sacrifice’ is not a word that is often on our lips… We stress our rights, not our responsibilities; our freedom in Christ rather than our debt to Christ; our security rather than our sacrifice.”

Well watch it, please, and then resolve to embrace total surrender yourselves. God help us!

Makes you think, eh?

Find out more about Great Lakes Outreach here.

The video is taken from their ‘More Than Conquerors’ DVD. To order it, visit www.more-than-conquerors.com