“We want to tell you about someone who is very special to us,” my friend and pastor, Mary, said to a crowd of people – many of them new immigrants – who were gathered in a field.

“I think it’s about Terry Fox!” One little boy said to another.

We had just finished holding a mini Olympics in the field, so I suppose that would be a natural conclusion. But the person in question was not Terry Fox. It was someone much more important and special than that. It was Jesus.

The crowd listened as a couple of people shared their testimonies. Afterwards, everyone gathered around tables that had been set up at the edge of the field. There were Bibles in a variety of languages and a sign-up list to join a small group and learn more. Twenty-six people signed up.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned from that day, it’s that I need to be shaken up. As we were working to put together the event, I wasn’t thinking as much about people’s eternal destinies as I was focusing on attending to the details. Sure, I desperately wanted lives to be touched. And yes the details were important. But this was so much more than just an event!

I need to be shaken up. I’ve been praying for the people who came. but have I really been praying for them? Last night, as we interceded for those twenty-six people at a mid-week prayer meeting, I was more focused on disentangling my daughter’s fingers from my necklace than I was on prayer. But then I caught myself. And suddenly I began fighting tears as I cried out, “These are people that need to know You! Shake us up, Lord, so that we grieve for the unsaved like You grieve for them!”

These are real people. They have real souls. Do we care?

Do we give of our finances because we think God will bless us financially in return (How many times have we quoted the “pressed down, shaken together and running over” verse?) … or do we give because we want to see lives changed for Jesus?

Do we give of our time because we want to look good … or because there are people who are dying and going to hell and if we don’t tell them about Jesus, who will?

Have we become so focused on being trendy and “relatable” that we’ve lost the power of the gospel?

What happened to the Cross? Has it become a mere symbol? Has Christianity become more about what God can do for us than what we can do for Him?

I’m not making accusations here. I’m asking these questions of myself because I desperately need to search my heart.

As I sit here this morning, the tears flow and all I can say is, “Lord, I’m sorry. Because there are people out there who need You and if I’ve become so consumed with myself that I’ve lost sight of that, there’s a problem. Forgive me. Shake me up.”

What happens when God shakes us up? The early church was shaken up. And people were saved. Healed. Delivered. Not just one or two, but thousands upon thousands. Churches were planted and flourished. Nations were touched. Lives were changed.

We need to get before God every day and beg Him to give us His heart. We need a new revelation of the Cross. We need a fresh anointing of the Holy Spirit.

Because it’s not about me. And it’s not about you. It’s about them and, most of all, it’s about Him.

So shake us up, Lord! Shake us up.

For when the Church is shaken up, it in turn will shake the world.