9/5/2013 9:52:00 AM — Our congregation hasn't done "church as usual" for a very long time. More like church unusual. So nobody thought anything was amiss two Sundays ago when at the end of our praise and worship time, our brilliant worship leader, Lisa Brunson, asked the people to be seated to hear one more song.

We're used to passionate music from Lisa and her team, and that's certainly what we got. We also got something nobody could have expected. I've heard so many worship songs with no lyrical depth beyond the expression of love for God - a necessary sentiment, but one that could be easily co-opted by the world. This was different. This was the Gospel set to music. And the congregation rose almost as one in appreciation for the song Lisa wrote with my daughter, Ashton, and my spiritual son Clint Brown a few weeks ago.

The song, and the response to it, had special meaning for me. In the process of writing my new book, "The Cross: One Man... One Tree... One Friday," I've come to feel an enormous burden to bring the clear and uncompromising message of Calvary back to the Church. It's not enough that our popular culture has both marginalized and trivialized the most important symbol of our faith. Too many of our churches have omitted the cross from their interior and exterior architecture. More importantly, they've excised the cross from their teaching. I listen to my share of sermons, and far too many of them for my taste seem to be little more than motivational homilies with a Scripture here and a Scripture there to cover them, like a piece of cheap pressboard office furniture.

We have, as I note in the book, become a cross-less generation: I wasn't the only one who was powerfully moved by the simple, powerful words of the praise team's song that morning. All around me, long-time members of our church - some of the finest servant leaders I've worked with in more than 35 years of ministry - began fishing in their pockets for handkerchiefs to dab at their eyes. Some briefly became unable to sing along, overcome by the song's simple but powerful message. Could it be that my own congregation was becoming Ground Zero in the effort to bring the cross back to the Church, prompted by what I believe will become an anthem for the movement to return to the preaching of the cross? The song concluded and Lisa introduced me to the platform. As I looked around the tabernacle, I could see the truth the praise team had communicated had broken many in the congregation. I knew it would be a distraction to the work of the Holy Ghost even to offer a welcome to the people in the tabernacle and to our online congregation. So I continued the theme and asked all who would receive Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior that day to come forward to the altar. And come they did - dozens of them, from every age group and every walk of life. Someone in our brand-new congregation in Elkhart, Indiana (which didn't even formally launch until the following week), sent word that 11 people who were watching the service live via the Internet there were saved as well.

You and I know people in our spheres of influence who act like they have it all together, and others who are more honest about their brokenness. What they have in common is that the sacrifice our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, made for them at Calvary can transform them into someone who didn't exist before - new creatures who can't be broken by poverty, sickness, relationship problems or any other attack of the adversary.

Jesus promised us as much: "And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself" (John 12:32, ESV). As I began to share the message of my book "The Cross" with the Church, it was humbling and inspiring to see the truth of that Scripture proven before my eyes.

The message of the cross is unspeakably powerful. I saw it for myself two Sundays ago. Sometimes we just need to get out of the way and let it be heard.