It’s 2:50am when I stir myself into enough consciousness to ask one of the guys moving around our room what time it is. We’re supposed to be downstairs ready to leave by 3, so I’m glad that for once I actually packed before going to bed three hours ago. My stuffy head demands that I get more sleep, but I’m forced to ignore that voice as I gather my gear and put the clothes on I left out for today. As I put on the one collared shirt I have the reason for setting out these particular clothes hits me and I find myself in another moment I never expected my life to contain – I have to catch a flight to get to a meeting in downtown Hong Kong this afternoon.
….
Me. Mark. Asked to join in with three of my squad mates to meet with one of the chairmen of International Care Ministries in his 19th floor office with a window view of Hong Kong bay. I’ve only made enough money to be above the poverty line for a grand total of one year in my life and I’ve been invited into an office that keeps track of over a billion dollars of US taxes that comes in from US citizens working abroad. I’m really glad I broke down and bought a collared shirt when I was in Cambodia.
It’s funny how God works. Not just putting me in this particular situation, but the long road he takes to inspire thoughts and actions that ultimately change the course of your life and lives of countless people you impact as a result. A month ago, at our Thanksgiving dinner with all the missionaries in the area, I had a conversation that I’m sure I’ve had a dozen times before about short term missions. There are many organizations, missionaries, and individuals out there that have seen the damage a short term team can do when not utilized properly and go on the rest of their lives believing the whole idea is a poorly thought out one when the issue was simply in implementation. On top of that there is the accepted notion that a short term missions trip is about the individual going on it rather than the field to which they’re called, which has been adopted by seemingly everyone. As a result most people don’t really respect short term groups, and there’s a thought that it’s short term vs long term, us vs them, this denomination vs that one, and frankly it’s crap.
Paul’s missions trips were a couple years a piece and he never stayed in one place very long, leaving behind what would become, in my opinion, some of the best bodies of believers the world has ever seen. Missionaries have gone into countries and taken 20 years before the first fruits showed up, but as a result of their perseverance entire nations have changed. Both of these methods glorified God, both were obviously spirit led, and both are therefore parts of the body of Christ. But everywhere I turn I see the eye saying to the hand ‘I have no need of you.’ (1 Cor. 11:12-26) Why? Because the eye doesn’t understand how to use the hand, the hand doesn’t it’s need for the eye, and instead of working as one they are trying to work against one another when in reality they are attached and one with each other. I won’t go any further into my views on this, they could take up an awful lot of space, but that is exactly what the funny part of all this is:
I’m a cynic. I have criticized the church for where it is as a body, what it does, how it looks to the outside world, and how it’s members treat each other. I scoff at the idea of denominations getting over themselves to actually come together because I don’t think they’d ever do it. I have viewed the churches of the world as one giant mess that God never intended it to be that is far too big to do much about except ditch and start over. And all of a sudden (this is the punch line) I find myself becoming passionate about fixing it. Not ditching it because it’s broken or accepting it because it’s too big a problem but digging in and saying “We’re going to fix this. We’re going to come together. We will be the body.”
It will take absolutely every bit of energy, dedication, time, and faith that we have. It will mean being uncomfortable and downright offended and loving our offenders. I will be disappointed. I will lose. I will fail. And I will keep going because, as Jeff Bucknam puts it, our community is our testimony. The body of Christ is our testimony to the world about His love for us, and right now our actions towards each other are telling the world He sucks, and that isn’t right. The church is of the same body, the same house as us because WE are the church, and as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. That means all of it. Not the parts I agree with, not the parts I like, all of it, and it doesn’t mean making others believe and agree with ‘our’ theology or opinion – it means coming together to be real and honest so that we can look after each other and worship as one. Calling each other on the places we’re not doing well out of love and a desire to lift each other up, not this condemning accusation of wrong doing that we fling at each other’s differences. I have whole essays in my head about focus changes that we need to go through in order to start working as one and suddenly have ideas that I don’t even know what to do with, and I don’t do big ideas. Ever. I’m a moment to moment guy, but my brain and heart are on fire to see the church work as one, and that is about the biggest idea I think I’ve ever heard.
As all this relates to long term vs short term, in the midst of this meeting yesterday I found myself spilling out my thoughts on utilizing short term teams, how I’d come to think about all of this during the month, and asking David, the chairman of ICM, what he as a big picture guy thought it would take to develop this into a ministry to take to other organizations and groups as well. I don’t do big picture stuff, ever, but there I was trying to figure out what a big picture view of this was – at the very least, how to implement it within a pre-existing organization so it could then be done in every church, para-church and non-profit organization out there. I don’t know if anything I said will go anywhere, if anything we said had an impact or if we completely put all the wrong feet forward on this whole thing, but I find myself in completely new territory.
In short, I want people to start teaching the body how to work with other parts of the body effectively. I want the body to be so different from the world that it changes….everything.
I want a better world to be possible.
