I have been learning more and more that human organizations, ie governments, schools, militaries, and churches are just necessary evils for living in community. The United States has its downfalls: political scandals, moral compromises and greed. However relative to other nations it has a lot of good things going for it: freedom of religion, efficient transport and easy of communication. Let’s just say I appreciate the United States a lot more after living in the 3rd World for 5 months.
The key word in the paragraph above is “relative”. The U.S. is not prefect, and yes some might even say evil, but it works to some level and is necessary even if it is “evil”. The problem with the world is that it is full of humans. And last I checked we are not prefect and therefore mess up, distort and destroy, just about everything we touch. This includes church.
Denominationalism is a big word for a small village and unfortunately was very much alive in the isolated highland community that I spent the last 10 days in. There was a lot disunity and finger pointing between the 10 churches in the village over things like worship practices, baptisms, tithing, and the Holy Spirits role. (Sounds a little like the American church).
So just like government has its strengths and weakness so does the church. And the weakness and strengths change based on the government or church. Some of the weakness I have picked up on in the African church (although I am generalizing) are: legalism, lack of discipleship, focus on numbers, and living with a mask on. The pastor of the church we worked with was very open to hearing our thoughts about how they could improve.
So we taught the Gospel. Most things in the Bible come back to the Gospel -by the way. The focus of any church or ministry
should be about people’s hearts, growth, and relationships between God and Man. So that’s what we preached: forgiveness, grace and “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul and mind. And love your neighbor as yourself.” This was the platform we used to address some of their weakness.
I believe we made a lasting impact in that church and that God is going to bring unity to the village through the Gospel. And I have also learned strengths I can take back to the States like: passionate praise and prayer, expectancy for God to show up, and selflessness.
