Next day, still no boxes have been packed because we are off again. Our Pastor 1 has taken us to fellowship with another organization in the area that reaches out to migrant workers. We worship with them and drink coffee and eat biscuits. After prayer and worship we all introduce ourselves. Jason and I share our testimonies with them and then we hear about their mission in the area. They reach out to the migrant workers with the love of God found in Jesus Christ. They make sure they are treated fairly by their employers as well. All the pastors in the room minister to their own people, we have a Cambodian, a Vietnamese, some Nepalis, and some Malaysian Indians.
I ask them if they sense anything big that God has been doing in Malaysia, because ever since arriving I have felt something different about this country– a strange anticipation.
They tell me that God has indeed been working mightily. He has united the churches. They are from different backgrounds, of different races- Malaysian Indian and Malaysian Chinese, and are of different denominations. But Christ unites us. There is blood that is thicker than the DNA that runs through us, and that is the redemptive blood of Jesus Christ. The Malaysian church has been woken up by the LORD GOD.
They don’t let petty differences build up between the believers, which ultimately keep the church from being the Church. They know that to foster the fires for a revolution, a mighty upheaval and revival, they need to be united under Christ- for the glory of God.
So prayer meetings happen with pastors of different denominations, huge Christmas celebrations take place involving several different denominations, they simply love each other. That is the fundamental difference that struck me by being in Malaysia around these pastors. There is a love that marks them that is so starkly different from what I remember in the States. In America there arises dumb disputes between denominations about interpretation of the Word of God. These differences get in the way of the fact and truth that we are all still sons and daughters of the Living God if we but confess and believe that there is One Name under Heaven that salvation is given- JESUS. By Him alone are we brought near to the Father again.
But we Americans get too caught up in differences so much so that we are crippled as the Church and rendered ineffective. Our doctrine has come in the way of our worship. Our doctrine has come in the way of how we love one another in the Body of Christ, not just within the four walls of our churches.
