Church as Family

As we travel around the world, we been blessed to be welcomed into community by churches. And usually I am surprised by the stark contrast these bodies of believers have to the church I grew up with. 

 

In Mexico, the church was small and loud. Everyone singing at the top of their lungs to music blasting from the speakers.The pastor’s extended family lived behind the church, on church property. Many days were filled with women gathering on the porch, bringing various parts of tamales and working together, all day until the large undertaking of 200 tamales was completed. When there was a building to be cleaned out, everyone showed up with their broom (which doubled as a mop) and a hose, ready flood the building and scrub the floors clean.

In Guatemala, Iglesia Del Camino is a larger, bilingual church. Except for the translation into Spanish and people singing in two languages it felt more like “western church”. But it had the constant flow of people coming in and out of Antigua to learn Spanish, or to be missionaries, or just come on vacation. For these people, it became a second home, with easy to build relationships, and many ways to be involved with people who speak their language. Its weekly activites were complete with Bible study for men and women and a pot luck dinner once a week!

 

In Cambodia, people came to New Life in Christ Church every day to learn English, and to bring their children to school. It is a constant presence in the lives of people in the community. The congregation grows from that base of students, who hear about Jesus in class, and want to know more. Several teachers at the school, and the pastor and his family, live on the church’s campus and are actively involved in every aspect of the church.

 

Here in Thailand, I have become more acutely aware of this phenomenon. Church as Family. I’d seen it before on the World Race and knew it was a possibility, and that many lived this way. But since arriving in Sankhalaburi it has been an echoing theme in the church’s influence on this small community of Burmese Refugees.

 

From the moment we arrived, Pastor Bode explained to us that “we live as family here” as we entered the two home, multi-family flat that would become our residence for the next two weeks.  And he wasn’t kidding.

 

At any time, there are half a dozen people in this home, whom I do not recognize or have never seen before. Usually they are watching TV or eating in the kitchen, conversing with the family. Not until today did we know for sure who exactly was related to the Pastor and who wasn’t.

 

Church services are quite unlike anything that would happen in America. The sermon is being given while a pantless four-year-old boy runs around in front of the congregation. Babies are being passed back and forth between the women. Children are talking and playing down front on the floor.

 

It is a casual atmosphere that invokes a feeling of acceptance and ease. You know you have entered a place of familiarity and understanding.

 

Tonight we gathered together to share scripture, encouragement and how God is working in the lives of the church members. After, we shared in a snack of chips and fanta. It was a beautiful, intimate act of the church being what God created it to be.

 

 

In William Young’s controversial book, The Shack “Jesus” says that church is “All about relationships and simply sharing life…being open and available to others around us” (pg 178).

 

Hebrews 10:23-24 referrs to the church as a place to “stimulate one another to love and good deeds, not forsaking our own assembling together, as is the habit of some, but
encouraging one another; and all the more as you see the day drawing
near.”

 

On the world race, the preconceived idea of church gets tricky because there isn’t a “church” in which to hear english sermons and participate in Sunday School. So church has to change. Church is living together. A good conversation over a good cup of coffee. Accepting hospitality from  a Mexican family. Or a Thai family. Or looking someone in the eye and telling them “You are a Beloved Child of the Most High God.”

God is using this year to smash all my ideas about what He looks like, who He is, and who He’s created us to be. We can not be the church He is so madly in love with until we begin to catch a glimpse of how great that love is….

 

…and isn’t it GREAT?!?