Sundays in Ukraine have involved two church services with a stop at a pizza restaurant in between the services. A nice welcome after months in Asia and Africa.
This past Sunday we went to a different service in the afternoon. It was held in a ballet studio, which made Emily’s eyes light up (she’s the former ballerina on our team). At this point in the day, I was tired. We had spent the previous day traveling 6 hours in the car and playing softball. It was awesome, but tiring. And now after lunch and a cup of coffee, heading to another church service was not on the top of my list.
But I sat there, in the front row, hoping Jordan would keep me awake somehow. Turns out he wouldn’t need to. The normal pastor did not preach, which meant that the service would not be in Ukrainian. Instead a missionary named Mark stood up to preach. He was from France, had been a missionary to America and also done trips all around the world. So he talked in English and our contact Bruce translated for the congregation into Russian.
Before Mark talked, several of my teammates gave testimonies from this year. They shared different stories about people we’ve met, things we’ve done and our team living in community. So Mark followed these stories and as he stood up to preach he told us that we were being the church. This living in community, choosing to love each other and people across the world, that was the church.
I wanted to scream out, “NO! You have no idea who we are, the mistakes we’ve made, the annoying habits all of us have. You have no idea how many times we’ve screwed it up this year, how we’ve wasted opportunities, how I’ve failed in being Jesus to so many people.” I wanted to list our faults so that we wouldn’t be put on a pedestal. We’re not perfect, don’t set me up as an example, please.
That was my immediate reaction.
But as I sat there longer, listened more to what Mark had to say and thought about the stories we told and the many we didn’t have time to tell, I realized that he was right.
Here’s the thing. We haven’t been perfect this year, but we have been the church. We have been Jesus to more people than I will probably ever know. We have lived in intentional community. We have loved in more ways than I could count. And the amazing thing is, we’ve done it when we’re tired, when we’re exhausted, when all we want is good food and sleep. We have stepped out of our comfort zones and been the church.
I’ve seen it firsthand. It’s incredible and hard and crazy, but living like this is what life is all about. Mark talked over and over about what a privilege it is to live like this, to be the church no matter where you are, to live in community and love everyone intentionally. The challenge to us is to continue this as we go home. And the challenge to all of you at home is to live like this.
