Over the past month and a half I have experienced this in a literal sense, and my breath has been taken away quite a few times. I have seen church in a completely new light, and God has expanded my vision to see it the way I believe He originally intended it to be. There has been a slow progression on our squad from existing as simply a group of people traveling together, to becoming a family, to learning what church actually means. During the past three months we have evolved from being 32 strangers to forming community in order to do ministry across the world to learning what it means to not just “do” church, but “be” the church.
This past month in Vietnam we grew deeper as we learned how to be family. Rather than just random people living together, we began to worship, pray, and hear God’s voice in unison. We learned that prophecy isn’t for some but for all, and that it simply means edifying and encouraging one another. We began speaking truth to one another and speaking life over each other. We saw that when one person suffers all of us suffer, and that when one rises up we all rise.
As I opened my eyes during worship one night I saw each lady across the room praising Jesus with everything she had, while gathered in the middle were all of the men standing in a circle boldly praying and proclaiming truth over one another. I can just imagine our Father smiling and saying, “Now this is my body.”
As two of our six teams are currently together at New Life in Christ here in Cambodia, I got a second glimpse of church just yesterday. I was sitting at the table journaling while across from me were two of the girls excitedly working on our team’s logistics and schedule for the month. A couple minutes later a third girl popped her head my way asking if she could verbally process. To my surprise she was planning out an entire Bible study curriculum that our entire squad could benefit from, as well as for our individual devotional time with the Lord. I got chills when listening to her because I recognized in that moment that not only were we beginning to understand our identity in Him, but out of that functioning in our roles. We are learning what body parts we are, confidently walking those out, and as a result influencing the entire body as one whole.
We’ve identified Jesus’ purpose in church through our coaches and are beginning to experience that… “In order to bring the church to the world, you must first be the church among one other.”
