what does the body of Christ look like? that is a question that has been on my mind lately. in panama our team assigned each of us a part of the body (read bailey’s blog to learn more about that: From Narrow to Global, password: Starfish).
but since that time, i have tried to think of what the body of Christ looks like, what is my role & how can it change based on where you are. throughout this last month, i have experienced many different representations of what the body looks like & so here is my attempt to share them with you now.
the body of Christ is:
– our squad of 36 plus 4 leaders coming together in spain to worship, give each other feedback & call each other higher so that we can fully step into who God called us to be
– our teams coming together with new friends in our hostel to learn how to cook tajin & then celebrate our success with a family dinner
– sitting in a spice & tea shop for two hours to talk with the shop owner about life
– making “music” with two ukuleles & two drums & making a complete racket
– riding camels into the sahara desert with new friends from mexico & spain & then dancing around a fire to a berber drum line because only God’s goodness could have brought us there
– plugging our worship music into the charter bus’s aux cord for a quick worship session as we drove through the mountains
– ignoring the pews in a church service so our ghanaian & nigerian friends could teach us to dance to worship
– being welcomed into a college community where we are able to discuss cultural stereotypes, difficulties in life, & religion, but also boyfriends, new music & fashion
– reaching out to locals to sit down & better learn their culture & language
– sitting with a new friend for hours to help her prepare for her first job interview
– surrounding the pastor in prayer & lifting up blessings in english, swahili, german, french, & arabic
– squeezing 13 people into a two bedroom/one bathroom apartment for the weekend & somehow managing to fit all around the 4 person table for dinner
– laughing & loving each other around the table even though 4 languages were being spoken & not everyone understood each other
i could go on, but in the end i learned that no matter what nationality or religion or language spoken, all of us are a part of the body of Christ. it can be represented by a super spiritual moment in a church or it can be represented by loving the person next to you. and my role? it’s to love the person next to me in a way that they can receive it. i can only succeed & thrive if the rest of the body is succeeding. sometimes that may mean i need to step back & reach out to the part of the body that is struggling. other times i am the one who is struggling & i need to rely on help from my fellow members of the body.
i challenge each of you to pay attention to those around you, to see the body of Christ in action in your daily life & to step into it. what does it look like for all of us to see the moments God has orchestrated around us & rather than letting them pass us by, really dive into how this interaction points to the overall body of Christ?
keep on loving those around you well!
madeleine
