There is something different about the Church here in Albania. For the past two weeks I have been with a team (Fight for Love) doing Unsung Heroes (for those who do not know, Unsung Heroes month is when the racers get to travel to different cities within the ministry country and search for new contacts for racers to connect with in the future). Within the first few days of settling in Albania, we were connected to a person who had a comprehensive list of all the different ministries that existed in our city, Tirana.
How nice it is to have our job laid out for us! All we had to do was meet up with the people on this list and see who wanted a chance to partner with the World Race. We began to set up the meetings.
Person after person we met continued to give us contact names of people we could talk to about our cause. Even if they weren’t able to partner with the World Race, they gave us recommendations. The Christians here know their body well, and are able to point us to the correct connections.
After having a couple of meetings like this, I began to notice the difference between the church here in Albania and a few of the churches I have encountered in my past: some people have churches like football teams. They show up and root for the pastor and his board of elders, but very little look to see the strengths of their church, let alone the strengths of the churches around them, to utilize one another to the best of their abilities.
First Corinthians 12 talks a lot about the body of the church, and how each member of the body is just as important as the next. I think that we forget that every part of the body is as crucial as the next, and every part has a function that cannot be performed as well by any other part.
In addition, the body of the church is not just the congregation you visit every Sunday; it is everywhere. In America. In Asia. In Europe. In Africa. In Antarctica. In Australia. The body is larger than anything you can comprehend; it covers the expanse of the globe.
The ministry in Albania has given me a beautiful view of how the body of Christ works: it is a place where people are constantly seeking to encourage one another, no matter their part in the body of Christ. Coming to Eastern Europe has taught me to view the body of Christ on a larger scale than I ever expected.
“Just as a body, though one, has many parts, but all its many parts form one body, so it is with Christ. For we were all baptized by one Spirit so as to form one body—whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink. Even so the body is not made up of one part but of many . . . Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it.” – 1 Corinthians 12: 12-13, 27
“There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to one hope when you were called; one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.” – Ephesians 4:4-6
