Our job as the church

So I gave my Bible away. My Bible. The one I brought from home. The one that I have written notes in the margins when I get revelations from God. The one that is in English. It crossed my mind a couple times that I am in a Swahili speaking nation and it may be a little difficult to find another Bible in English…but the good news is Ryan has an extra I can use until I find one. The other day we were doing door to door evangelism and we stopped to visit a couple of people standing outside a shop. They were all talking in Swahili so after introductions, Ryan and I were mostly just observing. Apparently, one of the ladies named Nancy said something really funny…so the Bishop translated for us. He told us she hadn’t been to church in a couple months because the last time she was there, someone stole her Bible. (Not really sure why that is funny but they were all laughing). She said she didn’t want to be a part of something like that, and she didn’t want to go to church as long as she didn’t have a Bible. I knew how to solve one of her problems.  My immediate reaction was, “Can you read English?” I cleaned all my bookmarks and pictures out of my Bible and gave it to her. I didn’t know how to solve the second one and explain to her that all churches/Christians aren’t like that.

 

Later on, we were asked to visit a house to pray. We met a guy named Patrick who kept referring to himself as unbiblical. BUT he believed that Jesus was the son of God and that the Bible was TRUTH. I didn’t really understand where unbiblical came from…and neither did anyone else there. As he shared his story, it turned out that he had a few bad experiences at churches and with Christians so he was having a hard time being a part of a church. Clearly that means unbiblical. Ryan shared his testimony and then we let the Bishop take over. He explained what he needed to be looking for in a church and reminded him of the difference in Jesus and humans. He told him that we need to be looking for Jesus for perfection; people will always fall short of that. He received everything we said with a smile and accepted a prayer from us at the end.

Both of these experiences got me thinking. Clearly, as Christians we are held to a higher standard…which is a good and a bad thing. Good because God does call us to be set apart. We need to be held accountable. The bad part about it is that just as the Bishop said, we need to be looking to Jesus for perfection, not to people. As humans, we are going to let people down. We’re not going to get it right every time. But what are we doing to show that we are striving to be like Jesus? The church as a whole is not doing its job. We are supposed to be about forgiveness. We are supposed to be about love. We are supposed to be about redemption. We are supposed to be a safe place for people to go. We are supposed to be accepting of ALL people. No one should ever feel unwelcomed. I just finished reading Redeeming Love. The main character Angel refuses to go to church because a priest turned her mother away because of her sins. It takes several different Christians showing her ‘redeeming love’ for her to accept God’s redeeming love. In John 8, Pharisees and teachers of the law brought a woman who was guilty of adultery to Jesus and wanted to have her stoned. Jesus said, “If any of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her.” Whose example are we following? In another blog, I talked about actions speaking louder than words. What message are we sending out by the way we treat people that we encounter. I don’t know what is going to happen with Nancy or Patrick.  I hope that having a Bible, and meeting the pastors will open a door for Nancy to find a community of believers to fellowship with. I hope that Patrick felt encouraged by meeting us along with some Pastors in his community who were with us and will get plugged in somewhere. The problem with what I’m doing is that I usually am encountering these people once. I probably won’t see Nancy or Patrick again. I have to do what I can in the moment, and leave the rest up to God. The good news is that it’s definitely increasing my faith. Being at home, in a stable environment…it should look different. Follow up with people is a possibility. I hope that these lessons that I am learning on the race will play out in my life when I get home. Say a prayer today for Nancy and for Patrick!

Beautiful sunset on our drive home…Just wanted to share it with you.