Author Note: This blog was written several days ago, and I am just now able to post it.
3/18/16
This month we are working in Livingstone, Zambia for an organization called J-Zone. We’re building a playpark for the kids here. This month has been great so far, because not only are we actually building something (the playpark) but we’re doing it together as an entire squad. That’s right this month is all squad month. That means all 35 of us plus our three squad leaders are living together and doing ministry together. This has been an amazing experience as we get to know one another more in ways that we haven’t because our squad has been spread apart the two previous countries between our six teams. This month though we’ve been able to work beside each other, go to church together, worship amazing music with God at 8 am together and so much more. It has been such a blessing to have our squad together this month.
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But beyond building relationships with one another, and growing in God and doing ministry; this month has already taught me more than I thought it would and in very unexpected ways.
I was walking back to the play park the other day after a long bathroom break and ran across these two young girls and a young man walking from the direction I was headed and I noticed their clothes and more and thought I recognize that outfit, and then I looked at one of the young women’s hats and sure enough there it was the SDA Pathfinder logo. (The Seventh-Day Adventist church has a global youth group called Pathfinders which is kind of like boy scouts and girl scouts combined). When I saw the logo on the girls hat I chuckled and walked up to her and said, “hey I see that you’re a pathfinder…” and the young women looked at me and said, “ya, I am.” From there we talked a little, about how I had been in Pathfinders, virtually since I was 2 (when my parents were leaders) until I was 16 and then I became a leader on and off for a few years. The young woman looked at me and asked what I was doing currently and I said that I was on a mission trip. She smiled and then right before I began to walk off she asked/said in a very serious tone, “I hope you haven’t left the church”
I honestly didn’t know what to say to that, my response was something along the lines of… “uh, well…uh…” and then with an awkward look we kind of all just walked off in our own directions with her and her friends laughing along the way. For the rest of the day, that conversation stuck in my head. Finally, this afternoon (3/18) during lunch I took some time to not only have quiet time with God, but to process the statement “I hope you haven’t left the church.”
Here is what I wrote in my journal this afternoon:
“I didn’t really know what to say, because the truth is that I [did leave] the SDA church. I [left] a long time ago, but no I haven’t really [didn’t leave] the church because I don’t think [that] denominations as a whole are the church but rather we as the sons and daughters, the followers of Christ are the Church. I may have left the denomination of SDA, but not the church itself.
I acknowledge that for many years, I ran from God, that I avoided all things related to him; and in that time if you would have asked me if I had left the Church I would have said yes. But now I look at it and while yes I left the SDA denomination, and I [most of the time I] claim to be non-denominational even though I’m a member of a Baptist church, it would be a lie to say I left the church; so no I haven’t left the Church, as a believer, as a daughter of God, as one of his workers and followers I am still in the body of Christ and therefore I am still in the church.”
So what it comes down to is this, as believers and followers of Christ we are the body of Christ, and thus we are the church. My squad is a church, my youth group is a church, my group of friend’s every time we hang out and talk about God, and share his word with one another is a church. We are the body of Christ and we are the church. So remember that every time you try to compare denominations, that when you leave one denomination to go to another, that as Christians we should be one, that we should be the church regardless what building we worship in or go to every Saturday or Sunday for service each week.
“Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it.” 1 Corinthians 12:27 (NIV)
One of the biggest things I’ve learned on the Race thus far is just how big our church is. Our church, the body of Christ, covers nations. It covers children, teens, adults, and the older generation as well. It covers people who have spent time in jail, who have never been in trouble a day in their lives. It includes people who have traveled the world sharing the gospel, as well as those who choose to stay home living their lives in the same town they were born in. There is no limit to how big the body of Christ is and we shouldn’t try to limit it, by saying that we’re not a unity because of our denominations, by not saying that we’re not one because we live on different continents. Remember we are one, we are the body of Christ, so let’s live like we’re one.
