“By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” – John 13:35
If you’ve been around Adventures in Missions at all or if you’ve ever met a Racer or heard me talk about the World Race, then you’ve probably heard the word “community.” Its a big deal on the Race. As a team of seven or so people, you live together, work together, play together, and grow together. Every day, you are building community for almost an entire year.
Living in community isn’t the end all, but it is an incredible opportunity to love one another in all circumstances. Which is a powerful and life changing thing. Its kind of like living in an extended family, where you choose to be with each other every day. Where you choose to love one another even on the bad days. Where you choose to believe the best about the other people and to open yourself up to feedback from your team. It’s also a place to be vulnerable and to continue loving even when you don’t necessarily want to.
So it’s not just about community, but actually about love, even when it gets tough.
The thing about it is though is that how we love one another is how the world will actually know the Love of Christ. It is a living testimony of God’s enduring love and evidence that he lives in us. It’s a powerful thing.
This fact hasn’t been made more clear to me than during this past week that I spent with Gap F.
Let me tell you the story…
Last week was debrief and we stayed at a sweet little (not really that little) hostel in Montenegro for a few days. The entire squad was there plus the Coaches and squad leaders and Clay, who does logistics for us. That’s 55 Christians all in one place, living and breathing and just doing what feels like normal life for us.
We did all the regular debrief things, like meet with teams, have worship and sessions together, and do some fun stuff. It was a week to rest and relax and rejuvenate for the squad.
BUT the coolest thing was that while we lived our normal life, the Lord touched people’s hearts. As the squad showed up each day and met together, people at the hostel were watching us. As we ate breakfast and cleaned up like normal, they were watching. And as we stayed up late laughing, they were watching.
There were two Israeli girls, a man from Iran, and another from Great Britain who were impacted by Gap F. They engaged in our sessions and sat in as we worshipped. They came to our talent show night and laughed with us. They closed their eyes as we prayed together.
You see it was just normal life to us, but to them it was something different. They had never seen such a lively group. They had never seen so much joy or love. They said they could feel it, that the atmosphere actually changed when we arrived.
That’s how powerful our love is.
Because we are the church, the fullness of Christ, we carry something within us that isn’t easily explained. The love of Christ is seen through our actions and how we treat each other.
Gap F was known by their love last week and it did indeed change things.
