After my last post from Belgrade, Serbia, Caitlin and I made our way to Croatia to meet two more of her teams. The teams were staying in a youth drop in center with whom they were doing some ministry and setting up other contacts. As I got settled the first 24 hours I found myself in a very different culture from the one I’d just left in Belgrade – I’m not talking about the countries, I’m talking about the world race teams. I’d left a culture of deep talks around the kitchen table to one of dancing around the kitchen table. Literally. It was a great window into what it’s like as a squad leader, jumping from one culture to another within your own squad, finding the different ways each team moves and worships and encouraging it in the way God is taking it, rather than trying to make everyone fit a mold or do what you would do. Something that breaks my heart to see is when the differences between churches drives them apart rather than strengthens them – and it’s something I see worldwide. When faced with something we don’t understand we don’t rush to partner with people to understand it, we cut and run instead. We label it as weird, not for me, not of God, or anything else that means we don’t have to get out of what we’re comfortable with and into something we’re not gonna get right away. What I love though is seeing people embracing the differences God has given us, learning from each other the hundreds of different worship styles that God has enabled us to glorify Him with and enjoy, while being challenged by the complete lack of walls that God has in His personality. It was encouraging watching Caitlin and her co-leaders nurture the teams to be who they are and leave behind what they’re not, joining in on the kitchen discussions or doing handstands in the worship room. It’s this kind of leadership that pulls the body together stronger than its individual parts – one that encourages a hand to be a hand and a mouth to be a mouth and calls the foot to stop trying to be the stomach and for the lips to stop looking sideways at the hand for waving and not smiling. Leadership that calls people forward while celebrating what and who God has made them to be, both as individuals and as larger bodies. As churches.
I was very thankful that God gave me this opportunity to spend time following Caitlin around, getting a window into what squad leading will look like while also getting to know these awesome teams. God has definitely laid it on me to do this at some point in the near future, it’s just a matter of waiting for Him to say when. Or who, I guess, would be more accurate.
