The church.
When people hear this term, many different things come to mind.
For some, it means love, family, and acceptance. For others, it means hatred, hypocrisy, judgment, and exclusion. For others still, it has absolutely no meaning.
One night here in the isolated Indian state of Tripura, I saw what the real Church is; and it wasn’t what most people expect. Rather than the lower case “c” church that we usually look at, I witnessed the capital “C” Church that God intends for us to be.
I was sitting on the bed of a woman who had been bedridden and in pain for 10 years, a musty smell hanging in the room, and exhaustion from the long day looming over me. It was in that very spot that God revealed His Church to me.
It was the second home we had been to that night as we walked from house to house, praying for the people inside. I could feel God stirring in me, and I knew that He wanted to do something that night, but I had no clue what. We entered the house and after the usual shaking of hands and saying “Chibai” (that is the primary greeting in the language of this village), we were led to a dimly lit room in the back of the house.
When we walked into the room, a woman lifted a curtain and mosquito net that was covering a bed, only to reveal a frail looking woman who laid there squinting at the lightbulb above her as though it was the sun. It was explained to us that she suffered from diabetes and had been bedridden and consumed by pain for 10 years. We all crowded around her to pray, and she motioned for me to sit next to her on her bed. I obliged and took her small hand in mine, her skin feeling so paper thin that it felt as though it might tear if I so much as moved.
We began to pray over her, and once we finished, we knew God wasn’t done. After some more prayer, we decided to ask the people who were translating our interactions to leave the room so we could focus solely on the woman and the Spirit moving in her.
Once they left, my teammates and I were sharing with one another what the Lord was telling us in that moment, trying to figure out what to do next. One teammate, Abby, had a strange look on her face as we spoke. I asked if she had something to say, and she explained that her stomach hurt and her heart was racing because the Lord was telling her to do something that made her quite uncomfortable: to lay in the bed with the woman. We all encouraged her to do so, and even though she felt incredibly strange doing it, she climbed into bed next to the woman.
After a few moments, I was looking at Abby as she laid next to the woman, holding her hand, and I saw Jesus. My teammate, Lauren, often asks us where Jesus would be and what he would be doing if he was there with us in that moment, and I knew that if Jesus was in that room, he would be exactly where Abby was. I told this to her, and a smile spread across her face as she said that God told her that that is where Jesus was.
It seemed like such a small gesture to lay in bed with this woman, but we later found out that it meant the world to her. She explained that while so many people had gone to pray for her, Abby was the first person to ever lay in bed next to her.
After some more prayer, we began to sing some songs for the woman. After the first song, the woman seemed happy, but we felt as though we should sing more. We sang a second song, and the woman began to clap along. Soon after beginning to clap, she began to cry. We knew that the Spirit was moving in her, so once we finished the second song, we sang a third. Some of us sang, some prayed healing over her, and some prayed in tongues, and the Holy Spirit was so palpable in the room that it was almost overwhelming.
The woman continued crying, and then began to pray out loud, calling out to God and thanking Him repeatedly. We didn’t speak the same language, but I could understand exactly what she was saying when she exclaimed “Quelom, Lalpa!” (this means “Thank you, God”) over and over again. She later informed us that before that moment, she had hardly been able to speak, but something had switched in her and she could speak clearly. It was quite an incredible thing to me that the first thing she did when she regained her ability to speak was to cry out in gratitude to God.
The song finished, and the Lord told me to open my eyes. When I did, my heart sang. I looked around at my team, and what I saw was absolutely beautiful. Some were praying to themselves, some were singing hymns, some were praying healing over the woman, and some were simply comforting her and showing how much we loved her. It was then that God gave me a vision. I saw Jesus standing in the far corner of the room, watching us with a beaming smile and glowing with pride. I heard Him say, “I’m standing back and watching because you are all being me in this moment.”
I closed my eyes again, my heart overflowing with joy and goodness of the Spirit. I simply sat there and listened to what was going on around me, and I heard the Lord say, “This is what it means to be my Church.”
It was in that moment that I was reminded that the Church is not a building that we go to on Sundays, but the individuals that fill it. The Church is a group of Spirit-filled people, living their lives for Christ and striving to be like him in all that they do. The Church isn’t Anglican, Pentecostal, Baptist, or whatever denomination you identify as. The Church is us.
In 1 Corinthians 12:12-13, 27, it says this:
“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 one Spirit to drink… Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is part of it.”
Just as that verse says, we are the body of Christ, and that body forms His Church. We do not need to be in a nice building with fancy lights, video systems, or an award-winning worship band to be the Church.
Being on this trip, I have seen the Church in so many different places. I saw it on the roof of a hotel in Baños, Ecuador when my squad was worshiping there. I saw it in a tiny village in India, in a small, run down building that looked as though it may fall down around me, where I witnessed one of the most Spirit filled, meaningful services I’ve ever been part of. I saw it on the floor of a living room just the other night, when we joyfully danced around and sang praises to God with the women from the church here in Darchawi. I saw it in that small, musty room the night we prayed for that woman.
In all of those moments, the Church was never about the building we were in, but about the same Spirit that filled each person there.
In our walks as Christians, this is something that is often forgotten. We go to church on Sundays, but then every other day of the week, our lives simply resume to fit the ways of the world. We forget that the Spirit we feel inside us as we sit in the pews on Sundays, the Spirit of the God that we are taught about and shout “Amen” to, continues to dwell in us every other day of the week.
It is those other days that we exit the church and spend our lives living as the Church.
That is when we impact those around us and show people who have never experienced the love, hope, and joy of Christ what He is all about. It is when the Lord prompts us to pray over people and heal them. It is when we have the opportunity to share the same Spirit that guides us through our lives with nonbelievers, and invite them into a beautiful, fulfilling life with Christ.
“How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of those who bring good news, who proclaim peace, who bring good tidings, who proclaim salvation…” ~ Isaiah 52:7
It is when we live as the Church and devote our lives to exactly what this verse in Isaiah speaks about that glory is truly brought to God.
Don’t just live your life satisfied with simply attending a church service and telling yourself that that is good enough. Walk by the Spirit, listen to the Lord’s voice, do His Will, and truly be His Church.
