I’ve just returned from London. I’m getting settled back at home. There are dishes to wash, laundry to fold and beds to be made. Life-as-usual is before me. I’m grateful for a return back to the normalcy of the day-to-day rhythm of our regular lives.
Yet, I’ve returned home different in so many ways. It seems to always happen when I travel internationally. I come home in wonder and amazement at the vastness of the Church – that’s a capital “C” mind you. Not my local church or yours but the whole body of Christ with all of it’s fascinating and unique parts.
I’ve attended the same church for the past 35 years. My home church is an incredible body of believers that was started by my parents when I was one year old. I’ve known nothing other than incredible Bible teaching and stirring worship since I was a wee thing. And yet, my travels outside the U.S. always remind me of the narrow-mindedness that those of us who are planted in any local church can unknowingly assume.
There is nothing more startling than singing a worship song with thousands of other people who bring their own cultural notes to certain portions and offer different dialects and accents to the melody. In the melting pot that is Europe this past week, there was nothing as refreshing as seeing women from India, wrapped regally in a Sari, or those from South Africa, Australia and Dubai, all different and beautiful, bring their distinctive customs into one place at one time. It’s a stirring reminder that God’s body is bigger than my one church, on my one block, in my one city. He’s all over the place, working in lots of ways and with a lot of different people!
Traveling abroad opens the eyes and the mind of this narrow-minded American to see that God is indeed everywhere and I had better get on board with what He is doing – not just in my neck of the woods but all over the planet.
Or I’ll miss out on the grandeur and glory of the big ol’ body of Christ in all of her beauty.
Does your church do anything to stay connected to His global body? Fill us in. It could do us all some good to catch a glimpse of our brothers and sisters from around the world.
Have a great day,
Priscilla
