Our world is too small

If you were not on the church attendance roster for last Sundays gathering, you missed a real treat! We played host to three ministers from the US of A; but that was about the only thing they had in common. One was Caucasian from the Mid West, one was CIA (Chinese, Indonesian, American) based in the North East and one was proudly black from the south in Atlanta, Georgia. Forrest, Henry and Roe were a great encouragement to us all and a few were privileged to share lunch with them and hear even more of their stories.

Personally it was a real treat to sit back and enjoy the ministry of others, as we heard our visitors share and the whole church interact very well with them also. The morning was refreshing for me in hearing a message rather than giving one; and encouraging to see many of our own people responding to the various needs and tasks that the visit caused us to respond to. Well done everyone.

Creating a new worship community can be a little all consuming at times and it is easy to lose sight of the bigger picture. Moments such as Sunday remind us that the Christian church is very much a global movement and comes to us in all kinds of shapes, sizes and colours. My first experience of the wider church was in Amsterdam in 1986 when I attended a conference for 8,000 Evangelists hosted by Billy Graham. On the first night of the conference we were asked to pray with and for the person sitting next to us. My neighbor was an Indian man who asked if I would mind if he prayed for me in his own language as he was more comfortable doing this. I assured him that I didn’t mind and he prayed so powerfully that I was blessed amazingly with words that I did not understand and did not seek to have translated. Looking back in life you note special moments in your journey and that time was one of mine.

I remember at the time of the 9/11 attacks in 2001 we called a prayer meeting at our centre for people to just gather and pray. Many were so shocked that they were barely able to verbalise their feelings and some others were getting frustrated that they couldn’t hear the words of some of the prayers across the room. I had to remind people that our hearing and understanding was much less important than people knowing that God heard and understood.

Our visitors reminded me that we are part of a very big family. We were able to talk, laugh and interact with people who were strangers just a few hours earlier. One of my little things is to regularly make the comment that we are in danger of making our world too small. With all of the freedom and openness that we enjoy in this land the family unit is shrinking rather than growing. Just today I was sat with a member of our clan and his youngest just came up next to me and climbed onto my lap as if it was the most natural thing in the world; and you know for a growing number among us it is!! Each Sunday morning – and at other times – I see kids going naturally to other adults whom they know, love and trust and see them as family. Not some theoretical thing; but quite real. This is a powerful thing and goes a long way to expanding the worlds of these small lives long into the future.

I often talk with fondness about my friendships with people outside the life of the church as I value these relationships greatly. However, I want to say that part of my being drawn into the life of the church and ultimately into a conversion experience was the issue of friendship and family, and the Christian family was for me, just about literally life saving.

I think back twenty plus years to my first church family and friendships that are still deep and long lasting. A little further along and I consider our mid north coast family and value greatly these great friends. Nowadays I am just as thrilled to be building deep friendships here in this region that will last eternally! There are some people very close to me that I love very deeply; but the sense of family love that many try to keep tight and controlled, I lost control of years ago. You see when I speak about loving all of the people in my congregation, I actually mean it! God has gifted me in many ways; but one of the most precious is the gift of an ever expanding family. I am forever grateful for that and just want to keep the story going.