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Thursday, August 11, 2005
On my first mission trip to Holland, we found ourselves spending so much time doing the work of the mission that we soon realized the team needed some time together as a team. All day every day, they were out individually talking to people about Christ or building relationships or whatever that we didn't see each other.
So, the mandatory dinner hour became a highlight of our day.
The entire team would close up the house we were using to visitors, and we'd spend two hours together. The first hour we'd eat and download our experiences to each other. The next hour we'd check the responses to our web site and read the e-mails from home out loud to together.
There were times of laughter. Tears were shed...usually by the moms on the trip with us getting mail from their children. We'd pray. We'd sing. We'd goof around. There were 14 of us.
Well, since we'd told our friends that we'd be through with dinner by 7:30PM and there were two hours of daylight after that, many of the people we met would congregate on our porch and wait for us to finish our dinner hour.
One time one of them asked me, "What do you do in there?"
I told him.
He said, "I heard you singing. Why would you do that together?"
I told him.
He said, "Sometimes you were laughing so hard. It seems like you all have so much fun together and like each other. Are all of you relatives?"
The peculiar thing is that I told him we kind of were...it actually was a good chance to talk about the reality that even though we were all so different that Christ makes us all family. It was pretty cool that he noticed our unity and asked about it.
But it should've been expected in some ways. Read Philippians 2: 1--4.
"Since therefore there is encouragement in Christ, since there is consolation in love, since there is fellowship of the Spirit, since there is affection and compassion, make my joy complete by being of the same mind, maintaining the same love, united in spirit, intent on one purpose. Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind let each of you regard one another as more important than himself; do not merely look out for your own personal interests but also the interests of others."
I've found, for reasons I'll bring up on Saturday, that there is a link to our reverent worship and our attitudes.
That's right. I said "our attitudes."
See, as I see it, showing unity is a choice. It's a choice we can make (see verse 3) because there is encouragement in Christ. Because there is love. Because there is fellowship. Because there's affection. Because there is compassion. We can be intent on one purpose: The glory of God.
In everything we do.
Imagine how different everything we do would be if we all chose to consider others more important than ourselves. Our parents. Our teachers. Our friends. Our pastors. Our bosses. Our children.
Imagine what others would see.
I'd think it'd be the reality of Christ. His glory.
And that's what it's all about anyways.
Brent 6:53 AM
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