This Is The Church

I got to spend the past month living with most of my squad, Gap 23, along with two different groups from YWAM bases in Kona and Maui, and the unity that was experienced was a beautiful depiction of what the Church is supposed to look like. 

When my squad first heard that we would be living on a YWAM base with other groups, I don’t think anybody was exactly thrilled. We were fearful of feeling unwelcome on base, scared of being judged, and nervous that there would be a lack of authenticity and vulnerability because of the amount of people that were going to be living on one tiny base together. But what we experienced was the exact opposite of the fears that we had. A beautiful blessing that I don’t feel deserving of, because I simply am not. 

As soon as we arrived on base, we were met with open arms and so much love. I was overwhelmed by how welcomed and at home I felt. It was the same feeling that I had when I met my squad, and the same one I had when I lived with 11n11. It’s the feeling that we are actually called and commanded to bring and experience, because it’s the feeling of the church. 

Do you want to know what the most beautiful part of living together was? It was the fact that we were all from different groups. Groups that could have easily created division. And not only did we have 3 different groups, but within those groups every single person had different religious backgrounds. These are things that oftentimes are responsible for the breeding of division, but when you’re surrounded by people who are desperately seeking the Fathers face, nothing else matters. Worship becomes a place where every person experiences deep intimacy with the Lord, which in return creates deep intimacy with each other. 

Both of the YWAM teams left this past week and sending them off was so humbling. We washed their feet and prayed over each other and worshipped our savior together, and I think we brought a little bit of heaven down. Today is the first day without both Kona and Maui, so I’m in a bit of a reflective state. I was thinking about all of the things that I just wrote and realized that the race was the first time that I’ve ever seen a church like this one. A body that instead of looking to each other and pointing fingers at who is more wrong than the other, we look at each other and point each other directly to the cross. 

That is what the church is. That is what we were designed to be and that is the body that I will continue to be a part of for the rest of my days, and I encourage you to do the same! 

1 Corinthians 12:12-1 For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit.