Being the Body

If you had the opportunity to be able to have dinner with any person who has ever lived, who would that person be?

For followers of Christ, the obvious choice would be Jesus, right? Well, maybe not, seeing that  we believe that we will be with Jesus soon (how soon remains to be seen!).

If I could talk to anyone right now, I would love to meet Paul.

Paul had a passion for the body of Christ. If he wasn’t busy planting new faith communities, he was travelling to encourage existing faith communities to heed the call to function like the body of Christ should.

When I read the New Testament, I get the idea that distance was never really an issue for Paul. I never read that Paul says: “Sorry guys, I won’t be able to pay you a visit, you’re just too damn far away!”

Paul travelled more than 20 000 kilometres for the sake of the gospel and the body of Christ. No cars, no planes.

We live in pretty exciting times. The world that we live in is so interconnected, it’s scary. The more the scope of the global community broadens, the more we realize that the body of Christ is bigger and more diverse than we could ever have imagined. If Paul had to visit earth for a day, he would probably be speechless. He might even say: “Can you imagine the consequences and possibilities for the functioning of the body of Christ”?

I am convinced that spiritual segregation and denominationalism has a destructive effect on the global church. I don’t believe that a congregation or denomination should refer to themselves as the body of Christ. Sure, they are part of the body, but they can’t constitute abody that doesn’t form a part of the whole body of Christ. When people talk about “my church”, or church leaders refer to “my ministry”, I cringe.

It’s necessary to have a place where you are part of a community; a place where you delve into the Word together, where you break bread and drink wine.

Having said that; I think we isolate ourselves from other believers, faith communities and denominations because we often become too comfortable. We like to hang out with people who think like we do, pray like we do, and worship like we do. The body of Christ is more than a bunch of like-minded people.

South Africa is a pretty diverse country. We have people of all colours, shapes and sizes. Yet, if you enter most churches, you won’t be able to gather that we are so diverse. Even though the faith community that I am part of is no different, it saddens me.

Our country has a very unique history. Because our history is one where segregation had been the status quo, we are still having a hard time to become integrated; so much so that many people will argue that integration is forced down their throats. People don’t like to integrate.

I dream of churches in South Africa who become frontrunners; who show society that it is possible to have great relations with people of different cultures, languages and colours. The body of Christ should always be countercultural, and being countercultural is uncomfortable. In my country, I believe that this is the calling of the church. I’m sorry to say that in many instances, we are failing dismally.

May we never be so caught up in the faith community or denomination that we are part of, that we forget that we are a tiny part of the global church.