A Christmas Gift

We have been to enough Christmas pageants and seen enough nativity scenes to picture that first Christmas.  We know that the child born that night grew into a man that started a radical movement.  He broke norms and shattered stereotypes.  The new way He chose to live was spunky and truthful enough that others joined Him.  They continued to live in this new way even after Jesus left them.  They weren’t sure what they were doing at times.  They learned from and leaned on each other.  They became what we in English call the church or in Kinyarwanda itorero.  

For some, the idea of the church might make them cringe and perhaps for good reason.  We (the church) have excluded and loved conditionally.  We have let our mission get clouded by politics and petty drama.  Throughout history the church has been as messy and messed up as the people that make it up.  This has caused some to turn away thinking that their faith was better off on their own or perhaps putting aside their faith altogether.

Yet I am thankful for this gift Jesus left behind for us.  And I don’t say this blindly.  I see the problems and the ugliness of my church, churches in America, churches in Rwanda, and probably every other church out there.  But this year I have been welcomed into a new church.  Being an outsider has given me new perspective about what it means to be a church and why it’s important to struggle through and celebrate faith together.  I have seen a little boy bring his siblings to church each Sunday, telling me that after his sister died this was the place he felt happy again.  I have seen this church collect a second offering for a woman who wasn’t a member of the church but who couldn’t pay her children’s school fees.  I have experienced the much needed welcome and invitations to lunch that are needed when one is far from home.

I have also found myself missing my church at home, the congregations of both my hometown and my college campus.  This too has brought perspective.  I enjoy Sundays here in Rwanda.  I love the energy of the African songs and fellowship after church.  In the singing and dancing and clapping I still find the sense of peace that can only be found on the Sabbath.  But worshiping in a foreign language leaves something to be desired.  I miss worshiping with other in songs I know, reflecting on scripture in words I understand, and reciting the liturgy I grew up with.  I feel these gaps that church has usually filled in my faith and I now have to try to fill them in new ways.

Faith, as I am learning more and more, is communal.  God is overpoweringly capable on His end of the relationship.  But our end?  Not so much.  Thankfully Jesus left us with a church, comrades on this journey called faith.  We mess up a lot yet God keeps filling in our gaps and using us to fill up the gaps in others.  And that, my friends, is a pretty sweet Christmas gift.

Myself and a fellow church-goer 

Fun Fact:  The word “itorero” in Kinyarwanda refers to the people that make up the church.  The word for the building that is the church is “urusengero.”  Cool distinction, huh?