The Global Church: Why Christianity Is Bigger Than America

I think sometimes we can get into the mindset of thinking when we talk about the church. That is just the church of America. Hello there, you're listening to The Girl Talk Podcast. My name is Carol. I'm Kelly. I'm Trisha. And we're glad you're here today. I'm going to say something that, hmm, may shock you. Chakas. America is not the church. What in the world do I mean by that? I think sometimes we can get into the mindset of thinking when we talk about the church, that is just the church of America. And that is not at all what God intended for us to refer to as the church. It's a global thing. And so I want to talk about, first of all, why it's dangerous to think only that the church is the United States. I mean, first of all, it's not biblical. Jerusalem to Judea to Samaria to the ends of the earth is where the gospel is supposed to go forward. And that's back 1-8. Right. Yeah. Thank you for that scripture reference because I didn't remember what we were talking about. But we are called to go beyond our own neighborhood. We're called to take the gospel to the ends of the earth. And that means going to places that are not America. That doesn't mean that we stop at the ocean's edge and don't go any further. We take it wherever it's to go. And around the world, I mean, in fact, Christianity wasn't actually started in America. Right. Another shocking thing wasn't started here. Jesus didn't die in New York City. He didn't, but the cross was not raised in Houston, Texas. And so that's where the church started and it came to the United States. And we still have to take it out to the rest of the world. Yeah, absolutely. And I know both of you had been to Israel and I just recently got back from Israel. And having stood in some of those places, it gives you a whole different perspective on why it's so important for us to go into all the world and preach the gospel. That's from the Matthew 28. God didn't say go into all the United States. United States is part of the world, but it says go into all the world and make disciples. And so I think though we get dangerously insular when we talk about things of the church and only think in our mind of the United States. Right. Especially the structure of our worship services, the structure of the church. You know, that we think that the American church model is the best model, is the only model. It's the right model. And if you're doing any other model, then man, you're going to hell. Yeah. It's just not, it's just not true and it's not biblical in any way, shape or form. Yeah. Don't you think that that comes from just the innate part of us that focuses on ourselves? I mean, it's just a self-focus. So we think this experiences the only experience. Yeah, yeah. And I wonder, I don't know this because I'm not from any other part of the world, but I wonder if that's the case in other parts of the world. Well, I think it's part of our nature, our sin nature, which is a focus on ourselves. And it's part of our culture. I think it's both. I think it is part of our sin nature to focus on ourselves, pride, all of those things. And I think it's also, we are sort of the cultural idea of wealth and entitlement that is propagated here, I think, also makes that more profound. And, you know, we send out missionaries. Look how good we are. We're going and doing that. But we don't think about them being missionaries to us. Yeah, oh, absolutely. And let me tell you a story about that. I went, I think it was 2002, 2003. I went with Operation Christmas Child to deliver shoe boxes. And we went to Panama. And there was a lady on our fight. And she kept looking over at us. And then she was lovely lady. And you could tell, I don't think you could tell. I actually overheard her telling someone that she was going home. And I was like, oh, that's interesting. Well, she kept looking at us. We just had, and then in the airport, we had an exchange with her and come to find out. She was from Panama training to be a missionary to the United States of America. And honestly, I mean, I'm ashamed of this. But I was like, whoa, what? There were missionaries coming to the United. I mean, I grew up in GAs. And we always, you know, they put this big world map up on the wall. And you'd see all these places and people dressed in different clothes. And you'd good study all those places. And you'd give money. But it never occurred to me that somebody might send a missionary to the United States. And that was a big wake up call to me. And a point of my journey where I had to like, kind of refocus my world view. You know, I don't remember world view being a term when I was growing up. It may have been, and I just didn't know it. But I think that when we talk about the global Big Sea Church, we are so tempted to think of just, like you said, what's right in front of us. But when we think of the global church, we have to mention the world world view, the word world view. Because that is where it starts, I think. Don't you? Don't you guys think that's where it starts? I mean, it starts in how you view the world through the gospel. Right. Right. Yeah, that's what I mean, world view. Yeah, not a view of the world. But I mean, not a view of other countries. But a view of everything that's happening in the world. Through a Christian perspective. Through a gospel center perspective. That the gospel is for everybody. You know, one of the things that we've all traveled to a bunch of different countries. But when you go to different countries, you see a level of worship. That we just don't, we don't see here, we don't feel and experience here. And I think part of it is this incredible, I went to Rwanda a few years ago. And part of what I saw there was incredible poverty. But incredible understanding of Jesus being the only savior, the only, the only savior. And so the joy of them, joy just bubbled out of them and everything that they did. And so here in America, we have so many little assaviors. We put our faith in money, we put our faith in our retirement. Yes, also our idols, right. And we think that those things are our safety and our security and our everything. When we would be so much better off if we had nothing, if we were real in real poverty so that we could really understand that Jesus really is the savior. And he's the only way. And he's the only source of joy, we can't put faith and we can't receive joy from money. Well, I love what you're saying and it is reminding me of when I went to Ghana, Africa. And that was the poorest group of people I've ever seen. But it was the most joyful group of people that I've ever seen. And the kindest group of people that I've ever seen. And I think the connection is it's worship that's not connected to external things. You kind of put that in an idea. It's like oftentimes we worship, you know, I just be honest because we want something. And that might be relief or it might be an open door. It might be the job that we were hoping for or the relationship. But sometimes I hate to say it, but I just have to be honest that my worship can be tied to wanting something. But the worship I saw in Ghana was tied to wanting nothing. They weren't trying to get more. They were just truly worshiping God for who he is. And the joy that he brings. And that was the difference for me. And let me ask you this. You know, I hadn't planned to ask this question. But as both of you have said that, I wonder if wealth in whatever form that takes. If wealth is a tool that the enemy uses to divide and to make us think, "Oh, you are in this class." And you know, some cultures have a caste system where that does it. But we as believers do that. I mean, you know, they don't live in this nice house as this person. And they don't, you know, drive us nice to car. All those things become dividing lines where we, you know, compare or look down on. And I think, I don't know. It would be interesting to do a study to see if wealth is tied to that. Because I've experienced the same thing in Ghana also in Panama. Just a lot of people who have literally nothing but the dirt under their feet. And it's not even theirs. And they find a way to just overflow with joy. And I think it's totally that getting back to that worldview. It's the perspective of having nothing. And it not being Jesus plus this. It's not Jesus plus success. It's not Jesus plus money. All of that is a distraction from what we're really supposed to put our hope and faith and trust in. And that's Jesus only. And yes, I think the enemy uses wealth as a distraction tool. He uses wealth as an idol for us. and uses wealth to give us that pseudo safety and security experience. And to get back to what you were saying in Minigotrish about our worship, I think oftentimes for us as Americans, we yes worship from a place of needing wanting something. We also worship from a place of wanting to escape something. So for us worship services are a escape from the world. It's an escape from the messages that we're hearing all the time. It's escape from the entrapments of the enemy and we're able to come into a place of worship and just be present. But then we know we step back out into that world. Well, when you live in a place of abject poverty and you, it's not an escape. Like you, you're not trying to, they're not coming to worship from a place of escape. They're coming to worship as a place of complete gratitude for the things that God has done in their life. So anyway, just escape can also be one of those things that entrap us as Americans in the American church. Yes. What I've loved about being in those communities with people that I've never met before on these mission trips, when you hug someone and you realize, hey, we are brothers and we are sisters, we are the same. We are in this family together. It's not us versus them. It's us together. It's not you, we're all part of the family. And that is so profound. And it's very hard to understand that when you don't get out of your circle. Yeah. You know, something else just struck me. I'm just sitting here thinking of all these conversations we've had around these microphones. I remember you telling the story one time of, you go into, I don't remember where you were, but you went to one of the community leaders and said, is suicide a problem here? Oh, yeah. And they said, no. And you said, well, why not? And they said, because we have a tribe leader who would check on that person and make sure they're okay. Do you think that wealth isolates us from each other? Therefore, causing us to like disconnect. Like there's a, there's a disconnect with wealth. Like if you think about here in the United States, rich people, a lot of people don't have access to them. Why? Because they'd ask for something, right? And so they limit their access to people. The more wealthy you get, the less connection. I mean, you know what? I'm just thinking about that. And I'm like, okay, that is, that's huge. Well, what does Jesus say? He says it's harder for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God than a needle? What was it? What is it? Camel to go through a needle? That's hard. So I do 100% think so. Because I think the enemy uses that wealth to tap into that part of us that's so selfish. More, more, more. Yeah, more, more, more. And kind of like what you're talking about, like I don't want to interact with people that are going to ask me for things, because they're going to take away the thing that I have. So that's scarcity mentality too, yeah. And on the flip side of that, I think there are so many people who do have wealth that get to a place in that wealth where they're like, this is not scratching the itch. Like there is something I am searching for that I am not finding in this. Whatever this is that they have, whether it's the amount of money or the job or the family or whatever it is that they're blessed to have. And go, okay, wait, there's something else. There's something I'm missing. I want to start searching for that and find Jesus in that process. And all of our lives is us trying to replace Jesus with something else. That's what I'm learning right now in my life that Lord is definitely I'm going through a season of pruning. And the Lord is taking away those things that just aren't important. And I think that because they have less idols, it's easier for them to get to Jesus, although that's not at all biblical. And I know that, but there's a lot of self-made things that I put in my own way and I put in between me and Jesus. And who we, that's, I didn't expect us to go there with this conversation, but I'm glad we did. And I think there's some truth to it. So let's talk about how we can develop a Christian world view. I also did one plan on going here, but I just have to say this. Be careful that you give all of your attention to one viewpoint, 'cause I think it's important for us to say that. - What do you mean by that? - So I have a person in my life who constantly watches one news channel. - Okay. - And they watch it so much that I hear in conversations with them about things, the same verbiage that I hear from that new source. And I think that we were at a time in our lives where everything's an emergency and everything's breaking news, breaking news, and you're always looking for something. And she has just started to regurgitate what she hears all the time. And I think it is healthy to have a range of places where you can find out what's going on in the world without marinating yourself in that. Because, I mean, for honest, everybody's got a agenda that they're pushing. And I have in the last couple of years kind of plugged into a resource that just reports the facts of what's going on. There's no commentary on it. And it tells you as a believer why you should care about that and gives you some scriptural background for those kinds of things. And that's been so helpful for me. And I found my temperature goes away down as far as getting in political interactions with people. I'm not that I did that a lot anyway, but I think you can just get spun up over things just because of the intake, the daily intake. I mean, is that wrong? No, that's completely correct. Absolutely. But, and here's the other thing I would say, not every conservative view as a Christian world view, 100%. Also, it wasn't planning on going there, but yes. Well, and I'll get back to the first thing you said. How do we create a Christian world view? I think part of it is that we have a tendency to see people in other places around the world as other. Yeah, they're not same. They're other. And so when you get outside of your whatever your small little bubble is, everything outside of your bubble is other. And if we can actually go, if we can go to somebody else's culture, even if it's not around the world. If you can just go to a different culture than the one you grew up in, whether that's, I'm going to go to the Northeast and spend some time with some Yankees and get to know them, or I'm going to go to a Hispanic community and get to know them. Or I'm going to go around the world to some other community. You start to realize that they're same. You know, that we're all image bears of the king and that we are created in his image and we're created differently. And that the tapestry, the puzzle is not complete. If it all looks like me, or if it all acts like me, if it all thinks like me, if I can go and see that they're not other, that they're same, that's the best way. You can really develop that kind of Christian worldview as go meet with and talk to other Christians in other circumstances. Well, I was, yes, I was going to say and one great step towards that serving someone, serving somebody. That is a great way to learn about a culture and to get to know people and see the beauty in this person that's different than you or this culture that's different than yours. So I had the most amazing experiences when I lived in New York because I went to this church called Times Square Church. It's in the middle of Times Square, good name. Not so creative, but very descriptive. But at least you know where to show up. That's where you go. Literally hundreds, hundreds of nationalities represented there on every single service. They had tons of translations. So people could hear it in their own language. And you would go in there and I'm getting the chills remembering the experience. You'd go in there, the music was going and you walk in there and there are in your row, there are 17 different kinds of people there, different walks of life as well, different, all manner of different. But everybody there to worship God, everybody there praising God. I mean like like beautiful praise, dancing and singing. I mean it's that might not be everybody's cup of tea. I loved it. That's what heaven's going to look at. That's what heaven is going to look like. Praise God. People would grab your hand and dance with you a little bit because it was just a celebration of God's goodness and the way he made us different. And that's a good thing. Yeah, such good that in the background my head is singing. He's got the whole world. Because I think it is a beautiful tapestry. And I think as you began to learn about other cultures, you-- understand more about why they do what they do, and some of the, I've tried to make it a point to whenever I go visit somewhere, either before or after I get home, I try to read some books, not about the country necessarily, but some books, typically it's fiction, that kind of paint the picture of what their culture's like. And it helps me to understand some things about where I've just visited or where I'm going to visit. And I think that's so helpful in helping you understand what a normal day is like, although that's fiction, you know, they can paint a picture for you and give you a greater understanding of what life is like somewhere else in the world. And then once you visit a place, I think, I mean, you don't have to visit a place, but I think once you have seen faces, and I'll tell you a practical today example of this, I got back from Israel February the 19th, and then we hadn't been home two weeks, I guess. - That's the two weeks ago. - And the war started. And I will tell you when I saw those bombs flying over Israel, we stayed in Tel Aviv the first night. I saw the faces, I can close my eyes now and see faces of the servers at the restaurants we went to. I can see the shop owners faces. I can see all the children who are playing in the street. I can see the people at the west from where I can see all the people that were there. And I'm gonna tell you, it has changed my prayer for those areas, right? And I think it's important for us to not just talk about a Christian worldview, but to actually embody that and pray for the same people who are in other countries, who are believers, and even those who are not to come to know Christ. Oh, yeah, I saw a statistic on social media today talking about the impact of the war, the conflict with Iran on the growth of Christianity, that there were one million just in the last week or however long, two weeks, whatever, the, there have been over one million Iranian Muslims come to faith in Christ. - Wow. - What? This was a statistic that Clayton King had shared on Facebook, so it comes from a reputable source. Over one million Iranian Muslims have come to faith in Christ and have abandoned mosques because they're finally free to explore and finally free to not be in this place where it is nothing but oppression, they have freedom of thought and because they have freedom of thought, they have freedom to pursue big T truth and they're finding it. Jesus is showing up and is bringing them to himself. That just gives me goosebumps. - That's exciting. - Not that anybody wants war, but no. What a great byproduct of this kind of thing going on in the world is the people who are coming to faith in Christ, yes. - Well, God is at work, I mean, we are seeing this more and more all over the world and oftentimes it's the persecuted areas or the difficult areas that are having the biggest revivals and seeing the biggest amount of harvest, but God is at work now is the time for us to embrace this. Christian worldview be praying actively for our brothers and sisters all over the world, softening our own hearts as well, but this is the time. - And there are a ton of resources online that will give you daily prayer prompts. I know Samaritan's Purse does one, it's your calendar. You pray through the countries and I've done that before and they give you specific ways that you can pray for the people of that country, pray for the people who are in that city wherever they may be, doing work and praying that people will come to faith in Christ and God is answering those prayers. And so we don't like for knowledge. You can Google anything you want to, but you can find prayer calendars, you can find apps that have ways that you can pray for people. You can, a couple of years ago, our church took on praying for unreached people groups. And so every day it would give you an unreached people group what they refer to as UPG unreached people groups. And there's an app where you can pray for an unreached people group, people who haven't heard the gospel as of yet. And for them to be able to hear the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ. There's a ton of ways that you can get involved. But I think listening to this podcast is your wake-up call. If you aren't praying or a missionary or a people group or start, you know, if you are struggling to want to ask God to soften your heart. Yeah, that's so good. Any will. Yeah. You will. You can change your want to. Yeah, and will. Yes, and will change your want to. Absolutely. It's been a great discussion. Thank you guys for your thoughts today. Hey, we'd love to hear what you think. If you've got thoughts for things you'd like to share with us, girl talk at the lightfm.org is our email address. You can also check in on the Facebook pages. And before you go, come in on this episode or on the podcast or wherever you listen to the podcast, like it. Subscribe so you don't miss an episode. When you do all those things, other people find out about the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ through the girl talk podcast. And that is the whole reason that we do this. So if you do that before you leave, we sure would appreciate it. And you know what? We're going to save you a seat next time we gather around these microphones for the next Girl Talk podcast. [MUSIC PLAYING]