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Monday, June 2, 2008

Ants and the Church

I've thought a lot about church lately. I guess in some ways my thoughts of church have been somewhat pessimistic. I've been discouraged by the actions and words of some pastors. I've felt let down by the church and as I watch different churches try to put themselves above others, I've wondered if we've lost what church is really supposed to be.
I've even felt that a bit as I've been here in Uganda. Here, it's always been easy to work across denominations but, recently, as I've spent time with other missionaries here, I feel a bit of competition creeping in, especially among denominational lines. My feeling is that if we're all here to share the same thing, why shouldn't we all work together. But, many feel that their denomination has the best way. It's been quite frustrating.
I've also noticed a bit of condescending attitudes toward nationals from some of the missionaries, as if just because we are Americans that we know best. The last time I checked, the U.S. had a lot of problems of her own and I think could use the help of missionaries coming from less developed countries. There's a lot of character in the culture here that I think the U.S. could really benefit from. Plus, I don't think that you can come in from the outside and know what is best. I think that the national here have wonderful ideas of what is best for their country and they understand the culture far better than I as a missionary ever will. To me, my role is to come alongside them to help them bring Christ's love to the country.
Anyway, these thoughts were really strong yesterday as I was watching a bunch of ants. At times, it seems you can't escape them here. As soon as there is any bit of sweet food, what seems like thousands of them will appear.
Yesterday, we went to one of the slum areas where we do a Bible study twice a week. One of the kids had a piece of bread and had dropped a rather large crumb. We decided to watch the ants around. Within about thirty minutes, these ants had moved this piece of bread several feet. It was interesting to see how they worked together to get a job done. My question is: why as ants, who can't think and reason as humans, can work together but we in the church can't? Why do we compete to get a job done and take twice as long to do things independently when we could get it done more quickly working together?

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