Enjoying Diversity in the Kingdom of God

Please, don't freak out! I'm not coming out in support of homosexual marriage or the ordination of gay priests/pastors! I'm also not going to unleash a diatribe on racial tensions, prejudices, and discrimination that still exist in America and around the world. Instead, I'm praising the Lord for allowing me to be part of an international church fellowship in Bangkok, Thailand where I get to worship and minister alongside brothers and sisters in Christ from as many as 40 different nations on any given Sunday!

Two Sundays ago, we had a newcomers lunch after our last morning service. I counted 25 new faces at the lunch. As we went around the room, I recorded the home countries of each person. When it was all said and done I realized that these 25 people came from 11 different countries! The countries represented were Australia, New Zealand, United States, Peru, Thailand, Indonesia, Philippines, Hong Kong, South Korea, India, and Holland. If you count England, where one of the Thai women spent the last several years, it's 12 different countries!

Last year, at one baptismal service that stands out in my mind, we baptized a Chinese couple from Hong Kong, an American teenage girl, a Brazilian teenage boy, a Thai man, and a family (1 brother and 2 sisters) from Iraq. I regularly stand amazed at how God is bringing together people from so many different cultures, occupations, and socioeconomic levels.

A guest speaker at church this Sunday suggested that the first recorded church outside of Jerusalem was an international church in Antioch. Just look at Acts 13:1 which reads, "Now there were in the church at Antioch prophets and teachers, Barnabas, Simeon who was called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Manaen a member of the court of Herod the tetrarch, and Saul." Barnabas and Saul (Paul) were Jewish; Simeon was likely African; Lucius was from a Greek city in present-day Libya; and Manaen was a local from Antioch (present-day city of Antakya, Turkey)! It was out of this context that God birthed the missionary journeys of Paul and Barnabas that planted the seeds needed for Christianity to spread throughout the world.

As is true for every Christian group I know, there is some unifying factor outside of the gospel that helps bring people together in a given church, no matter how diverse they may be in other areas (like ethnic origin). For our church in Bangkok, like the church in Antioch, it's language. They spoke Greek and we speak English. International churches are certainly not the only strategy needed to reach international (non-Thai) people in Bangkok. Some groups will require specific strategies in the languages of their homelands. Others will integrate into Thai society and be best reached through Thai-speaking strategies. Still others need specialized approaches that may or may not come through the ministries of international churches (like outreach to 'backpacker' long-term tourists).

At the end of the day, I'm extremely thankful to the Lord for the way He has enriched my understanding in so many aspects of my life and faith through interaction with godly people from such a wide range of cultures. Praise Him!