Last week I had the privilege of spending a week in the city of Brasov “Romania” together with an incredible team from the U.K. I always find traveling anywhere for the first time an exciting experience, especially when you just don’t know what to expect.
Romania is a country of massive contrast. The divide between the rich and the poor in huge and poverty is extreme in many areas over the country. We were staying with a Newfrontiers church in Brasov called “Christian Centre Brasov.” The leaders took us to a number of different outreach projects throughout the week that the church were doing for the community from a street kid’s centre to men’s football outreach. (I’d like to say we beat them, but I can’t)
We also spent some time in the gypsy villages which surround the city and this for myself and many on the team was probably the most moving experience of my life and something I know we will remember for years to come. The people we met literally had nothing. Many of the kids came into a small evening church service in the village with no shoes on and wearing clothes that had never been washed or changed for months. It’s not until we see with our own eyes how the majority of world lives that we realize just how much we have in the western world. Just as I type this into my laptop I am sitting in a warm comfy room, sipping freshly ground starbucks coffee and considering what to choose for tea tonight from stacks of selection in our fridge. We just have so much and that’s just the start.
I was a little unsure of how the evening service was going to go, especially as I had been asked to preach with a translator beside me so was clearly well aware of the language barrier we were facing. How were we going to worship together? How were we going to communicate at all? How were we going to relate or pray for one another? All these thing were going through my head. But then it all made sense.
Just as Florence (the pastor of the church) opened in prayer, all just came together. Of course we didn’t know what he was saying, but we didn’t have to. We entered into the presence of God and suddenly in that, we were united by the gospel. We each worshipped in our own language, but we were together as one, worshipping the one true God who is so much bigger than the limitations of language.
How often do we focus so much on the small pictures of our lives, our church, our worship band, our way of doing things. That we fail to realize that God is doing something all over the globe. We are apart of something so big, it breaks through culture and it break through language. We need to focus on the big picture so we can attempt to grasp the true supremacy of Christ over all things.
Colossians: 1v5-6 Of this you have heard before in the word of the truth, the gospel, 6 which has come to you, as indeed in the whole world it is bearing fruit and growing.
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