8. The Challenges of Serving the Globally Mobile II (MICN Missiology Series by Andrew Lupton)

Attaching to One Another

Before asking whether or not we and our international churches are attaching well to our host culture, we should ask if the members of our church connect well with one another. The four groups mentioned in an earlier article don’t naturally connect to one another to share life and faith together. When birds of a feather naturally flock together in a diverse international church, its congregants are robbed of the joy experiencing the dynamic contours of the body of Christ. In part, this problem of diversity is faced by all churches everywhere. It’s easier to share life and faith with someone who is similar. It’s hard work to connect deeply with someone who is radically different. 

Unity in diversity is hard, but international churches have an added layer of what I’ve called goodbye fatigue that affects community life. Jack Wald vividly captured the image with the title of his book Pastoring a Parade.¹ Much like watching elaborate parade floats round the corner and come toward the grandstand where you’re seated, new congregants arrive. You wave and engage. But just as you’ve gotten to know them and enjoy them, you find yourself waving goodbye. International church is the church of the wave. It’s “hello” this month and “goodbye” a few months later. Eventually our emotional wrists get tired. International church congregants become spectators at best or completely unengaged at worst. 

This disengagement is a defense mechanism because mobility hurts. Most people look a sea anemone and consider it a lush flowering sea plant swaying its green and pink parts in the current.² But the sea anemone is actually a vicious predator. Its lovely-looking flower is actually venom-filled darts waiting for its prey to come near. When that happens, it paralyzes its victim, envelopes them, and eventually devours them. But when a sea anemone feels threatened, it retracts and withdraws all of its tentacles inside of itself. Its beautiful swaying colors are replaced by a self-nurturing nub with a hard exterior. If the sea anemone continues to feel threatened it will stay enveloped inside itself, even to the point of starving itself to death. 

Mobility hurts within international church communities. It hurts those who leave and it hurts those who stay. As a pastor, I find myself assessing my own willingness to attach to someone based upon how long I project they’ll stay in our community. “What’s the point of connecting deeply if they’ll just leave or we’ll just leave in two years? Is it really worth it?” Whether one plans to leave or plans to stay, these questions are constantly in the background. But if our congregants and I all listen to our hearts and try to protect our hearts from the pain of goodbye, then we and our church will relationally harden and shrivel. 

Paul says in Romans 12:4-5, “For as in one body we have many members, and the members do not all have the same function, so we, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another.” We are one in Christ and are members of one another. We belong to one another because we belong to him. In other words, it was worth it to Jesus to be connected to people like us. That has to be the gospel motivator as international churches motivate our congregants to invest in one another. A person is a person made in the image of God, worthy of our investment and affection, no matter how local, international, long-term, or short-term they are.  

Tune in next week as we talk about attaching to our host culture.

Andrew Lupton

1 Wald, Jack, Pastoring a Parade: A Guide to International Church Ministry.

2 From Dr. Doug Ota lecture during the 2016 Families in Global Transition Conference in Amsterdam.