All God’s Children
“. . . in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith. There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female, for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.” – Galatians 3:26, 28
“So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are citizens with the saints and also members of the household of God” – Ephesians 2:19
Last Sunday’s Gazette featured an article that caught my attention, primarily because it was about how a Lutheran church in our area is ministering to a group of refugees. Last year, King of Kings Lutheran Church in Robins welcomed a small group of newly-arrived African immigrants into their congregation. They attended worship, but Pastor Mark Halvorson had the sense that their spiritual needs weren’t really being met, so he asked if they would like to be able to worship in their native language and and customary style . They were delighted at the suggestion, and now every Sunday afternoon the King of Kings sanctuary is filled with their traditional joyful music and praise. A member who also serves as a pastor spoke about this congregation’s worship: “We have to move. We have to cry. We have to say ‘hallelujah.’ . . . We fulfill our body, our spirit. It’s a spiritual therapy.”
I believe I’ve found a new definition of “welcome.” Of course, the visitor or newcomer is to be greeted and made welcome, whether at church, in the workplace, or in the neighborhood. But sometimes if we say, “Come join us” – it sounds like, “Come do it our way, in our language, with our traditions.” Perhaps as we include these brothers and sisters in Christ, we could ask, “How can we help you feel at home?” To be able to participate in worship in your first language, to sing, to pray, and to hear God’s Word is one of the most fundamental of needs.
Many of us consider it important that newcomers assimilate, and make the effort to learn the language, the customs, and all that is part of being an American. That is, of course, easy to say and quite another thing to do it. My own grandparents attended churches in which Norwegian and German were spoken, and I grew up in a congregation where a sweet old Christmas carol was sung in Swedish. These churches were the center of community life, that place that offered a sense of belonging even when the members felt like outsiders everywhere else. I believe that having a “home base” is a good way to be grounded, developing roots that make it possible to transplant later.
The vast number of ways in which people have worshipped over the millennia probably could not be quantified. The wonderful thing is that God hears and understands every last one of us, regardless of the melodies we sing or the languages in which we pray. Paul’s words to the early churches are as true today as they were 2,000 years ago, “all of you are one in Christ Jesus.”
Your friend in Christ,
Mary Rogers