Honduras: Day Six

Today was mostly a travel day from the city of San Pedro Sula to the capital city of Honduras, Tegucigalpa. We did visit a Nazarene church this morning led by Pastor Victor from the Las Brisas community transformation center that we had visited earlier in the week. Many of the children from the slums that are a part of Las Brisas were present at Victor's church. He is an amazing man. He works full time as a teacher at a public school, leads the Las Brisas center, and pastors a church of around 100 people. And I thought I had a lot going on in Homewood! This little church has dramatically impacted the community around it. They are so committed to serving people outside the walls of the church that they have a big sign on the wall on the way in that reads, "We Gather to Worship," and they have a big sign on the wall on the way out of the church that says, "We Leave to Serve." That mission is simple, but it pretty well sums up the purpose of all churches.

I was so encouraged to see that the children being served by Victor's church also were welcomed to worship with the church. Many churches have been built on the homogenous growth principle, which many well-meaning people have tried to explain to me but that I still don't understand and it's a method of church growth that I personally believe to be unbiblical. The basis of the concept is that people like to go to church with people who are just like them, meaning the same social class or race or however you want to quantify sameness. With that in mind, homogenous growth churches don't even try to be diverse. They just try to reach one particular group of people that are comfortable with one another, and they design the worship experience and all the programming according to that one way of thinking or being. Most churches wouldn't come right out and say that the embrace the homogenous church growth movement, but still, as Dr. Martin Luther King once pointed out, Sunday morning remains the most segregated part of our society. Pastor Victor's church truly embraces people who are different from one another, in this case socially, so much so that kids living in extreme poverty are welcomed right into the church with all of the other members. They are, in fact, celebrated for being there. In my mind, this is the purest form of what it means to be the body of Christ, the Church. There are a few churches in Pittsburgh who have figured out how to be cross-cultural, but that issue remains a challenge for most churches. If we go to church to worship, and everyone we gather with looks just like us and everyone has just about the same level of income or worldview, then we should probably challenge ourselves to ask why that is happening. The world is a diverse place, and Christians should be leading the way when it comes to building relationships across cultures instead of settling into our own limited comfort zones.

I have many things to take away from my time in San Pedro Sula. My heart broke for the kids that I interacted with, I was able to interview a lot of people, and most importantly, God moved in mighty ways and He blessed me with the eyes to see His love for some of the most marginalized people in the world. I really am hoping that I will be able to return some day. In the mean time, I am now in Tegucigalpa and the Lord has new experiences in store for me during the remainder of this trip. God is a God of risk and unpredictability, and that is what I am embracing this week. I have been struck by the profound majesty and bigness of God since I've been in Honduras. I am feeling stretched as a bridge builder, with one arm out to the world and one out to my crucified King to whom I owe my very life. It's a great way to be stretched though, for sure. We can't be stretched when we're living in comfort. Let the stretching continue!