There were many things that Nicole and I experienced during our seven days in Israel this May, all manner of insights and wisdom were available to us as we toured site after site connected to the stories of the Bible, and the life of Jesus in particular. I won't try to list them all here, they're better one at a time with context, so let me just share one observation that jumped out at me again and again during our trip:
The Church is global.
I know, I already knew that, and I hope you did too, but it is the kind of truth that sometimes slips from our minds and hearts as we naturally focus in upon the needs and issues facing our own slice of that global entity and begin to think that most Christians look, think, and act as we do.
At many of the sites we visited, such as the one pictured above at the Church of the Primacy on the shore of the Sea of Galilee, there were these pavilions set aside that tour groups could reserve for a time of instruction, prayer, or worship. In other words, there are so many groups coming to these places to visit them that those who are the custodians of these sacred spaces have invested resources into setting aside spaces for them. We often saw them being utilized, and took advantage of a number of them ourselves (such as at the Garden Tomb, pictured below)
What these pavilions don't immediately reveal is the great diversity of peoples making use of them. English was the minority language in use, people who look like most of our group were not the norm, and frankly the Western Church was less often represented than the South American, African, and Asian. While waiting to visit various places we had fascinating interactions with brothers and sisters in Christ from Brazil, Nigeria, India, and South Korea.
In fact, just after the picture above was taken, our group celebrated communion at the Garden Tomb site, and while we did so we could hear a nearby group lifting up, "In Christ Alone" in song through deeply accented English. Thanks to the layout of the area, we couldn't quite see them, but a number of us began to quietly sing along; it was beautiful.
Statistics about the Global Church are useful, they paint a two dimensional picture, but actually standing in the midst of men and women from all over the world to whom Jesus Christ is Lord and Savior, all as eager to learn about the places he visited as we were, really drives home in a powerful way the wondrous breadth of the universal Church.
