Greetings

One of my favorite Kenyan customs is how they greet visitors in church. It would never work in America in our individualistic and easily embarrassed culture, it would not work well for church planting. But this is our loss.  What happens is at some point in the service, the pastor/elder asks if there are any visitors. You are expected to stand up, introduce yourself, explain your purpose and bring greetings from the church you come from.  So I said "Good Morning Church (how one address the congregation), My name is Amy Long, I bring Greetings from Christ the King Church in Cincinnati Ohio. I am a pediatric registrar (British term for resident) working at the hospital for a month."  In theory you are supposed to bring specific messages or blessings from where you come from. My greetings are still a work in the progress. It makes me smile thinking of my church plant in Ohio greeting a church in Kenya. We worship differently, we speak different languages but we are united under one faith, one body, one Christ.

The idea as it was explained to me in my cultural orientation last year is in the communal Kenyan culture, there is a huge emphasis on where you are from and your people opposed to what you do which tends to be what we care about in the States.  Thus in Kenyan theology, there is a huge emphasis on the body of Christ.   Paul brought greetings in his letters, the Kenyans have a very biblical model of thinking about church, better than ours. In Paul's day, the letters and the greetings encouraged the believers by knowing  and learning from the struggles and victories of other fledgling Christian communities. The church is a living, breathing organism not a gathering of people or a building in Kenyan culture. The church is a plural,encompassing term that crosses borders both political and social.  I am referred to as sister even though I am biologically from a tribe far, far away. I am accepted as a member of this branch of the body and my greetings are a blessing, a reminder that what we are is so much bigger than what we see.

I wonder what would happen if we started doing this in the States.  What if we put aside our denominational squabbles, racial, economical differences and were willing to bring greetings to other branches of the body.  .What if the suburban churches sent visitors to the inner city and rural churches and vice-a-versus, what we would learn from each other?  What would happen if I went to high Mass at one of the cathedrals down town and said, I bring greetings from my evangelical inner city church plant? What would happen, what would we learn? What would God do if we silly American Christians woke up to the reality of how big Christianity is?