Martha Olawale

“Just as a body, though one, has many parts, but all its many parts form one body, so it is with Christ. For we were all baptized by one Spirit so as to form one body—whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink.”1 Corinthians 12:12-13

When my family moved to the United States, we attended a church that felt like our church in Nigeria. We wanted to enjoy the same style of praise and worship, mingle with people that spoke our local language, and pray the same way we did. While we loved the church, after a few months, I got restless because I wanted more than the cultural feel of a church.

I realized that no one I met in my after-Sunday activities looked like the people I sit with at church. It limited my overall outlook on what Jesus said in Matthew 15:15, “Go Ye into all the world...” The understanding that I was first a citizen of Heaven before I am Nigerian made it uncomfortable for me to surround myself with only Nigerian Christians in a diverse society.

With that realization came a desire for my global Christian identity to reflect in my decisions about every aspect of my life, including church selection. I wanted to see God in people I meet at the grocery store, on the streets, and in my daily life. I didn’t want to be blinded by my cultural view of Christianity and miss out on great relationships with the children of God.

In addition to lining my identity up with our local church selection, my husband and I knew we would be raising our children in the United States, and we didn’t want them to grow up believing Christianity was limited to mum and dad’s culture. After all, Christ died for the world, not just Nigerians. We live here, and we wanted them to experience church, like Heaven, where culture, skin color, and wealth status are no barriers.

The family of God extends beyond the confines of our predetermined worship styles and church traditions. Our compass for navigation should be structured between the lines of the scripture and not our church’s cultural artifacts and history. Christ died that “all” might be saved and regardless of how different the believer sitting next to you in the church is, you are bonded by something stronger than geography or demography. You are family, by virtue of your salvation through the sacrifice Jesus made at Calvary.

While the role Indigenous churches play in Christendom cannot be overemphasized, it is vital that we remember that the goal of any church, regardless of where they are is to preach Christ. Our values are rooted in Jesus and Heaven, not boundaries drawn by man. Yes, it’s okay to mind the details of our local churches, but in doing so, we cannot lose sight of the kingdom and the role the church plays in God’s grand plan for the world.

For the church on earth to look like Heaven, there are certain dispositions we have to rid our minds of. We must start looking at people through the eyes of God and act like the kingdom we belong to. As believers in the teachings of Christ, we are one big family awaiting our Father’s return or our soul’s crossover to Heaven, where we all get to share the same citizenship status.  There are no majorities or minorities in Heaven, just children of God. We are bought by the same Savior, for the same kingdom, and at the same price.