E Pluribus Unum

The chapel on base has three services on Sunday: 9:30am Catholic Mass, 11 am Protestant service, and a 1:30 pm Gospel service.  Our church we're a part of is the Protestant service, which our chaplain/pastor has named "Crosspoint Community."  It's a vibrant community with about 150 folks on any given Sunday, and the church's vision is three-fold: worshiping the Lord, growing in Christ, and serving the community.

It's been interesting being in a diverse and blended church community like this.  We have folks from not just all different states and countries, but from a very wide spectrum of denominational backgrounds.  It forces the pastor (and us) to focus on not doctrinal things that divide, but core biblical truths that unite, which is refreshing.  This isn't to say that we don't know there are important (even perhaps controversial) differences among our Christian faith traditions, but they are acknowledged and respected instead of being allowed to split us apart.

A perfect example of this was last month.  There have been five babies born within our community since late summer, and the parents (ourselves included) wanted to have their child baptized or dedicated, depending on their background.  Rather than having two separate services or doing it privately, our two chaplains worked together to have a Sunday service set aside to celebrate new life and bringing children into our community through either baptism or dedication (parents' choice).  So I think it's kinda cool that Evangeline had her Presbyterian family watch as she was baptized by an Anglican priest, prayed for by a Baptist pastor, as an Assemblies of God musician began to lead the worship music.  You just don't see that every day.

What I've learned from this is the beauty, challenge, and mystery of being in the body of Christ...

The beauty is seeing Galatians 3:28 lived out, where there is neither Jew nor Gentile, slave nor free, male nor female.... and no British nor Hawaiian, southerner nor Yankee, military nor civilian, single nor married with kids... but we are all one in Christ.  It's so cool to see that we can set aside and look past accents, nationalities, liturgical vs. contemporary worship preferences, Reformed vs. Armenian leanings, and so forth, all for the sake of joining together to worship and follow Christ. 

The obvious challenge: This is not always easy.  Sometimes it's frustrating or annoying.  Sometimes it's comical.  Sometimes it's just confusing.  Often it can be draining: when there's not someone who is "mostly like you" (whether doctrinally, professionally, socially, etc.), it's a LOT of work to try to understand, to be understood, to listen well, and to connect.  It's quite humbling, and requires a lot of patience and flexibility.  Diversity in the church is good, but exhausting.

Which leads to the mystery of it all.  How does it all work?  How can God love this many different kinds of people?  How can there be grace enough to cover all these sins?  How can such a spectrum of traditions, backgrounds, and preferences all be loved and welcomed into one body? How can this body come together to love each other well and serve the community as one?..... 

I have no idea, other that it's only through Christ. 
HOW he does it I have no idea. 
But he does. 
And it works.  
And it's beautiful and breathtaking to see that we get to be a part of the "great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and people and languages... saying 'Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever! Amen." (Rev. 7:9-12)

Best Buys

One of the hardest things about packing up to move was deciding "What stays, what goes."  We knew houses in England would be smaller than what we're used to, and have little to no closet space.  We ended up filling a 5'x10' storage shed all the way up, and farmed out a fair amount of belongings to friends and family to "host" our stuff for a few years.  (And yes, you know us, we did create a spreadsheet to track it all...)

The flip side of this was figuring out: "What do we need to buy for over there?"  We knew we'd have to buy all new electronics due to the different voltage system, so some of our early purchases included a TV, blu-ray player, mixer, lamp, and space heater.  Folks looking out for us over here gave us their old microwave, refrigerator, washer, and dryer, saving us a good number of ££.

That's our base chapel in the background!

But there are two things in particular I've been so glad I bought.  One is my car, a navy blue 1997 Ford Focus, UK spec with manual transmission  (The Focus over here is the size of the Fiesta back in the States). I love it not because it drives superbly well or has any special features.  Indeed, there's really nothing special about it, unless you include the cassette tape deck that works some of the time.  I love it because (a) it's a really small car, which is super handy to have driving and parking on British roads, (b) it gets good gas mileage, and (c) it was a really cheap: I spent all of £900 (about $1,400) on it. That's value, folks.

My favorite purchase by far though has been my heavyweight Marmot rain jacket I picked up from REI before we moved.  I've never owned one before because I've never needed one in the South.  Here in England the weather changes constantly, and almost assuredly at some point in the day it'll be cold and/or rainy and/or windy.  It's been SO great to have a coat that I can stay dry in and not freeze!  (And occasionally look suave in as well, as seen in to the left, from our Winter Blitz trip to Austria).  You can't underestimate the value of a good warm raincoat in England!