Having been involved in Christian ministry for over 25
years, I have often heard this same principle taught in the Church. Playing or
working well with others may not be an exact scriptural quotation, but we have
all likely heard “We want to be a Kingdom Church” or “We want to work with the
whole Body of Christ to see our community transformed”. Hearing these things
I’ve always looked for examples to show me what that looks like. I don’t mean
churches or organizations having special events together once or twice a year,
but really unselfishly giving of themselves to each other and to the community.
Working together in order to see real community-building relationships.
This past month I’ve seen some of the greatest examples of
churches and organizations working well together to see their community
transformed.
Today I was in a village that is likely the greatest story
of working together I’ve ever personally encountered. Two years ago I made my
first visit to this village in Kampong Chhnang. Pastor Say was a pastor who had
moved with a group of people into the forest to start a new village for those
who were poor and had no land or possessions. Samaritan’s Purse worked there
with the Seeds of Hope project to assist people trying to build a new life for
themselves with pig raising, chicken raising, vegetable gardening and water
wells.
On my visit today I was with a partner organization with Samaritan's Purse working with villagers to build
BioSand water filters to provide everyone with clean drinking water. I was
shocked as we worked with the villagers and they began telling what has
happened over the last two years. We were introduced to five pastors, all who
had planted churches in the village. Unfortunately, my first reaction was “Oh,
no why would a village need five churches, why not just one or two?” I guess I
was expecting the pastors to start competing for attention or start trying to
one-up each other with stories. Many times my experiences where there are
multiple churches in an area is that they compete and sometimes fight with one
another instead of work together.
But today was different, they were all working together with
us. They were laughing together, probably “at” us as they watched these white
men work with Cambodian tools. They appeared to truly be friends. What I
realized as I watched them talk and work is that they were working together
with an entire village, not just to plant
churches, but to help people start a new life, both spiritually and
physically. They were helping the village work together to develop a community.
If the village didn’t work together there would be no future, especially for
their children. It made me begin
to think, “Is this what Christian ministry should look like?”
The result of working together was phenomenal! As we talked
I casually asked how many people in the village were now Christian. One of the
pastors said, “Oh, about 60 percent of
the village I guess.” The others looked at each other, said a few words to
each other, and then everyone agreed that was about right. Now, I don’t know
about you, but how many pastors in your community could say they have worked
with 4 other pastors to see 60 percent of their community come to Christ in the
last 2 to 3 years. To put it in a different perspective though, stop and think
about this. Cambodia has very few Christians. Less than 2% of the population of
the country are Christians. These five churches have worked together to see
that miraculously changed in their community.
That is a 3,000%
increase over the rest of their country. I guess what Henry Ford said is right:
"Coming together is a beginning: keeping together is progress; working together is success."
And oh yeah, I forgot to mention that the household income
of the villagers has increased, people’s health has improved and families are
stronger than they’ve ever been before!
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