The Church is messy and deeply imperfect. We are a mosaic of broken people attempting to represent a good and perfect God to a watching and wondering world. Sometimes we forget that we’re not a place or a physical building, and we don’t exist for ourselves.

There’s a lot that could be said about our mistakes, our shortcomings, and our failings. Certainly, there’s also plenty to be said on the other side—our kindness and grace and love that help make this world better. But these days, I don’t think the good is the first to come to people’s minds. 

To many, the Church represents judgement and exclusion. It represents this idea of not being good enough or hypocrisy, and this breaks my heart. This wasn’t who Jesus designed us to be. In His final moments with His friends, Jesus told them that the watching world would know they were His disciples by their love. 

By their love. 

Not programs or services or pastors or size, because that’s not what’s most important. 

In the last few weeks, I’ve had the absolute gift of being welcomed into the homes of refugees in Chicago. I’ve been to this particular neighborhood so many times, and every interaction with the families there molds my heart a little bit more into something more beautiful and holy. 

These families remind me that while our stories and histories might be very different, we’re more similar than might seem. And that incredibly humbling position they find themselves in isn’t something they asked for. It’s simply their reality, and they’re trying to hold onto joy in the midst of a whole lot of change—like our friends who moved from a village in Burma to a small basement apartment in Chicago.

When I first visited this sweet family, I almost missed their door. My friend, Bob led me down a flight of stairs to their basement home. Their living room was small, cramped, and dark. Although plants and flowers littered the space, there was very little natural light, and I couldn’t help but think of how different their new home was compared to the almost constant sun and heat of Burma. 

Our visit was a sweet time of encouraging and praying with a family who finds themselves in the trenches day after day, but the greatest act of love came later when we were in the car. From the front seat, I heard my friend on the phone with another refugee who is an incredible artist. 

“I want you to paint something for her apartment,” Bob said. “Her home needs a little beauty. It’s dark and needs the light that your paintings bring."

As I listened to the conversation, I was overcome with this simple yet extraordinary act of love. Is there a holier picture of the Church than what unfolded that night? 

The world will know you by your love. 

Our friends from Burma don’t need this painting. They need food and a stable income to pay the bills, and people are walking with them in these needs. But our friends’ souls need beauty. They need joy. They need light and life. They need hope.

They need reminders that they are not forgotten. 
They need reminders that they are remembered and seen.
On the hardest of days, they need reminders that they are loved.

On our hardest days, we all need these reminders. We are not forgotten. We are remembered and seen. We are loved. This is the heart beat of the Church isn’t it—to remind people, to remember and see people, to love people at their very worst and their best.

More and more I am convinced that this is the role of the Church—the beautifully imperfect group the Father designed so very long ago. The Church looks like visiting the homes of the hurting and marginalized around us. It looks like bringing bags of rice and bottles of oil or a plate of cookies. It looks like pausing long enough to find out how our neighbor is really doing. It looks like filling their home with conversation and prayer. 

And it also looks like bringing all of our gifts and talents to the table—like painting a picture of flowers for our neighbor. Because these Holy Spirit given gifts have an incredible power to bring light and life. These gifts are how we love. And the world will know we are followers of Jesus by our love. 

This is the way the Church was meant to be.

“So now I am giving you a new commandment: Love each other. Just as I have loved you, you should love each other. Your love for one another will prove to the world that you are my disciples.”
John 13:34-35

The post The World Will Know You by Your Love appeared first on Kate Berkey.

I am a lover of the everyday ordinary. 

Lest you think my life in Thailand is beyond crazy or a “I-could-never-do-that” kind of thing, know that this life is filled with the ordinary in the midst of the extraordinary. It’s filled with trips to the grocery store and to the bank. It’s filled with work and staff meetings and deadlines. It’s filled with alarm clocks and dishes and errands. It’s filled with busy weeks and days off. It’s filled with friends and game nights and movie nights. It’s filled with delicious food and leftovers and eating out. It's filled with the planned for and the unexpected, the anticipated and the spontaneous. And it's filled with significant ministry moments. It's filled with days teaching English to 160 kids. It's filled with moments at the border. It's filled with youth group and Braverly small group and worshiping alongside people from Thailand and Burma and America.

And isn’t that so beautiful? 

No matter where I live or what I do, the Lord constantly reminds me not to miss these beautiful, ordinary things in pursuit of "more."

Like the dad who skips with his daughter to the bus stop in the morning.
Like the puppies who live at the end of my street.
Like the blood red moon that filled the sky last week.
Like the smell of grilled pork on the side of the road.
Like the sweet lady on the corner who sells mango sticky rice.
Like the view from my bike as my friends and I go on a bike ride.
Like the nights Kristy and I listen to Frank Sinatra as we cook tacos for the third night in a row.

I never want to miss these moments in pursuit of the bigger thing, the more obvious thing, the thing our culture celebrates. We love movies with a big plot twist or big reveal. We love the dramatic love story or the superhero. We love impossibilities and underdogs and the things that leave us speechless. I certainly am a sucker for these things. You’ll always find me rooting for the underdog, and you better believe I want that underdog to have a big moment.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with these big moments, absolutely nothing at all. 

Unless…
Unless they leave us discontented with our incredible lives.
Unless they leave us craving more and more and more.
Unless they keep us from missing the beautiful, extraordinary, ordinary things around us. 
Unless they create a set of impossible expectations that no person or job or place or work or life could ever meet. 
Unless our hearts become hardened to gratitude, to saying “thank you” for the big and the little. 
Unless anything smaller than that big thing we’re chasing is seen as a disappointment.

What an incredible challenge, am I right? At least I know it is for me. I’ve realized that I deeply struggle with contentment, with this idea of enough. My spirit seems to long for more, for something bigger, grander, more abundant, and in the meantime, I forget that the Father has already given me more than enough. There is nothing but abundance in the Kingdom of God. 

If I stop
If I pause
If I notice
If I look
If I see

It’s there. More than enough is there.
It’s in the finances that come in each month from beautifully generous people. 
It’s in the dinner around the table with good friends.
It’s in the bike ride to work, the one that leaves me sweaty but also feeling so very a part of my community. 
It’s in the team I get to worship and pray with every Tuesday afternoon during staff meeting.
It’s in the videos of my nieces and nephew that my family sends me.
It’s in the smile of Paw Wah.
It's in the sound of Hser Ku Paw's singing.
It’s in the hug from MyLatte.
It’s in the rain that cleared the smog that hung over Mae Sot. 
It’s in the very mundane, very average, very routine parts of my life just as much as it's in the big moments, the ones that donors love to read about.

In this season, the Father is teaching me so much about the word “enough.” Enough doesn’t need the big or extravagant to be content. It doesn’t need to be stuffed. It’s the opposite of gluttony in every sense of the word. Enough is rooted in contentment. It’s rooted in gratitude. It’s rooted in dependence on the One who constantly gives more than enough. When I’m constantly searching for more, I miss the very tangible, very beautiful, very holy things the Father is already doing around me.

And I’m tired of missing those things in pursuit of more. 
He’s already given me more than enough. He’s given me abundance. 
I don’t want to miss those things. 

The post We Need to Stop Missing the Beautiful and Holy in the Everyday Ordinary Around Us appeared first on Kate Berkey.