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.

My peers are chasing successful careers.
They're married and having babies.
They're buying homes and puppies and paying mortgages.

Meanwhile...
I'm single.
I'm a writer and support-raising missionary.
I'm in-between cities which means bunking at my parent's house for a minute.
I don't live in a place long enough for a dog, and the jury is still out on when I will buy a house.
And I can't help but feel behind.

Woof.

Isn't that a crummy thought? It's not a new one for me; I've battled with the voice that tells me I'm behind, that I can't keep up, that I won't catch up for years. That voice says words like "should" or "supposed to." It tempts me to run faster and harder and berates me when I trip over my own feet. 

As I stumble and fall and lag behind, I look around at those around me and wonder what's wrong with me.

Why can't I keep up? 

This week I was—again—asking these questions of myself and that still small trusted voice of my Father whispered, "Because you're trying to run a race that was never intended for you." 

Punch in the gut. 

I think sometimes, no matter how successful or put together we look on the outside, we find ourselves looking around when we're sure no one's watching. We watch family and friends and complete strangers who seem to have "arrived" and wonder when we missed the train. We hold tightly to that idol called comparison and cling to it as if our entire worth depends on it. We call ourselves to standards we could or should never meet, because at the end of the day, your race is not mine and mine is not yours. 

When I step back long enough, I remember the truth—I love my job. I love my life. I really don't want yours. That's your story to live, and I'll take mine.

Somedays, though, our identity shifts. It becomes wrapped up in things we can measure and pursue and aim for. And suddenly, we find ourselves stuck in a race we will never win. 

And it's exhausting.

There's this curious verse in Colossians 4. It's a single line near the end of Paul's messages to individuals in the city, and it simply says, "And say to Archippus, 'Be sure to carry out the ministry the Lord gave you.'”

I love this verse. It might become my new life motto—minus the change in name—because in the midst of these words to people in the church, Paul singles this guy out. He doesn't say that his ministry is better or worse than anyone else. He doesn't ask him why he's not further along in the project, why he hasn't reached a certain milestone. It's almost as if this guy just needs a reminder. Like you and I need a reminder. Your ministry is important, so be sure to do the work the Lord gave you. 

So friend, do this with me—let go of that grip on comparison. Pick yourself up and disqualify yourself from the race you're in. Walk to the starting line of your own and begin again. Your race will not look like mine, and mine will not look like yours. That's all kinds of wonderful and beautiful and extraordinary. 

Be sure to carry out the ministry the Lord gave you, because only you can. And dear friend, our world desperately needs you to run your own race. 

The post Hey, Maybe This isn’t Your Race to Run appeared first on Kate Berkey.

This girl, the one who could fit in a crib meant for children, was 13 years old. 

I still remember hearing her age. The air left my lungs. My head spun. My eyes watered. My knees buckled. And I remember the way I couldn’t look her in the eye, because just a week earlier, I had been 13. When I’d first walked into the room, I thought I was so different from the little girl in the crib, but now I knew the truth.

We weren’t so different after all.

We were practically the same age. Our hair was the same color, and our eyes looked so very similar. We both burst with joy when we heard a voice we recognized, felt a touch we knew to be loving and kind. Both made in the image of our sweet Father, He called us Beloved. He knew our needs, and He cared so deeply for them.

In that moment, I had a choice: 

Stare at the wall behind the girl, fidget like the awkward teenager I was, and edge toward the door
or
I could look her in the eye. I could take her hands in my own, stroke her head, and wipe the hair from her face. I could honor her by engaging her, by seeing her. Simply put, I could love her by not looking away.

When I close my eyes today, I can still see this beautiful, 13-year-old girl laying in an isolated room in a Romanian orphanage. Her face is a little blurry—the cruel result of time gone by and new memories that demand space in my mind. But this experience and those emotions are still there, the lingering effects of an encounter with hard realities.

I never want to forget this experience, her face, her eyes. I never want to forget that my first reaction was to look away. And I never want to forget that realization—she and I were not as different as I thought. Because if I had more in common with this girl in a Romanian orphanage, I have to wonder how much I share with the person just down the road.

Confronting our Vulnerabilities

I believe this simple truth—that we have more in common with one another than we realize—is one of the reasons Jesus told us to love our neighbor as ourself. It’s why He told us to create space for everyone around our tables and in our homes. Could it be this is why He said those fateful, beautiful, grace-dripping words, “He who is without sin, cast the first stone”? 

Our world is full of hurting people, stories that rip our hearts apart. Humans are exceptionally good at marginalizing one another, separating ourselves from one another. It’s called pride and selfishness and a seemingly innate need to be more than we are. 

But, friend, if we look our neighbor in the eye, we just might see—like my little 13-year-old self saw—that we’re not all that different. 

We all lay awake some nights paralyzed by fears or worries or anxieties. 
We all have beautiful, complex hopes for the future. 
We all wish for love and joy and happiness for our families. 
We all have dysfunction and struggles and secrets. 

When we look into the face of someone who is hurting or marginalized or oppressed, we are confronted with vulnerability. We’re confronted with our own hurts and pain. We’re confronted with our privilege. And it’s deeply uncomfortable.

In that moment, we have a choice:

Look away or see the human staring back at us. 

Ushering in the Sacred

It’s true, we can’t fully engage with every single person or story or injustice in this world. The news is a seemingly never ending parade of the day’s latest challenges. But we do have the capacity and the calling to love our neighbors—to step into vulnerability, to embrace them in their vulnerable state, and be embraced in our own vulnerability. 

When we do that, I believe we usher a little bit of the sacred into our hurting and splintered world. We bring a little bit of Jesus, a little bit of the holy and extraordinary. It doesn’t require traveling to a third world country or donating your life’s savings. Sometimes it simply means talking to the cashier at the grocery store, delivering cookies to your next door neighbor, making conversation with the person who comes alone to church. More times than not, it means looking someone in the eye and listening to her story. Isn’t that what Jesus did over and over again? 

So, may we resist the temptation to look away. May we have the courage to look our neighbor in the eye, and may we bring a little more of the sacred into our ordinary. 

The post Why We Need to have the Courage to Look our Neighbor in the Eye appeared first on Kate Berkey.