by Wayne Bridegroom

Here’s the short version: it was 1997 and I was observing 6 Laotian brothers pour a 10X12 slab of cement.  It was as if the Holy Spirit hit me over the head with a 2X4 saying, “See, Wayne, you value efficiency, getting the job done.  Your Lao friends just demonstrated brotherhood, valuing every person’s input.”

Obviously, I knew that our God is Trinitarian in nature. Therefore, the entire created order — the entire human body — mirrors that Trinitarian relatedness.  I knew that the Greek New Testament was primarily written in the 2nd person plural.  After all, Hebraic culture, even Middle Eastern and Asian culture is “us” oriented.

Ah, but I’m American and grew up in an individualistic culture.  It was the air I breathed!!  Hence, even though Phil 1:6 “…he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus,” and Phil 2:12 “…work out your own salvation with fear and trembling,” — yes, even though those verses are in the 2nd person plural, I would preach them through an individualistic lens.

My logic was that if the individuals in my congregation were genuinely growing in Christ then we’d have a really spiritually healthy church.  No doubt there is truth to that. But the Scriptural emphasis seems to indicate that a spiritually healthy church is the prime medium through which the Spirit helps individual Christians become mature.

I don’t have this figured out yet.  I still tend to think pretty exclusively from the “I” mode rather than the “us” mode.  What little I do know is this: I consider myself the most fortunate pastor in Modesto simply because we housed so many diverse congregations, we lived in a diverse neighborhood for over 4 decades and my best pastor friends are African American.

Of course, your circumstances are very different from mine but it is knowing and viewing brothers and sisters in Christ as equals, in other words, getting the “us” down, that opens vistas to becoming more like Jesus.  If you will, the new heaven and new earth will not be just about “Jesus and me” but even more so about “Jesus and us.”  Again, if you will, here on earth we are in practice for the big game to come and that “game” is going to be eternally very diverse because it takes all of us to even remotely begin to reflect the glorious beauty of who God really is.