Dynamic Diversity - Bruce Milne

This is part of the preface of one of the best books I read recently, very helpful in terms of thinking about church and how we are called to be distinctive from the world through diversity. Well worth a read.

We are all familiar with a Mexican wave. A sports event is under way in a large stadium. The action on the field is rather boring, when suddenly the spectators in one section of the audience jump to their feet and throw their arms in the air. The next section follows on, and then the next, until the wave has travelled all around the stadium, and back to the beginning, where it may well set off all over again. It’s great fun, and often notably more memorable than what’s happening on the field of play.
Every Sunday of the year a ‘Mexican wave of worship’ travels all around the world. Let me tell you about it. It begins about the time many in the United Kingdom are heading off for bed on Saturday night (and not a few of its pastors are staggering wearily out of their studies). For many North Americans the wave is launched while we are fast asleep. But, just then, in some South Pacific islands, like the ancient Christian Kingdom of Tonga, it’s Sunday morning, and already Christians are up and heading for church, where they are called to worship. They get on their feet, many thousands of them, throwing their hands in the air, as it were, praising God, and crying, ‘Jesus is Lord!’ The wave has begun.
At the very same time, thousands of miles to the north, in the eastern reaches of the former Soviet empire, other groups of believers are doing the same – fewer in number but with no less zeal. Then the wave begins to spread westwards; into New Zealand, and across Australia, through time zone after time zone, millions are now on their feet and joining in. Meanwhile, the worship wave is sweeping down eastern Asia; reaching to the smaller churches of Japan, the teeming congregations of South Korea, the Philippines and Indonesia. The living God is being worshipped and his name exalted. Now the wave is into China – how many Christians in China? Only God knows; perhaps a hundred million, province after province, as the wave of worship sweeps on its way around the world.
Now the wave is into India and the great historic churches there, and then surging on through the other southern Asian nations. On and on it moves, across the vast territories of Central Asia and the former Soviet republics, into the Middle East, where little groups of believers are uniting in worship and bravely lifting heart and hand in praise. Now the wave has entered Africa; the ancient churches of Egypt and Ethiopia, and the massive, modern congregations of Uganda, Kenya and Zambia; on down into Southern Africa as millions more are on their feet and the Lord is being exalted. Now the wave is across central Africa and sweeping through the burgeoning congregations in Nigeria, Ghana and the adjoining nations. And all the while Europe has been caught up in it, through time zone after time zone – the Scandinavian lands to the north, the Balkans, Central Europe and the Mediterranean countries to the south, all with their long centuries of faith and tradition; then it’s into Spain and Portugal.
Meanwhile, the worship wave is moving through Britain, by way of congregations large and small, in city and countryside, as UK Christians in turn rise to their feet and join the global throng of worshippers, lifting high the name of Jesus. Now the wave is leaping across the sea to Ireland, Iceland and Greenland, finally arriving on North American soil in the maritime provinces of Canada; and, at the same moment, thousands of kilometres to the south, it is making its landfall in Latin America by way of the bulging projection of Brazil, where it is soon swelled by that nation’s thronging multitudes of exuberant worshippers.
Like an irresistible tide the wave sweeps on, gathering millions more in its train as our ever-blessed, triune God is exalted in praise. On and on it goes, as the sunny islands of the Caribbean get with the beat, down the east coast of the USA amid its teeming populations. Meanwhile, to the south, the wave envelops in turn all the nations of central and western Latin America, Argentina, Chile, Peru, Bolivia,
Mexico and the swelling churches of Central America. Across the Canadian prairies it moves, and the Midwest of the USA, and through the Deep South. Finally it arrives at the western states, California, Oregon, Washington, and, within that time zone, at our apparently ‘lazy lot’ in Vancouver, as we too get out of our beds, and assemble in worship, and lift Jesus’ name, and pour out our praises.
And then the wave of worship is on its way again, up to Alaska, and across the Pacific to Hawaii, and, in a final surge, back to the South Sea Islands – and it is over for another week: the worship wave!
It happens without fail every single Sunday, of every month of every year, and all I have done in these paragraphs is to draw attention to it – the international celebration of the global people of God. To be a Christian means to be part of that – somewhere between one and two billion men, women and children, from every nation under the sun, united in a worship experience that encircles the globe. How could anyone miss out on it by choosing to stay in bed?