Now
it has been already two days since our Bible Dialogue for theology students
ended. It was a unique experience with 16 participants from 10 different
countries in Europe, Asia, Africa and North America – and that is not counting
the conference team. Non-European participants are still rather new for us and
for this year’s topic “MIGRATION- The Church As A Transnational Home” is was a
special gift which gave us new perspectives. I don’t know where to begin.
Already the Peters Projection of the world on our map, read upside down from
what we were all used to seeing was a step towards a new orientation. We
realized that migrating is part of our heritage. Since the early days of humanity,
people set out to find a better place to live, the Promised Land, or simply a
place where their children would have a future. What changed is that more and
more nations feel that they have arrived and are getting complacent in a
presently comfortable situation which they are disinclined to share. But no
matter how pleasant our lives may be, for instance in Germany, our true home is
not here at all. Our true home will be with God. We will dwell or we are dwelling
in Jesus, but what does this mean?
Quite
a bit of our program got changed around because our discussions were just too intense
to stop and move on to the next topic. I am grateful to the conference team,
who were flexible and open in regard to the needs and wishes of our group. (In
a few days, I will send Jiri’s paper, I promise)
Of
course we did not just discuss in theory but also asked ourselves what we can
do in our home churches to allow people from other countries and other cultures
to feel that they have their home in their hearts: their faith. Julian put is
quite clearly: Belonging comes before believing. We need to feel like we belong
so that we can believe that our churches may be a glimpse of our true home.
I
was one of the few who were actually locally at home, being from Berlin and
living here, so for me this was most and foremost a lesson in how great our
Church, the Church of Jesus Christ, really is. "Great" meaning both vast and
wonderful and diverse and colourful.