Email: Katherine Bryant

Greetings from Kerala, India.

Throughout the past three months I have been engaged in many conversations about the state of the church in both India and the world. I cannot help but begin to question how it is that we, as the church universal, misrepresent Christ and fall short in serving and loving our fellow brothers and sisters on this earth. I wonder who is the “Christ” that the world sees when they look at the church? What picture are we constructing of the one we profess to be our savior when we claim to live as He taught us?

In my short time here, I can never begin to understand all the particulars of a culture. Arguably, it could take a lifetime to even understand one’s native culture. So, may my words be taken as but observations of an onlooker. In Kerala, I have found a church where the “untouchable” people have been traditionally segregated to their own places of worship. The caste system is a construct of the Hindu faith, but is so rooted in society that it permeates the Christian culture as well.

I visited one such Dalit church and had the joy of worshiping with these people and spending time with many of the members of the congregation. In them, I was welcomed with what I understand to be the radical hospitality that Christ’s message proclaims. I was taken arm in arm with the young women of the church and paraded throughout the community as an esteemed guest. A feast was laid before me from people who themselves have little. I prayed with their old and played with their children. I was accepted as if I was a relative, one of their own just returning from a long journey. 

I would like to urge each of you, along with myself, to re-examine the life that Christ lived and consider how and if we are reflecting this life as a church. Are we truly living the message that we cling to? Are we capable of showing the radical hospitality of Christ? I know that I am confronted by it each day as I walk past the poor, the hungry, the broken. Across the globe, the Church lies within communities that are in the midst of suffering. Rich or poor, big city or small town, the broken are there. I want to be part of a universal church that is bold and radical in serving its community. Still, I know that this will require a lot of humbling on my part.

As I send this letter home to the churches that support me, I know the love of service that these congregations possess. After all, I am the recipient of the great act of service that has allowed me this humbling experience in India. But I pray daily for each church that graciously supports me that they would be a light in their community and that the people of the church would use their gifts whole-heartedly. With all this in mind, I challenge myself to pray for the church universal. To pray for a Body that is more loving and more forgiving, that seeks justice and peace, and that desperately longs to know and reflect Jesus. And may we run to our neighbors as we would run to Him—humbly and with out-stretched arms.

Katherine Bryant

I post more of my day-to-day reflections at www.birdsflight.blogspot.com