The Church Beyond Your City Limits

I live in a small town in rural Missouri. Farmland surrounds the town, creeping inward in places. The local kindergarten building sits across the street from a corn field, and our little church is flanked on two sides by cotton fields.

My husband and I moved here nearly fourteen years ago for my husband to become a pastor of the church where we still serve today. Most of the folks in the area grew up here or nearby. It’s a regular small town with small town pride and lots of local school spirit. Moving here from a larger city in another state, I’ve noticed the propensity for tunnel vision in small town life. There’s not a lot of reason to look farther than the city limits. After living here so long, I’ve adopted the myopia of our here-and-now life within the small radius of my life. Probably everyone does this to some degree no matter where you live. It’s easy to forget that this isn’t all there is.

Once inside, my phone dinged with a text from my friend Bethany who had invited me to speak at the conference and was picking us up. “I just saw your plane fly overhead—I’m almost there!” A few minutes later my friend, whom I met online and have chatted with numerous times over the past year, walked through the doors and we hugged for the first time. Bethany is a kindred spirit— a like-minded believer in Jesus who has the same vision for biblical literacy among women that I have. We connected through an online writing group, got to know one another through social media, and began talking regularly through a walkie -talkie app. This is twenty-first century friendship.

Bethany guided us across an icy parking lot to her husband’s truck and drove us through a snowy Grande Prairie to her home. Her husband and children showered us with kindness and hospitality. Sitting in the home of people we’ve never met, we had the instantaneous connection that comes from being brothers and sisters in Christ. We shared a delicious meal, laughed at the antics of Bethany’s and Alex’s children, listened to their evening Bible reading around the table, and sang the Doxology together. We talked long about theology, cultural differences within the church in the US and Canada, the resurgence of economy in this region of Canada, and the particular needs of believers here. Nearly 2,000 miles from home, I felt fully at home.

When my husband and I were tucked into our hotel room later that night, I couldn’t help but feel grateful for the DNA of the gospel that makes us not just friends with Bethany and Alex, but family. God’s grace in granting us repentance from sin and faith in Christ means that we are more closely related than if we were all born to the same biological family. It means that you can fly to another country and feel safe, loved, and connected to strangers.

The conference was well attended by Canadian women from both Grande Prairie and the areas surrounding. From what I understand, heading north of the area leads to the end of the world (well, the North Pole, eventually), but I did meet a woman who drove six hours south to the conference and called that frozen nothingness up north “home.” I can’t help but admire people who live in isolated areas through such hard winters and consider it “no big deal” to drive half a day to connect with other Christians. These are hardy folks.

Throughout the weekend, I met women from all walks of life who encouraged me with their desires to follow Christ faithfully. I met one woman who was transplanted in Alberta from Nigeria. As we shared a meal together, she talked a lot about the immigration process and what God has done in helping her adjust to Canadian life. Several women I met were new Grande Prairie residents who had moved from other provinces for work. Another new friend and fellow conference speaker was Paola, born in Venezuela, and now a trilingual Canadian citizen residing in Quebec. She, like Bethany, desires to equip women to study the Word and understand our identity in Christ.

I left the conference with a bigger picture of what the Church looks like. We have different cultural backgrounds and varied upbringings, but we are linked by Christ and the transforming power of the gospel. Where God has planted us, we grow.

Today, I’m writing from a coffee shop and bakery in the East Village in Calgary, Alberta. My travels come to an end tomorrow night, but I’m so grateful for this opportunity to get a glimpse of the Body of Christ beyond the city limits of the farming community I call home. I can head home and put my hand back to the plough—picking up where I left off last week with the Bible study I get to lead, the discipleship meetings I have with my friend’s daughter, and our local church involvement. But I’ll do it knowing that across the globe, other faithful Christians are doing the same. They are living everyday, regular faithful lives in the places God has planted them, and as a result, the gospel will go out regularly, lives will be transformed, and the family of God will grow both in number and in maturity.

I never knew Grande Prairie existed until I was invited to visit. How many millions of believers live in obscure little towns or busy urban areas all around the globe doing the good work of gospel living? They press forward because God is faithful, the gospel is good news, and Jesus is worth it. And they—we—all who have been changed by the gospel— are family. Strangers unless we get to meet. But family.