How do we need to think about difference, about being the “global church” within our own conferences and local communities, with those who are our more immediate neighbours, with whom in many ways we have a much more intimate family relationship connection, despite not always knowing how to name and understand these cultural differences closer to home?

For me this questioning has taken place amidst my discernment of where to live geographically after college. An analysis of global economic and political interconnection has led to the understanding that if I really care about peace in the Middle East, the place for me to work is in the US to stop our unjust interventions. And if I really care about the state of agriculture in Uganda, the place for me to work is in the grain belt of the US that overproduces, exports, and undercuts Ugandan production.

So, too with global church. It doesn’t seem to fit that the primary calling of church members is to travel throughout the globe in order to be “global church.” A question has been returning to me,

What if being the global church meant staying home?

When I’ve reflected on that, I wonder if for me the work of “global church” is primarily to work for the anti-imperialist Kingdom in my home community, carried out in solidarity with the global church and an anti-oppression practice in the local context.

I’m not even completely sure what all that would look like (though I’m trying some things). But it’s what’s led me to move back to Elkhart (15 minutes from where I grew up) and to dive into the work of church here — a global analysis that brought me back home.

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On re-reading what I just wrote, it reads more confident than I feel. My intent in sharing it here is to see what kind of water it holds, what chords it strikes, what cliches it evokes…