My daughter-in-law and I are sharing a home right now and by extension - we are sharing a kitchen. We've worked out a system where the four adults in the house take turns cooking in pairs with other family members so that she and I are not the only ones responsible for meal planning, preparation, and clean-up. For the most part, it is working out very well for us.
As we have worked together, we've discovered a few differences in the way we do things. She refrigerates tomatoes - I don't. I bake my frozen meatballs before I use them in spaghetti sauce - she tosses them in the sauce to thaw and cook. She buys certain brands of things at the grocery store, while I buy others. In some cases, we have totally different recipes for the same dish. Her kitchen utensils and mine are all intermingled now, with boxes and boxes of duplicates ready for a yard sale when social distancing is over and people can do that sort of thing again. When I eat my cereal at breakfast and get a spoon out of the drawer, it might be one that feels different in my hand because it's not the design I'm used to, but I still get fed.
None of the differences we have found have caused any of us to lose a single pound, though I wish they had. We are all well-nourished, enjoy our food, and are not at each other's throats about the state of the kitchen and the planning of the menus.
During this time when people are not able to gather at their home churches, we are staying connected by watching pre-recorded worship music done by praise bands or choirs. We hear either live or taped sermons from our pastors. We have the opportunity to hear examples of all types of music and messages on social media every week. Though I'll always be sure to make my home church's online service a priority, I have watched parts of several others as well. Just like the differences in my kitchen, there are differences in churches. I've heard old hymns that I haven't listened to for a long time. I've seen other praise teams that do contemporary music. I've seen men of God who were very comfortable in front of the camera because they were accustomed to being filmed and others for whom this experience is totally new. The messages are on all kinds of topics, depending on who is speaking, but even though the music and the talking points may be different than what I am used to hearing, they aren't necessarily wrong.
I think right now we are seeing that the church as a whole, throughout the world, needs to come together like never before. Those petty differences in the tiny matters of practice fade away, and we forget that they use a different spice than we do and we just all get fed. Of course, we need to measure what we hear against the Word of God so that no poison sneaks into our meals, but there is much from which we could benefit if we quit thinking about our brothers and sisters in Christ in a different expression as THEM versus US.
There is a scripture that I know you have frequently seen quoted in recent days. 2 Chronicles 7:14 says, "If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and will heal their land."
That's where the real meat of this relationship with God comes in. It's all about being humble, praying, seeking His face, and turning from sin to be a bridge between God and our land so that healing can come. I think that's an idea that all churches can embrace and through our differences become the salt and light to our world that it so badly needs right now.
