30.07.

2015 5 Things Christians Can Learn from Traveling | RELEVANT Magazine

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5 Things Christians Can Learn from Traveling

Traveling isn’t just about experiencing new things. It’s about gaining
perspective that can change your life—and your world.
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by CHAD GIBBS

After living my entire life in Alabama, the buckle of America’s Bible Belt, I began
traveling to see what it was like to be a Christian anywhere else in the world.

Over the course of three years, I spent time with believers from Beijing to
Barcelona, and wrote about the experiences in my book Jesus Without Borders.
And while I understand not everyone can just drop everything and start traveling
the world, I do believe in the life-changing and faith-shaping power of travel.

Here are five things I think every Christian can learn by traveling:

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30.07.2015 5 Things Christians Can Learn from Traveling | RELEVANT Magazine

How to Become Friends with 'Your Enemies'

An expert in the law once asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” Jesus answered
with the Parable of the Good Samaritan, and the expert realized his perceived
enemy was in fact his neighbor.

I’m an ’80s kid, so when I think of Russians, it’s hard for me not to envision a
group of nameless commandoes parachuting into Colorado to kill Patrick Swayze
and the Wolverines. Many millennials may have a similar mistrust of people from
Muslim countries, while an older generation might struggle to view the Japanese
or Germans as neighbors following previous wars.

But when you travel and meet these perceived "enemies,"

misconceptions fade and are often replaced by
understanding and even friendship.

But when you travel and meet these perceived "enemies," misconceptions fade
and are often replaced by understanding and even friendship. After these trips, I
have Russian friends, Muslim friends and even a Manchester United friend. I’m
not sure this could have happened if I’d never left Alabama.

How to Experience Parts of the Church You Know Little

About
I was raised Southern Baptist and now attend a United Methodist church, and
before these trips, a part of me thought the bulk of Christianity consisted of those
two denominations plus the Presbyterians we both beat to lunch.

However, if you combine all the Southern Baptists, United Methodists and PCA
Presbyterians, we’re less than half the number of Ethiopian Orthodox adherents
worldwide, less than one-fifth the number Russian Orthodox adherents
worldwide or less than one 39th the number of Roman Catholics worldwide.

Christianity is an ancient and diverse faith, and while it’s only human to think our
own denomination has it all figured out, we can still learn something by
worshiping and conversing with Christians who do things just a little differently.
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30.07.2015 5 Things Christians Can Learn from Traveling | RELEVANT Magazine

What Persecution Really Looks Like

Every Black Friday, hordes of shoppers trample each other in the Thunderdome
that is your local mall. And every Black Friday, many of us Christians call foul
because stores failed to invoke the name of Christ in their shopper trampling
sales, opting for the more generic ‘Holiday Sale.’

Look, I’m not saying it’s easy to be a Christian in American. It’s not easy to be a
Christian, period. But if we believe persecution is what’s hindering us then we’re
being, perhaps, a touch dramatic.

TRAVEL TO THE RIGHT PLACES, AND YOU’LL SEE REAL PERSECUTION. YOU’LL
MEET PEOPLE WHOSE RELATIONSHIP WITH CHRIST HAS COST THEM THEIR
RELATIONSHIP WITH THEIR FAMILY.

Travel to the right places, and you’ll see real persecution. You’ll meet people
whose relationship with Christ has cost them their relationship with their family.
You’ll talk to Christians who’ve been arrested and beaten, and yet continue to
worship Jesus though it could cost them everything.

I saw these things, and when I came back home, I began to realize comfort and
complacency were much bigger issues for the American church than persecution.
Our challenge is finding the urgency to live out our faith in a part of the world
where it’s hard to sense the need for urgency. Complacency doesn’t sound as
scary as persecution, but anything that keeps us from living the life Christ has
called us to is scary.

How to Appreciate the Little Things Churches Can Do to

Make Big Differences
It’s easy, particularly for a Bible Belt Christian like me, to view countries with a
Christian minority as somehow failing. But after my travels, I see the beauty in
small islands of believers living out their faith in a vast and occasionally hostile
sea of unbelief.

In Nagoya, Japan, I spent a few days with the pastor of a very small church in a
city of nearly 9 million people. By American standards, this small church would
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likely be viewed as struggling at best, but as the pastor took me on an early

morning prayer walk through the neighborhood, I realized they’d adopted a laser-
like focus on impacting the families within earshot of their church’s bells.

A church of 50 people might go unnoticed in a city of 9 million, but a small group

of believers dedicated to sharing the love of Christ with their neighbors can do
great things, and the ripples they make will go on further than any of us could
imagine.

What Problems Are Facing the World, and What Your Role
Is Helping to Solve Them

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Mark Twain said, “Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry and narrow-mindedness,”

and, “Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired
by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one’s lifetime.”

When you travel, you’ll meet people who live each day on less than we spend on
our morning coffee. You’ll meet people affected by the slave trade, and families
torn apart by war, and you’ll experience compassion in an entirely new way.

How your compassion will manifest itself I do not know, but I do know that many
missionaries and nonprofit founders and all-around awesome people were
inspired to change the world after going out and seeing the world.

Travel changes us for the better, and I can’t wait to see what it inspires you to do.

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3/6/2015 1:04 AM
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IntentionalTravelers commented…

We agree whole-heartedly that travel can be transformational for

Christians! My pastor in college used to say he thought every American
Christian should try to do a mission trip - not for the sake of serving even,
but more for seeing how the rest of the world lives and how we fit into
the bigger picture. As you said in point #5, we believe that travel done
right has the power to transform us into more generous, compassionate
global citizens (in other words: becoming more Christ-like).

1 COMMENT

3/6/2015 1:04 AM
2 +-
IntentionalTravelers commented…

We agree whole-heartedly that travel can be transformational for

Christians! My pastor in college used to say he thought every American
Christian should try to do a mission trip - not for the sake of serving even,
but more for seeing how the rest of the world lives and how we fit into
the bigger picture. As you said in point #5, we believe that travel done
right has the power to transform us into more generous, compassionate
global citizens (in other words: becoming more Christ-like).

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