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One Real Expression of God WorldwideThe local churches are real. After spending my entire lifetime in the local churches, I finally came to this epiphany in the summer of 2001. I grew up going to meetings in the local churches because my mother began meeting with the local churches when I was two. I had nothing else to compare it to and I took it for granted. I attended many different retreats and conferences that gathered hundreds to thousands of believers from local churches around the world, but I always hung out with my buddies at those gatherings.
As part of a graduation present to myself, I went to Russia for a month in June and July of 2001. There I met with three different local churches in Moscow, Orel and St. Petersburg. When I was there, I was struck, for the first time, at the wonderful harmony and oneness that I had seen in North America as a young person. The meetings were virtually the same; the spirit was the same, the speaking was the same, and the believers were the same (except that they spoke Russian).
At that point, I realized that God is very real and the local churches are very real. I began to consider and come to the conclusion that the only things that can span all cultures, ethnicities, races etc. and still be uniform are well-established facts and theories, such as science and math. Everything else is subject to cultural variations and nuances. God is surely a fact, so why would a church in Detroit vary so much from a church in Bratislav? God is the same in Anchorage and in Zaire, therefore the Church should be expressed uniformly in various cities and countries, right? God is real and since all the local churches across the globe express the same thing, that must make them real too!
Hallelujah! The local churches are real and so enjoyable! They are truly the expression of the one God on earth.
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