One Big Irish Family — James & Molly Bass

Hi ya'll, I just need to start out by saying how much we miss all of you during this Christmas season. We are surrounded by the greatest friends and family, both in America and around the world, but not getting to be with you face to face during the holidays tugs at our heart strings. Even though we won't get to hug you tight and spend hours on the couch chatting about life these next few weeks, you are continually loving us so well from a far. Just today I was messaging with a dear friend who was encouraging us and asking how she could specifically be praying for us and the church. Two days ago, we got to skype with our hero/big brother in the faith Jeremy West, which always leads us to a better place. There are countless moments in between where we receive messages, e-mails, and even replies left on our blogs just to say we are missed, loved, and covered in prayer. Thank you!!! What may take 2 seconds for you to type out completely changes the state of our hearts for the rest of the day. Being a missionary and a good plane ride away from home isn't easy, but with you as our cheering section it's so much better!

The Church

One of my all time favorite subjects/things/words in the entire world is the church. When I say "church" there are dozens of images that come to people's minds: for many it's a building or beautiful cathedral, for some it's an image of a bunch of old ladies with too much makeup carrying a casserole fresh out of the oven. Sadly, for too many people in my generation, "church" can conjure up an image of a place they used to belong but no longer need or desire. Throughout my 24 years, there's been a good few pictures that would have come to mind regarding church.

Nowadays my job/my life/my 24/7 is the church. That's sorta the ways things go as a missionary. Not to say we live in the building or don't take sabbaths, cause we do and we need to, but the line between church life and home life is very thin. When I ask myself now what image comes to mind when I think of the church, it springs to mind so quickly and vividly there's no question, it's family. Now that's a word that the Bible used to describe the early church over and over again in the New Testament. I always read it and thought, "Man, that's what the church should be, that's what it should feel like: family." When I was in college I was a part of this amazing college ministry that began teaching me what that looked like for the church to be family, except that the extent of the "church family" I did life with were almost all between the ages of 18-24. However I began to understand then that the people I saw at church, hung out with, asked hard questions with weren't just church friends. No, we were WAY deeper than that; they were my brothers and sisters. Our relationship was way to strong to be named anything else.

And so at the ripe age of 22, I think I would have said that I understood the church being a family. At that point I would have understood what Paul meant when he referred constantly to his brothers and sisters in Christ in his letters.

But then...

I moved to Ireland and stepped through the doors of Alive Church. It was just me and James. We were friendless, familyless, and we knew no one in a town of 10,000, not to mention the entire country. The faces we saw our first Sunday welcomed us and embraced us. They cooked meals for us, called to check on us when we were sick, and always made sure to ask us about our families. They never missed a birthday, holiday, or important date for us and consistently found the craziest and best ways to bless us.

And pretty soon, before I even knew it, I had a family here in Ireland.

They are a family that include younger brothers and sisters, older brothers and sisters, moms and dads, even grandparents. They are a family made up of not only Irish people but people from all over the world who have ended up here at Alive Church.

Even though they aren't perfect and we aren't perfect, man, the way they love is relentless. It's Jesus, ya'll. Purely Jesus letting his love spill out into each other's lives.

It's 1 John 4:12 coming to life "No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us."

In Mark 12:49-40 Jesus says it this way "And stretching out his hands to his disciples, he said, 'here are my mother and my brothers! For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother."

Coming Home

A month and a half ago I got to go to Florida and visit my sister Mackenzie. It was such a sweet time for me. But one of the harder things about going was leaving James alone at the house and church, with plenty of ministry stuff to do, missing his partner in crime, while I was at Disney World with my family. It was looking to be a rough week for him. Everyone at church assured me that they were going to take care of him. I trusted them, completely!

We had been talking early one day and he had said that one of the families at our church had invited him over for dinner that evening, so they could make sure he was well fed and loved on. One of the most beautiful moments that came out of that whole week was a text I received from him later on that day once he arrived there. It was a picture of the house belonging to that family at our church, and under it he had simply wrote "Home."

Just like that, all my worries about him vanished, because I knew he was safe at home with our Irish family.

Giving It Another Shot

Some of you may know exactly how we feel here in Ireland. Your church may be your family right now. Others of you used to know what having a church family felt like but have since lost it, either through your church changing or even finding yourself in a new church. And then there are others of you who may read this and think "I've never known a church to be my family, not even close."

Wherever you may be on this spectrum, I just want to encourage you that the church can be a family. This is what Jesus created the church to be. A place where anybody can come, with whatever crap they are carrying, and lay the burden of it all down and run into the arms of people who will embrace them no matter what. I believe there are still local churches who look like this in the world, for you and for your family. Alive Church in little Enniscorthy, Ireland isn't the only one but they are one of my favorites.

So my challenge for you would be to find a church family if you are without one. To create this where you are if you find it lacking in your local church. To pray this into your church if you feel like it was a place that once looked like a family but no longer does. I promise, it will be worth it, when one day you step through the doors of your church, gaze at the faces of those around you, and say to yourself "I'm home."