As a missionary, how are you supposed to treat the church that you are serving in?
We are trying to be a part of the body, but we DONT understand what's being preached, or prayed.
We can't spiritually fellowship with people there. We can friendship fellowship with them, but we can't invest in them spiritually because we don't understand what was just said so we can't encourage them in how God spoke through the message.
The Biggest thing really though is:
We ourselves want to go to church to grow, serve, fellowship, and learn. we don't have anything to pour out into people because we don't get poured into.
Are we just being selfish, or prideful? Or is this something we shouldn't worry about?
The reason I'm asking is because today after service, The pastor asked Amanda if she learned any new words from the message. Amanda told him that it was honestly hard to concentrate through the heat and she can't really piece together anything and she doesn't want to treat church like a Japanese class. After he went on to lecture about learning Japanese, and then encouraged us to start having vision for events and whatnot.
I personally was bothered that the question was about Japanese and it completely ignored ANY spiritual investment in us. Is it wrong that I'm teaching kids messages bilingual because my daughter doesn't speak or understand Japanese? Is it undermining his ministry? Should I stop? If so then what do I do with my daughter who i want to make sure knows Jesus in her heart, mind, and spirit? Because all those things have clearly stopped for us, should I do the same with my family at church?
If we are serving at the church, are we separate from the body? We certainly feel like it.
Please share your thoughts on the subject.
