Certain people came down from Judea

A few years ago I took two refugee families  to an Austrian church as they had showed some interest in Christianity. I had taken them along to this church because I knew that there was a guy in the church who spoke the same mother tongue as these refugees. On arriving at the church my friend told me that normally he is in the Austrian church to focus on the Austrian church, but this time for me he will make an exemption. I was a bit put off by his response at the time. And I would not be blogging on it, if I had come to the conclusion that he was right then, with what he said.

Sometimes I feel that this is the mindset of the Austrian believers. Their job is to minister and share their faith and try to make converts of their Austrian friends and work mates. They want their church full of Austrian new believers. But not so much have a heart to see converts amongst the Turks and Bosnians who are two of the larger minority groups that life in Austria.
A fellow missionary once told me over coffee, that he feels that we as Austrian Christians that we should be telling people about Jesus and accepting people into our Austrian churches, no matter what there nationality, skin colour or how good they speak German. However there is still an emphasis on converting Austrians for the Austrian church.

Sometimes I feel that Refmin are the Paul and Barnabas of Christian work in Austria, while the Evangelical church like to comfort of Peter and eating at the table of Austrians.

Today the Temperatures of Vienna reached close to 38 degrees. Yet 4 refugees from the camp made the 15 minute trek through the hot sun, the woman carrying there small children from the Refugee camp to the local Austrian church. Only one of the Refugees could speak German of any note.
But all of them had come to faith in their home countries, 3 of them had been members of under ground churches in the middle East and wanted to attend an Open church.
I asked one of the mother how had she found the service, since she did not understand a lick of German. She said that she had felt the godly atmosphere, and was happy to be able to attend and take part in communion.

I think we can have the best of intentions, and the best strategies to reach our neighbours, our friends, people like us. But God does not work on racial boundaries, or just works in the heart of our friend, workmates. But all creation is his. And I think he is here to surprise us with who he brings to our doors of our church, who he brings to our countries.
The Jerusalem council had the problem of what to do with all these Gentile churches popping up everywhere.  The Austrian Church and the Christian Church's of the world need to to tackle the problem of 'others' wanting to come into their churches to worship. This includes Christians who have come to our countries on boats, who have hidden their true identities, who do not look like us, who speak our language badly.