Victory

It’s shocked me a little that I think we hear the word “victory” a lot more in church here. I see three contributing factors. First, the word for victory is very similar to the word for “white people,” with just a slight tonal difference separating them. I’m told there’s no connection between the words. But still we hear the one word all the time walking or driving down the street as almost everyday someone will shout out, look a white person/foreigner! So I notice every time they say victory in church because my mind always questions whether they’re talking about me or talking about victory.

The second factor is that I think the church circles that I’m used to in the US are fairly sensitive to how the swagger of victors is antithetical to making others feel affirmed as loved by God. With the negative lessons of history it can smack of crusading warriors committing war-crimes because they feel specially chosen to do what they want. From Job to Paul we see that afflicted people of faith should not talk lightly of victory, but need to do so in a way that shows victory is not a sign that they’ve done something special/righteous, and that God is just as much with the afflicted and non-victorious looking. But having made all those picky distinctions about the concept of victory, I think the mainline church has lost an important concept which now is mostly heard of only in a few Easter hymns. This is all to say I’m not used to hearing it much in US churches.

Thirdly, I think people really do talk about victory here more often because people see God doing more that they couldn’t expect to do on their own. I was reminded of the difference this week when I heard a surprising story from our partner church. They’ve endeavored to place a church in all the 52 regions where they don’t have a church in five years. They planned to start with the biggest cities and some places close to the heart of the church. Last on the list of priorities was a difficult region and specifically the town that is the most under attack from terrorist groups. But a few months ago someone knocked on the pastor’s door of the church in the nearest big city to this area, and wanted to let the pastor know he now has a church in that town! A military commander who is part of the force from a neighboring country and is the son of a pastor had decided that his demoralized troops and this town needed to hear the hope of Jesus. So he gathered a dozen Christian soldiers for worship on Sunday. Gradually they added wounded soldiers staying in the town who were curious and then some locals that wanted to know more. Now they have a church of 60 people, and asked for the pastor from the nearest big city to come once a month with a military escort to celebrate communion. Just another example of God having the victory in a place where the church felt they had no power or plans.

The house of an old evangelist and his humble sign of
who has the victory.