One of my first years at Northbrook, in worship one day, I was sitting in the back pew and my attention kept being drawn to whispering. Someone was talking constantly. My eyes began searching for the whisperer and landed pretty quickly on a man and wife that I knew. It’s important to note that Spanish was their first and main language. And there they sat with the husband translating every word of the service into Spanish for his precious wife – creeds, announcements, prayers, scripture, and the sermon in its entirety. They were lovingly leaning into one another and he whispered the whole service to her in Spanish. 

It was one of the more beautiful things I’ve ever seen happen in our Sanctuary. He took what was literally a foreign language and translated it so she could understand it. He did it with love and patience, making sure that this person he cared for so deeply was able to understand God and our worship of Him.

It got me thinking that THAT is the crux of what we are called to do as Christians. We are supposed to take this Word of God that is complicated and so difficult to understand and translate it to those God cares for so deeply. We are to take this language that is foreign to so many and lovingly lean into one another and help them understand. We are to tell them through words, example, actions, and our treatment of others that they are valued by God, they are loved beyond their imagination, and there is so much power and wonder to be found in our Lord. WE are called to translate God to those who find God foreign and difficult to understand.

And as parents, we are called to do this same work for our children. We are to take the lessons of God that seem complicated or hard and show them daily life lived with God’s love, joy, understanding, compassion, forgiveness, and service. We are to show them the love of the Father through OUR love as their parents. We are to be the translators of God into the hearts of our children, our Mom friends, our work friends, random people in the park who are struggling, and even the person in your life who you do NOT “get” as a person (haha). 

It won’t be done by yelling the “right way” at them. It won’t be done by enumerating all the ways we think they are wrong, using this difficult Word as our proof. It won’t be done by sharing the things we already know with people who already know them.  

It will be done by lovingly leaning into people and remembering that they are the ones God cares for so deeply – even if they are different, even if they find God to be ridiculously difficult to understand, even if they are difficult to understand. Lean in lovingly and translate His love.

May it be so,

Leslie Bowers
​Director of Worship Arts