Spending nearly four months in Costa Rica this fall was my lesson in the amazing power of ecumenism. There are no Disciples churches in Costa Rica, and mainline protestant churches are hard to find, so I divided my worship time between Catholic and Evangelical churches, learning the lessons of scripture in another language and the transformative power of rituals different from my own. I sang songs in praise of the God of the whole world and was fed by the Holy Spirit moving through the words of my bilingual and thus often ineloquent prayers.

I also saw firsthand the damage caused when the defining factors of the church are exclusion and division. At one church, I was not invited to the Lord’s table, because I am an uninitiated sinner. At the other, I felt the pain of others who, in order to reconceive their faith, were required to reject their family traditions and claim those family members lost until converted. Both churches stake their identity on being different from each other, and so there is no hope for ecumenism or even dialogue.

Our churches are not perfect; humanity all too rarely gets it right when creating structures for the worship of the Holy. However, we have a rich heritage of acceptance, the idea that we cannot earn God’s grace because it is given to every child of God in more measure than we ever could deserve. I value what I learned from the churches I visited in Costa Rica and the help they gave me along my effort towards true ecumenism. And I am so grateful that ours is a church also on a journey.