I’ve heard you can learn a lot about the culture you live in by leaving it. This is, of course, the gist of what happens on a mission trip, the perspective-widening experience of living among people with different skin color and food and lives. I say “I’ve heard” because I wouldn’t know. I’ve never been on a mission trip.Never.

Given my ministry life you’d think I’d have traveled somewhere to be “missional’ but my current mission field is toward the three little unbelievers (not counting the puppy) that I live with every day.

So as many of my peers find their perspective widened over time, visiting far-flung places, even staying for a year or two, my “worldview” has shrunk, tightened down to fulfilling the call to love through holding onto little plump jam hands and mastering the “don’t make me count to three” discipline technique.

But I don’t think I need a passport to see the differences in culture among us. A road trip from Virginia to Alabama will do it for me. On leg one of today’s journey, we pulled into a Wendy’s, in a Wal-Mart town. You know, a Wal-Mart town. I’ve lived in a couple. The Wal-Mart is the new county seat of all rural towns. You can recognize its prominence by the clustering of fast food restaurants and community events around it. So tonight, as I swung the Wendy’s door open, I noticed a flyer that looked mimeographed taped to the front: “Gospel Singing, Tuesday Night, to support Church of God building fund.”

Let me break down the culture shock:

1. Gospel Singing
2. At a Wendys
3. For a building fund.

My church has been in building mode for a while, and when we talk building fund, we use words like “capital campaign” and think about “momentum” and “influence.” We develop “collateral” and plan a “roll-out”. We use graphic designers.

Our church would be more likely to plan a “coffeehouse” event than meet at a place where you order by number. It’s not just the church—it’s the whole city. I can’t imagine asking a Wendy’s in Richmond if we could set up a seven-piece band and belt out some old timey hymns.

And the gospel singing? I’m not sure how our worship bands could perform, what with the acoustics in a fast food restaurant, plus trying to arrange a sound check around the dinner rush? And ketchup and the inevitable oriental rug they’d need to roll out surely don’t mix.

I poke fun at us, not because it’s wrong, just because it’s culture. We all swim in our own aquariums, so much so we don’t even recognize the water or the walls surrounding us, just assume, maybe, that it’s like this everywhere.

I’m ashamed that my first response to the Wendy’s Gospel Sing for a building fund is to give a little cultured laugh behind my hand, to smirk in a condescending way, to think of how blown away they’d be by our sound and stage and lights and capital campaigns.

Then I looked, really looked.

The band was happy.

The gospel singers were happy.

The three little girls who took a run for the “stage” with every VBS song and dance they knew certainly were full of joy. (Although there is no excuse for a VBS song with the lyrics, “Splish, Splash, it’s a Bible Bash.” I cannot let that slide, no pun intended)

The folks in that restaurant on a Tuesday night were sharing life. Giving of themselves and their gifts, belting out VBS songs on a plugged-in keyboard, accompanied by a wavering flute that was used as a drum major baton as often as it was blown into.

Over cheeseburgers, slurping sodas.

Patting babies on the back and clapping vigorously for one another.

Who am I to judge? To compare? To call one better than the other?

We don’t have to judge each other’s subcultures. We don’t have to figure out if raising hands in worship or keeping them still brings you closer to God. We don’t have to answer about tithing through online accounts, or dropping a five into a shoebox wrapped in paper with a hand-written sign.

The love was striking, and the food gave me a stomachache.

Sounds like a mission trip to me.