Chad Gibbs - Jesus Without Borders

A hilarious account of spiritual globetrotting, Jesus without Borders is an insightful travelogue on how local culture shapes Christian culture around the world.

JONATHAN MERRITT, author, Jesus Is Better Than You Imagined; senior columnist, Religion News Service

I love how Chad Gibbs sees the world and God, and how he translates that onto these pages for the rest of us to learn from, laugh at, and genuinely enjoy. Im grateful for his words and for his journey and for this book.

ANNIE F. DOWNS, author, Lets All Be Brave

Faith is not just what we believe. Its a product of our environment and upbringing and a hundred other factors. And maybe, as Chad shares in this book, thats not such a bad thing. A faith that isnt affected by where you are and who youre with is just dead orthodoxy; Jesus without Borders gives you something much more vibrant to hold onto. I loved the writing and the message in this book.

JEFF GOINS, author, The Art of Work

Using humor, insight, and a well-stamped passport, Gibbs explores the lenses through which we look at our faith, and sparks our imagination to wonder what we might discover if we had the courage to look beyond our cultural biases and see Jesus with new eyes.

SARAH THEBARGE, author, The Invisible Girls

ZONDERVAN

Jesus without Borders

Copyright 2015 by Chad Gibbs

This title is not available on papyrus scroll.

Requests for information should be addressed to:

Zondervan, 3900 Sparks Dr. SE, Grand Rapids, Michigan 49546

ePub Edition March 2015: ISBN 978-0-310-34218-2

All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from The Holy Bible, New International Version, NIV. Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Any Internet addresses (websites, blogs, etc.) and telephone numbers (e.g., 867-5309) in this book are offered as a resource. They are not intended in any way to be or imply an endorsement by Zondervan, nor does Zondervan vouch for the content of these sites and numbers for the life of this book, nor does Zondervan endorse the authors bizarre obsession with Billy D. Williams.

All rights reserved. Including the right to remain silent if you do not enjoy this book, along with the right to party, which you gotta fight for. No part of this publication may be reproduced, used as a doorstop, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any meanselectronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, smoke signal, or any otherexcept for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior permission of the publisher.

Authors note: Some of the names in this book have been changed. Not legally, mind you; I dont have that sort of authority. The names have been changed only in the pages of this book, and this was done by request, not because I thought the persons parents did a poor job naming them.

Cover design: Jarrod Taylor

Interior photography: Chad Gibbs

Interior design: Mark Sheeres

First printing January 2015

As always,
for Tricia

CONTENTS

This is an interesting planet. It deserves all the
attention you can give it.

Marilynne Robinson, Gilead

W hen I was seven, I asked Santa Claus for the USS Flagg, a Nimitz-class aircraft carrier used by the real American heroes of G.I. Joe in their fight against Cobra. At seven and a half feet long, this was perhaps the largest toy ever manufactured, and throughout the fall, I spent hours staring at photographs of it in the Sears Wish Book. Santa, however, in his infinite wisdom, realized my room wasnt big enough to hold the USS Flagg and my bed at the same time. Santa also made the logical assumption that my parents, like most adults, did not want to spend the next three years with an aircraft carrier for a coffee table. So on Christmas morning, I received a bunch of size-appropriate toys and a light-up globe.

The globe was not my favorite gift that morning. In fact it was my least favorite gift that wasnt socks. Globes, as you may know, dont do a whole lot. I remember spinning it a few times, finding a country named Chad, then briefly considering painting it gray and pretending it was the Death Star, but the scale was all off. So instead I just set it on my nightstand and wondered how good a kid would have to be before Santa brought him a USS Flagg.

I dont recall exactly when the tradition began, but soon after Christmas, and every night for a long time, my sister and I would turn off the lights, switch on the globe, and spin the glowing orb, stopping it seconds later with our finger on the spot where we would live when we grew up.

Im going to live in Saudi Arabia.

Im going to live in Chile.

Im going to live in Greenland.

Im going to live adrift in the Atlantic Ocean.

Water has always been a problem for globe-spinning expatriate predictions, since it covers about 70 percent of the earths surface, but we never cared, because it gave us another chance to spin what eventually became my favorite gift of Christmas 1985.

I didnt read a lot of books as a kid, but I spent hours flipping through our ten-year-old set of World Book Encyclopedia. Id read about all sorts of things like dinosaurs and the Teapot Dome Scandal, but mostly Id read about the countries my globe prophesied Id live in one day. Places with the tallest mountains and bluest lakes and driest deserts Id ever seen. It all looked so different from Glencoe, Alabama, but it all felt so close, because my globe made the world feel smaller. Of course Ill see Poland one day. Why wouldnt I visit Mongolia? Never mind that my parents had never left the country and Id never been farther from home than Panama City Beach, Florida. I was going to see the world. I knew it.

Let the record show that globes are terrible prognosticators. When I married Tricia in 2005, I was twenty-seven years old and had lived my entire life in Alabama. Id never been to Poland. Id never seen Mongolia. Id never left the country, and not only that, Id never even left the South.

Our honeymoon changed this, but not drastically. We flew from Birmingham to the Bahamas, an island chain you can spit on from Miami if the wind is favorable. At that time, you didnt even need a passport to visit the Bahamas, just a copy of your birth certificate and a smile. We spent all of our time there in an all-inclusive luxury resort, though from what I gathered on the high-speed van ride from the airport, luxury is not a word associated with everyday Bahamian life. But in our defense, this was our honeymoon. We didnt exactly go there to soak up local culture.

I was thirty-one before I finally left the South. Tricia had a week off during her medical residency and I planned a whirlwind trip that took us to Washington, D.C., New York City, and Boston, all by car, because over the years Id built up a healthy fear of air travel, a fear our bumpy honeymoon flight had done nothing to alleviate.

Fear had played a major role in my lack of travel through the years. With work, I had opportunities to fly to conferences in exotic places like Des Moines or Milwaukee, but I always declined because there were people out there who hijacked airplanes and crashed them into buildings. And I certainly didnt want to leave America, because those people who hate America live outside of America, and they would be waiting on me. Home was familiar and safe, and I was happy never to leave it.