A Sabbath Post

Well, this is certainly way overdue.  I thought I would write one post dedicated to some of our church experiences.  We've now had 19 Sundays on the road--really can't believe that!  I think I've put this one off so long for a number of reasons.  First of all, these will be only my opinions (mine, not the girls or Mike), so most likely I will offend someone.  Secondly, we learn a little more as we go so I keep waiting for that perfect time when I've figured it all out :).  And also, this post requires a little more thought so it's hard to find sufficient time for it.  I'll do my best with the time I have, but know that it will be a "good enough" post like all my others.  Finally, I'm sure this will be filled with generalizations and comments that imply I have it all figured out--know that neither of these is intended.

There--I think those are all of my disclaimers.  Now you have the choice to read on or skip!

First some pictures of our various experiences and then some summary thoughts:

In Passekudah, Sri Lanka, we visited this small Methodist church.  Chairs for the old and visitors, but the rest sat on the floor.  This was typical of many Indian/Nepali/Sri Lankan churches.

Singing from her Tamil songbook

In Bangkok, we attended Calvary Baptist Church with an American pastor and services in English.

In Cromwell, New Zealand we celebrated Easter Sunday at this small Lakeside Church.

In Kalibo, Philippines we attended this one year old church.  It's called the Victory church throughout the Philippines and is part of Every Nation.

Here we are with pastor Fil and his wife, Derry.  Young, dynamic couple who were working hard to build up this church.

They use the third floor of this building

In Pagudpud, Philippines we visited Bethel Church.  Kind of surreal to be congregationally singing Jesus Take the Wheel in the Philippines.

In Pune, India we joined a small house church.

In Pondicherry, India we visited Hallelujah Assembly of God.  This is where we arrived 1/2 hour early, only because of miscommunication.  At most of the other churches, we've followed our pattern of being a few minutes late.

In Sydney, we attended one of Hillsong Church's congregations.  The girls and I really enjoyed their service so we went there both weeks.  We even went back in the evening to hear Christine Caine preach--one of my favorite speakers.

Inside Hillsong

While visiting Dignity in the Philippines, we attended this house church.

This was their very creative drum set--paint lids for drums and a gas container for the bass drum.  Unfortunately there was no drummer the week we visited.

This young girl, Camille, had a beautiful voice and led the singing along with a teenage boy on guitar--you can just see him behind her.  This "stage" area is normally the family's outdoor eating area.

After church fellowship time.  The women were busy preparing lunch in the kitchen just to the left of here.

Yesterday we attended So Mang Presbyterian Church, a large congregation in Seoul.  Yoido Full Gospel Church in Seoul is the world's largest congregation with over 800,000 members and has a more contemporary worship.  This was a much more traditional service with choir, robes, pipe organ.

The outside of the church.  Services are held every two hours from 7:30 am until 7:30 pm (the same pastor speaks at all of them with no break!).  The parking lots and streets around the church were just packed with people.  In addition to services on Sunday, they have prayer services every day of the week.

These are the ones I captured pictures of, but we've had lots of other experiences, including holding our own "church".  On the island of Koh Lanta in Thailand, we researched thoroughly and couldn't find one Christian church on the island (wouldn't be a bad spot to be a missionary...!).

Here are my random thoughts and observations, in no particular order or level of importance, other than the first one:

• Jesus is the hope and light for the world.  This has really been solidified for me.  We've observed lots of different religions--Hinduism and Buddhism mostly.  I so admire the devotion of the followers (and I can certainly learn something from that), but I saw this emptiness and hopelessness and sometimes even darkness.  People bowing down over and over and offering sacrifices to statues of either imaginary gods or people who are dead and can be of no help to them.  Jesus is wanting to bring light and hope into these people's lives.  It's been striking as we've been among Christian communities to see the difference in the joy that's among them.  We attended a church in Goa, India where the pastor talked about Jesus' glory and asked "Have you seen it?".  For me, just that one thought put it all together that that's what we all need to see and is the missing piece in all these other religions.
• Friendliness seems to be dependent on the individual congregation, not its size.  Of course, we've stood out most every place we've gone!  We've had a few churches where no one came up and spoke to us.  I got the sense sometimes that people were uncomfortable because we're from a different culture.  We really just wanted someone to smile and say hi.  So a good reminder to me to at least do that much.  We were invited to lunch by a couple at City Church in Christchurch (and she magically came up with enough food to feed all six of us!).  Many smaller churches asked us to introduce ourselves.  One church asked us to sit in the front (not our favorite gesture).  Two young women at very large Hillsong spotted the girls and walked up to invite them to the youth service.  I was very impressed by that one--because they were young and because it was a much harder place to spot visitors.  A few churches provided gift bags (the one with candy bars was our personal favorite).  
• We've seen some interesting twists on things.  We appreciated the worship team singers who had microphones, but stood on our level facing the stage so it became more about the music and less about watching them (there was still one worship leader on stage that we could follow).  
• We've come across a surprising number of women speakers and guest speakers--and some of them were from the U.S. which was a bummer in a way.
• We've had many discussions about excellence vs. authenticity.  In an ideal world, it would be both.  It's sometimes very distracting when the singer's out of key or the sound system is WAY too loud or the instrumentalists are struggling, but there's also a sweetness in "Giv[ing] of your best to the master" as the old hymn says.  And it's great to have high quality music, but then the distraction sometimes becomes whether this is about them or God.
• It's been interesting to have discussions with the girls and hear more about what speaks to them when they worship.  I'm most surprised (pleasantly) by how they're looking for teaching from the Bible and pick up on it very quickly when it's just about fun and nothing deeper.
• Speaking of the girls, Trina's been a trooper about going to kids' church when someone grabs her hand and leads her away.
• I cry almost every Sunday!  There's something really beautiful about the body of Christ all around the world, worshipping in different ways, at different times, with different gifts.  We're all broken (I especially think of the woman at one church who was more interested in knowing WHO was causing problems in another woman's life rather than praying for her--don't we all want to know that kind of dirt?!), but we're all offering up what we have.
• In general, we've had strong messages from the Bible.  Disappointing to speak with one pastor who was also operating an ashram so people could explore their spirituality however they wanted, rather than pointing them to Jesus.  
• Unlike West Michigan where many people have grown up in Christianity and it's an accepted thing, we've heard many stories of people sacrificing a lot to be a Christian (status, family, $$).  We've also heard stories of realizing Jesus' power through a miraculous healing.
• And of course, we have our funny moments.  Hearing the girls beg "Please, PLEASE don't make us walk into that tiny church!"  Or the man in one church who was enthusiastically clapping and dancing but way off beat.

So there you have it.  I'm sure I'll come up with many other thoughts the minute I hit send, but these are the ones that come to mind. We continue to pray that God will use all these interactions with His Church to draw us a little closer to Him.