Sunday Church

Before I get into telling you about my church service today, which wasn't all that different from all the other services we've been to, I have to introduce you to a few people.  One, is a lady who sits in the 3rd row back.  She looks about a 100, although I'm sure the hard life she's lived has made her age faster than her years.  I don't know her name, but let's call her Anne.  Another character is usually found in the back few rows.  He's a good looking gentleman in his middle years who has a loud tenor voice, let's call him Philip.  The last person I need for you to meet is the lead singer in a 12 person praise team.  He's in his late twenties, and despite his lack of height, he's a well-dressed, articulate man of whom there is nothing to complain about.  I'll call him Carl. 

So, church for us starts at 10 am.  I arrived and sat near the back in case I needed to run for the bushes (the toilets are way too far) or Em gets fussy.  My vantage point is wonderful as I'm on the aisle and can see most of what's going on.  None of the lights are on because there is no power this morning.  Not unusual for Joburg, so Carl tells us that despite the electrical set back, the singers are going to sing what they practiced, and if we didn't know the words to the songs, just sing.  So we sing the first song, which is lively enough.  Carl starts making little bunny hops here and there.  Then, the second song is one of those where the women sing the verse, and then the men repeat it.  The girls sang, and it was loud.  Then the men sang, and they were trying their hardest to outdo us women folk.  They succeeded by a long shot, which then led to a number of women 'rejoicing' in a way that most of us will never hear until we get to heaven.  It was fantastic, but then the chorus came, which was just "Hallelujah" repeated.  On the third hallelujah, the lights came on, the overhead started blinking and cheers went up like they just found out that South Africa made it to the World Cup final match.  I've never been in a church where so many people were cheering so loudly.  The band started playing, with way too much bass, so the congregation responded by singing more loudly.  By this point, Carl looks like Gwen Stephani jumping and dancing all over the stage and down the aisle.  At this point, Anne (who has the same spirit and spunk as Anne from "Anne of Green Gables"... just minus the red hair) joins in the dancing with Carl.  She waves her hanky up and down the aisles praising the Lord the whole way.  It's a scene that you can't help but be joyful and excited by.  Then the next song, which is more lively than the first two, and Carl is sweating through his dress shirt and suit jacket from all his jumping and waving and dancing.  Anne is still all over the aisle, with kids now following her lead.  Unless they were too old and feeble, or had a baby in their arms, every hand in the place was raised or clapping or both.  This went on until 11:15, the whole time, the energy in the place is just building and building.  Then, the pastor comes to pray.  Our pastor is a long-winded fellow who is very poetic and beautiful in his prayers.  He gets about three words into his prayer when I realize that Philip is praying his own prayer.  There's nothing much odd about that, especially since many people 'amen' and 'praise the Lord' during prayers.  Philip, however, had a different idea.  His prayer was loud and it was a synopsis of the entire Bible:  God gave his son, one son, born to a woman, died under Pilot... and so on.  The prayer ended, and Philip seemed to quiet for a bit, but didn't sit down as everyone else did. 

We had guests at church today.  They were called "Itemba" and they are a group with Youth For Christ from all over who sing and dance and do skits.  They have been here in South Africa for a few months, and then they are off to Germany for another 7 months.  We were their last stop.  They get up to some hip-hop music I know my roommate in college used to play, and suddenly, Philip is back praying/praising the Lord.  He's shouting and dancing all at once, and Anne starts swaying in her seat.  The group preforms a particularly hard move and half the congregation stands to 'rejoice' again and cheer them on.  This goes on, the same reactions, throughout the next 45 minutes of the group's skits and stories and dances.  

For this small-town, Nazarene who knew all about the "old" ways of no dancing, no movies, no face cards, and all the rest... this was so freeing!  I learned in Caravans all about the foundations of the church and how it was formed for and by prostitutes, drunks, gamblers and the likes.  I knew about their tent revivals that would last for hours and how there would be many women who would rejoice up and down the aisles waving their hankies and spontaneously praising the Lord... but knowing and experiencing are two totally different things!  Now, I'm not saying Eldorado's way is "the right way" or worship.  I'm not saying that the Nazarene way I grew up in is "the right way" either.  I am saying, however, that I wish those of you back in the States could taste, just for an hour or two, what it must have been like to be under the tent with Phineas F. Breese and all those hankies wavers who remembered how much their God loved them, and all the sacrifices He had made so that they could be under that tent.  There is a spirit of awareness here that I haven't experienced in a very long time.  Those people today, Anne and Carl and Philip- they didn't care what they looked like or how they sounded or how crazy they acted.  All they cared about was that their God knew they were thankful.  It was powerful and challenging and heart warming all at once.  Maybe for some of you, you experience this in your quiet times or on your way to work while belting out praise and worship songs.  For this tactile/visual learner with attention deficit disorder, this was just the encouragement I needed to focus more on God and what He thinks of me, rather than looking to those around me first.