Hot tin roofs and hard wooden benches Part II

Complete the following statement of cause and effect: Since God so loved us, we also ought to .......... (1John 4:11)  Logically, one would expect to complete the statement with "... we also ought to love him." However, John's conclusion is "....we also ought to love one another." Ah! 

Maybe that means our relationship with God is mediated through people. Maybe God reveals himself in the revels of his people, and my categorizing of the spiritual/holy/God-aware experiences being found in the silence of a gothic edifice is a mis-expectation. Maybe God is there in the heat and the sweat and the dust and the noise and the laughter and the performance of the Sunday service - which for me is such a trial.

Some church services at home touch God but not people. Maybe we touch more of people here but less of God. But maybe that's my perception and not theirs.

For all my subjective reactions to church services here, I am aware that the church members see it differently. The lengthy time given to welcoming visitors individually provides a sense of belonging to a body of believers.

By giving and receiving greetings from other CECA churches, Christians feel connected to a larger organisation. They are not alone. When they travel to other places they join in worship with the family. They have an awareness of the bigger world when people report where they've been on their travels.

When people come as displaced people from areas of militia activity they are welcomed.

The many singing numbers are a means of teaching for the church. The service leader summarizes the content and explains what they are teaching. Often the groups have composed a song to match the theme of the sermon.

What other way is there of keeping the church members in the information loop except to give out the notices orally? Through them the body corporate learns of the activities of the body individual.

And when Pastor Yanga preaches, I benefit. He creates verbal pictures, he brings along visual aids, and he aims for maximum participation. He spends a lot of time setting the scene, explaining the vocabulary, asking for people to read aloud from as many versions of the Bible as are present. I sense an 'awakeness' in the congregation when he preaches. I certainly don't have to battle with sleep. He's very concrete, visual and focussed in his presentation. He has a loud voice and clear Swahili which helps me! Pastor Yanga tells stories and gets people laughing but has a punch line. He'd probably do well on stage because he's a bit of an actor, and with a microphone in his hand he makes a good DJ! He's passionate and very much concerned with the application of the one truth that he presents.

Those Sundays, I don't fight sleep and I don't wonder where the benefit was.

Three cheers for Pastor Yanga!

Blessings