Sunday in Mount Zion

Yesterday was my first full Sunday here (arrived Sunday evening a week ago), so I thought I'd post what goes on here, and some thoughts.

Since Living Hope is always operating in English and Tamil, there are two services every Sunday, one for each language. The English service starts at...get this: 7 a.m.! And you thought you were getting a special place in heaven making it to your local 9 a.m. Ha! 7 is actually a late start for a morning around here, because the prayer meeting that the students are required to go every weekday starts at 5. I'm usually up that early, but I haven't made it as of yet. I usually try to be up and hoppin' by 6, because that's when Magesh, one of the girls who works in the kitchen, brings me coffee, rain or shine. She'll wait for me until I answer the door, so I try not to leave her hanging.

Anyway, the English service started at about 7 (time is "flexible" in India, which means everything starts late!). The students from the Northeast make up most of the people who come to this one. We sang some hymns, and the chorus "He Is Lord". They also had a prayer time...this was especially interesting, because in the states when we have a prayer time, that usually means that everybody who wants to be prayed for comes forward. In this case, it was everybody in the service praying for stuff outside the service, which was interesting to me. Interesting side note: when it's time to pray in the service, everybody gets down on their knees. Also, everybody prays out loud at the same time, which is really cool even though I'm not used to it.

There was also a time of testimony, then Ghuna preached a message on how to be overcomers, from 2 Chron. 20:15-24. He gave three things we need to do: 1) Bow your head to the ground - vs. 18, 2) Trust in the Lord - vs. 20, and 3) Praise the Lord - vs. 21-22. Then we put it into practice and got down on our faces and prayed. It was really good.

The Tamil service started at 10. Not surprisingly, since this is a more Indian service, it started at about 20-25 after the hour, which I'm betting is right on schedule : ) Anyway, since the whole thing was in Tamil, I couldn't understand a word of it besides, "hallelujah", "Iesu", and the occasional time that Ghuna would say something in English to keep me in the loop. It was kind of funny, because at the beginning of the service, I thought there was a chance that Ghuna would introduce me and have me say something, so I was trying to look alive and interested in case he was talking about me. His typical spiel about me seems to always include something about Dad's involvement with radio, tv, and internet stuff. All of those are pretty American concepts, I guess, so whenever everybody started staring at me and I heard those words start popping up, I knew to smile and start thinking about what I was going to say whenever he got done introducing me, haha. This service followed about the same outline as the English one, but was probably 30-40 min. longer.

Okay, so some observations and thoughts. First off, music. I'm a musician, so I probably notice these things more than most, but bear with me. From what I've seen so far here, the keyboard is the instrument of choice for folks here. They usually have a drum loop going from the keyboard and then do some kind of a pad on top. Occasionally there's a guitar, and the Tamil service had a percussion guy, but the keyboard is usually it. Whoever's playing it is quite often embarassingly unprepared. For instance, in the service this morning, a girl started singing, and the guy who was playing apparently didn't know what key she was in, so he just started hitting a major chord and walking it up chromatically until he found where she was...this was while she was singing, btw. Speaking of singers, Indian singing is really kind of interesting. Everything's pitched pretty high, and the only time you hear any harmony is when they pull out a Western hymn. Most of the guys and girls who lead the singing would never even make it on stage at a church in America.

So...the music itself is less than impressive. They've also got zero powerpoint, no AC, and the electricity for the fans and sound system only works about 75% of the time. Oh, and they've got this gender separation thing going on...guys on one side, girls on the other...not cool, right? So basically, by American standards, you've got three strikes against your service before you even start.

Well let me tell you something: despite all of the technical problems, old school gender standards, etc., I felt God's presence in those services as much, if not more strongly than in just about any service I've been to in the states. These people walk into a concrete building with none of the externals that we consider to be essential, ready to worship God with everything they've got. They don't need all of our "hip" and "cool" stuff, because God's prescence is enough for them.

The question is, is it enough for us? Great music, bright lights, cool graphics, etc. are all great things, but I wonder if they haven't distracted us from the real point - God Himself....no frills, no facades, just His prescence in His people. Just something I've been thinking about...

I also had a cool little excursion with Ghuna on Sunday afternoon. We went to dedicate the site for a new church that's being built nearby. I took some pics that I'll try to post on facebook soon. The pastor and his wife have been working in the area about 3 years, and have a congregation of 50 or so, which might not sound like a ton, but Ghuna reminded me that all of those folks are converts from other religions, mainly Hinduism...not people migrating there from other churches. Exciting stuff!