Worship As One

Cultural Worship is every Sunday evening at 6:00 here on the "compound" ( and Jacque, no, they haven't given us any Kool-Aide to drink yet). It gives us a chance to experience what "church" will be like in other cultures.
Two weeks ago we had Latin American night. Yours truly had the honor of playing the keyboard for the service. We had 3 guitars, drums, a bass guitar, shakers, and I even got to play bongos for one song! The entire service was presented in Spanish. We had thought we would be using an overhead projector to give them the words to the songs so they could follow along, but at the last minute we were told that there would be no dependence on audio/visual equipment as a crutch for our worship time. I was reminded of the words our Minister of Missions, Jeremy, used to say to us..."You can't just be flexible...that is too rigid. Be FLUID!!!" So, it was an eye-opening experience for people who had never been in a Spanish only environment. No doubt Ken was thinking, "I better really pick up the Spanish quick in Costa Rica." Another interesting "non-Western" idea is that childcare is NOT provided in most other cultures during church services. This proved to be very interesting as well during the Latin American night as I looked up while playing bongos to see my 2-year-old running down the aisle toward the stage saying "Me play! Me play!"

Last Sunday we had African worship night. We went outside and sat on the hill by the gazebo with the lake as the backdrop to the setting. The women wore long dresses or skirts like the African women would wear, and even some of the men who had been to Africa wore skirts like the natives would, or at least the ones really comfortable with their masculinity. So the men sat on one side and the women and children on the other side. At this point I am thinking Ken considers it payback for having to watch Cade by himself the week before. It went well though.

The music was so cool, and the sermon was great because he would speak for about 5 minutes in Swahili and then sum it up in about 3-4 sentences in English. As he was coming to the conclusion of the sermon he was talking about how we should not fear things that come our way and right about that time a strong wind started to blow as dark clouds rolled in. We just wrapped things up in time to run to our Quad and watch the rain come pouring down. As the storm blew over and the sun returned everyone went outside to see a beautiful double rainbow! When I thought of the contrast afterwards between the Latin service, the African service, and even our own Western style worship I recalled what it says in Revelations 7:9-10:

After this I looked and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and in front of the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands. And they cried out in a loud voice: "Salvation belongs to our God, who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb."

How amazing to know that when we get to heaven we will not lose our language, culture, and personality; but we will all worship the Lord as one!