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| News From India - Part II | | Date Created: Jan 29, 2005, 07:12 PM |
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This entry is a continuation of my last post. I've also posted more pictures to my web page.
Friday, January 28, (12 noon)
I've got about 30 minutes before my next lecture. This morning my first talk took two hours. The first part was a devotional; the last was the beginning of my step-by-step explanation of the order of covenant renewal worship. I'm not sure if I commented on the stamina of the men yet. These men will sit for 2-3 hours at a time listening to lectures without a break! The sit from 9:30 AM till about 3 PM each day with only one half-hour tea and snack break. And consider that this conference is 7 days long! They easily sit through a hour talk. Lian says he always preaches for one hour on Sunday. I'm amazed. Men in the States would not be willing to do this. Oh, and I forgot to say that he will have another conference like this at the end of February!
This morning I tried to talk the men through a model worship service. I tried to be sensitive to the differences of culture, but much of what I said was about how the kind of church culture the Bible will produce. I ended up with almost 45 minutes of time answering questions. They were all very good questions. It's fascinating to hear them ask the very same questions that Christians in the States are asking. Should children be in the worship service? Should children come to the Lord's Table? Should we kneel to pray? What kind of hymns should we sing? Should the church allow national symbols in the "sanctuary" during worship? Should we honor national VIPs with a special seat during a worship service? Is Sunday worship different than worship at other times and places during the week? Can a woman read the call to worship? Should women sing solos in front of the church accompanied by a recorded soundtrack?
Saturday, January 29 (6:50 AM)
Two more days here. On the one hand, I am anxious to leave and return home to my family. Truth be told, I began to count the days the moment we arrived. But not because it was so miserable here; rather, because I really am a homeboy--I like to be around family and friends. I'm not the adventurous, traveling type.
Yesterday we made our last trip into town to buy clothes and shoes for the poorer men and women attending the conference. As it turned out, to buy a new pair of leather shoes (but some bought tennis shoes) and a coat (either a winter coat or a suit coat for church) for a man would cost about 600-700 rupees. That's about $15-17. The coats were used and the shoes new. Yesterday, for the first time we took 4 of the young girls. Their shoes cost 750 rs. each. They really didn't care for any of the other less expensive options. And instead of winter clothes they wanted bolts of cloth to make their own. That was 600 rs. Thus proving that the one cross-cultural absolute is that women have expensive tastes. Which is why I can't get my wife to even darken the door of Walmart.
Cameras do indeed alter a situation. A man with a camera cannot ever simply capture "what is," unless, of course, he could make himself invisible. This is especially true here where an American with a camera is a curiosity, something unusual. Snapping pictures of people, therefore, creates something of an artificial image. The people stop and change their expressions. I won't say they pose, because they are not familiar enough with what is expected when one is before a camera. Just an observation.
Today I finish up my lectures. I will do a devotional on what one ought to experience in a full-bodied worship service. Then I will finish walking through the service. Yesterday, I stopped just before the Scripture readings. In the afternoon, I'll talk about the centrality and implications of the resurrection, glorification, and ascension of Christ. That will conclude the 7-day long conference. Tomorrow, two sermons and it's all over.
I began this entry with the confession that I miss home a great deal. At the same time, however, I am only now beginning to feel comfortable here. It takes a while to adjust to the strangeness of the environment and the different customs of the people. I suspect that if I were to stay longer, I would be much better at communicating with and serving these people.
This morning Lian told me how significant it was that we helped the four young girls yesterday. A few paragraphs before this I joked about it, but according to Lian what we bought the girls may affect their entire lives. I believe I failed to say that the clothing and the shoes we bought these girls were more formal than what we got for the men. I wondered about this at the time, but Lian seemed to think it was the best. These girls are poor, like most of the girls in the village. If we hadn't bought them these items, they would probably never own anything so nice in their entire lives. What is worse, they would be tempted as they grow older to trade sexual favors to obtain shoes and dresses like the ones they now own. Lian said that by giving them these gifts we saved them from great temptation later in their lives. He also said that these girls will likely go home and store these items away in safe place until their marriage ceremony.
Saturday, January 29 (10:00 AM)
My devotional message this morning was based on Psalm 84, "How lovely is your dwelling place, O Yahweh of hosts! My soul longs, yes, faints for the courts of Yahweh; my heart and my flesh sing for joy to the living God. Even the sparrow finds a home. . . at your altars, O Yahweh of hosts."
In the old world the house of Yahweh was his temple. In the new world we no longer have a physical, stone temple; now the people of God are organized into the Lord's house, especially when they gather as the body of Christ for worship. It is the duty of those men whom the Lord has appointed as his servant priests to insure that all of the people of God find blessing and happiness in the house of the Lord. Only full-bodied, covenant renewal worship service will provide all the gifts of God for all the people of God.
When our services are imbalanced then only some of the people of God find a home in the Lord's house. For example, when the service is dominated by a didactic sermon that is long and complicated, then only the educated will long, even faint for the courts of the Lord. Without the experience of the Lord's Supper, of eating and drinking with Jesus as a full member of his family, many people will never attain to the assurance of grace. The sermon is a great gift, but it's not the only or even the primary gift of God offered on the Lord's Day.
If our services fail to give God's people the opportunity to confess their sins and receive God's forgiveness each week, then those with weak consciences will come into the house of God only to feel guilty in the presence of those they feel are so much better than they are. But when all the people of God acknowledge their guilt and sinfulness before the Lord, everyone will find a home in God's house.
If our services do not contain lively, energetic, even loud praise and thanksgiving in song, then many will find the house of God a dreary place. The people of God must have a place where "heart and flesh sing for joy to the living God." If our services contain too much spoken word, then they will not fully engage the heart and flesh of the people of God. Believers coming to church needing a glorious experience of praise must encounter those who are blessed in the house of Yahweh, singing his praises (v. 4).
The list of gifts God gives in the corporate service might be expanded, of course. But the point is that the church must provide all the people of God will the full experience of the fullness of blessing in the Lord's house. Whether those in the village of Mualkoi, India, will do the service exactly like we do at Providence is not the issue. They will surely embody the fullness of God's good gifts in a unique way. But they must learn to provide the complete experience to the family of God when they enter his house on the Lord's Day. A little singing and a long sermon (what many of the churches are used to) will not engender the kind of longing and love for the house of God expressed by the Psalmist in Psalm 84.
Saturday, January 29 (8:00 PM)
If you can believe it, the church here has a Saturday evening service every week, and it's a two-hour service. This is in addition to Sunday morning and evening services. Tonight Tim spoke about the deaconate at Providence and also about our music program. It's now been just over a week since we arrived in the village. I must say that I am ready to be back home, but I'm also starting to enjoy the people here. It takes some time. But I'm beginning to understand them and care about them. When I came I was more worried about whether I would be able to speak and preach effectively to them. Now I find myself worried about them. They lead such different lives than we do.
After the service we walked to the home of a family to pray for someone in the household that was sick. The woman of the house was sick. She had some gynecological problems. We sat in a dark one-room house and heard the father tell the story of his sick wife. It turns out that she has needed a hysterectomy for about a year. Now, as you can imagine, since they are not able to afford such an operation, she is beginning to experience various problems. I couldn't help but wonder how many cases there are like this woman's in the village. What do people do that do not have access to doctors and hospitals? I guess all they can do is pray and then, if necessary, faithfully suffer through the illness. Tim and I will bring this case to the deacons when we get home. The operation here only costs 10,000 rupees ($250). Surely we can help. Perhaps the Lord will answer her pray in an unexpected way through a church on the other side of the globe. We are all members of the same body, after all.
Oh, something else. We walked home with our eyes on the night sky tonight. There is virtually no light pollution in the village, so when the sky is clear the starry sky is brilliant. I don't think I've ever seen the stars like this. Unlike in the States, the Milky Way is quite milky. And what is fascinating is that the constellations on the ecliptic are clearly visible. This is how the night sky must have looked to the ancients and now I can see why they saw the pictures we identify as the signs of the Zodiac. When the sky is clear and there's no light pollution all the minor, smaller stars are visible and one can genuinely make out the contours of Orion. It's not nearly as arbitrary as we city folk have been led to believe.
Well, I have to do some preparation for my two sermons tomorrow. I'm already getting tired. The one problem I have had with the time change is that I get tired a bit too early in the evening. Thankfully, however, I usually don't wake up till 6 AM. Although occasionally I've lain in bed awake for an hour or so before then.
One more thing: boy, am I thankful for little things like Visine. I'm just glad I put it in my suitcase. Normally, I don't need eye drops, but here I use them twice a day. That's because there so much dust and smoke in the air. The dust is from the roads. There's dust everywhere. The smoke is from everyone burning wood and trash. There's always a fire going somewhere on the side of the road. And since no one has electric or gas heaters here, every evening when it gets cold (45-50 degrees) everyone burns wood coals in small little portable firepots. If they move from the porch to the living room, they bring in the little firepot. So there's smoke all over the place, too. I should also say that there are a few cats in the house here and I suspect that before I arrived one may have made my bed his regular nesting place. I blow my nose and sneeze a lot at night.
Sunday, January 30 (9:05 AM)
Sunday service begins at 10 AM. We just finished another huge breakfast. I hope I can readjust when I get home and go back to not eating breakfast.
During the service this morning we are to wear the traditional shirts Lian bought for us this week. I'll have to post a picture. Tim's is green, mine is white. Tim will also play the flute and possibly even sing sometime during the service. It's more than a little sobering to hear Lian talk about the influence of Providence on the church, especially the worship service. He speaks of slowly making Mualkoi Presbyterian church into a PRPC in Manipur. He's got big ideas and plans. He wants to bring liturgical worship to the entire Presbyterian church in India. Seeing what he done so far here, I'm in no position to say that he can't do it. |
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