A Glimpse into the Joys and Oddities of an International Church Plant

I grew up my whole life in America in churches that consisted of 98% WASP’s (white, Anglo-Saxon Protestants). Basically, church was several hundred American, Caucasian, Republican, Regular Baptists who agreed on the big issues: the inerrancy and authority of the Bible as the Word of God and the importance of all-church potlucks (aka “covered dishes" - a wide assortment of unidentifiable casseroles, green jello and fattening desserts).

Sitting in church today, I was surrounded by people from Germany of course, but also people from America, England, Rwanda, Kenya, Iran, Finland, Holland, Lebanon, Ethiopia and Russia, and I might be missing some!

Today is November 9th. This date probably means nothing to you, but we were reminded in the service today that it is the anniversary of the fall of the Berlin wall (1989) and “Kristallnacht” (1938). Today was also the “International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church”, which we also recognized and prayed for in today’s service (hopefully many of you did too!). There’s nothing like praying for the persecuted church with a church full of people representing those nations! Then, to top it off, we had a special guest speaker – a female, Tutsi survivor of the Rwanda Genocide! She gave her testimony today of attackers breaking into her home and killing everyone but her, including her two small sons. She escaped death only to deliver her third baby hours later . . . alone. Her husband was gone and her other children recently murdered. It was an amazing testimony!

After the service ended, we had to quickly move out of the sanctuary and into the fellowship hall to allow another church to set up for an evening Gospel concert. An hour later, we were holding AWANA on one end of the building while hundreds of Africans (and other nationalities) sang together at the top of their lungs at the other end in a style of worship that is completely foreign to me. Meanwhile, the little kiddies on our end were screaming and dancing to a song with the lyrics, “Heiß, heiß, heiß!” (“Hot, hot, hot!”).

Bet your church service was nothing like ours. Bet you wish you could visit! ;-)