Church
Church... I think it's something we take for granted, or maybe it's something we don't completely understand.
I think church is many different things. I think that it's a place. It's a place of safety and a place of fun. Or well, it should be those things.
Church is a family. Church IS a family for me back in the US. It's somewhere where I have friends, and people who I belong with. People who will help me carry burdens and ask me how I've been. Or well, it should be.
Church is also a place of learning, it's a place to be challenged and to grow. A place where I should hear things that are hard to hear, that I should leave running to scripture to test and then spend time in prayer and action, putting those hard things into practice.
Does it have to look like what church does in the US? I think the answer to that question is NO! Why no you might ask...
Well church here is none of those things, except that on the outside it looks very much like church does in the US. We get up and put on our nice clothes (we're going into God's house after all). And we always arrive late because the music is so loud it hurts our ears (that's a cultural thing. Filipino's LOVE their music loud.) We sit in the back because there are cameras who film the congregation during the service and we'd rather not be filmed. There's music (with dancing girls at the front) and the kids have a Sunday School class they could attend if we force them. After the music there is a sermon. It's mostly in English although anything funny happens in a mixture of Tagalog and Cebuano. Then there's a scripture reading, offering, a song sung by a semi-professional group. Sometimes a choir number, then a whole smattering of video announcements. Informing us of a boatload of activities that we will never take part in. Then we all file noisily out. People fight to use the restroom provided they brought their own tp because the 2 rolls provided don't even last until the service begins. There's a whole group of people who take their daily large group photo that we'll see later on during the week on Facebook. People rush to get water from the dispenser before it's gone and then congregate in tight groups to chat eating their snack if they were lucky enough to get one before they ran out. We collect our kids from Sunday School (if they went) and we leave.
But while some of that isn't any different from church in the US, here are a few key differences.
There isn't a group where we fit in. Family units here are quite strong. It takes a long time to become part of a group. And we just don't. I don't know why. Our ministry is with the students at FIA. We don't speak the local language here because we spend all of our time with these kids whom we love. They don't speak the local language either (apart from a few). We have them over to the house for games and dinner, we attend game nights and OE and other fun things but it's always separate from the Filipino community. So we don't have a group of locals that we connect with. We never have. Others in our expat community do have that. They are working on translation, or literacy, or community development, or they are working with specific ministries like children or midwifery. So they can connect in ways we can't. But sometimes I wonder if people don't visit our churches in the US and never return because they aren't welcomed into a group either. Something to think about.
You know what else? We don't get their jokes and their illustrations. They don't connect with us. I remember learning in college that humor is one of the last things to learn in a culture. It's deeply rooted. Yes some things are universally funny. And sometimes we understand the illustration but it just doesn't hit us in the same deep way it hits those from our host country.
Along those same lines the topics for sermons aren't the same either. Here's an example. During All Saints (around Halloween) the sermon title was how we shouldn't leave food for our departed loved ones. Hmmm. Well, that's not likely to be something I'll ever struggle with. But it's a great message for here because people do that.
I don't know, is there a point to all of this? Maybe it's this. I miss church from back home. I miss being a part of a family. Where they have to turn off the lights to kick you out of the sanctuary because you've been talking too long. In Panama they would turn off the aircon to kick people out. I miss listening to a sermon that hits me right in the gut and makes me thing long and hard. Where I have to really wrestle with how to make serious change in my life.
I guess to sum it all up, the church building here isn't a place of safety, not that I'm unsafe here, but more like I don't connect with it as a place of safety and fun. And it isn't a place of family at all. That happens for us with our fellow workers and teachers here at FIA. And it isn't a place of exceptional growth for me. Yes I learn things, and for that I am thankful. But generally, I don't leave the sermons challenged at all.
So this week we didn't go to "church" but we watched one online. There wasn't a feeling of family, and nobody but us knew we "went". But let me tell you. I was challenged. And I'm still wrestling with what I heard from God. And you know what!? That's exciting!!
I think church is many different things. I think that it's a place. It's a place of safety and a place of fun. Or well, it should be those things.
Church is a family. Church IS a family for me back in the US. It's somewhere where I have friends, and people who I belong with. People who will help me carry burdens and ask me how I've been. Or well, it should be.
Church is also a place of learning, it's a place to be challenged and to grow. A place where I should hear things that are hard to hear, that I should leave running to scripture to test and then spend time in prayer and action, putting those hard things into practice.
Well church here is none of those things, except that on the outside it looks very much like church does in the US. We get up and put on our nice clothes (we're going into God's house after all). And we always arrive late because the music is so loud it hurts our ears (that's a cultural thing. Filipino's LOVE their music loud.) We sit in the back because there are cameras who film the congregation during the service and we'd rather not be filmed. There's music (with dancing girls at the front) and the kids have a Sunday School class they could attend if we force them. After the music there is a sermon. It's mostly in English although anything funny happens in a mixture of Tagalog and Cebuano. Then there's a scripture reading, offering, a song sung by a semi-professional group. Sometimes a choir number, then a whole smattering of video announcements. Informing us of a boatload of activities that we will never take part in. Then we all file noisily out. People fight to use the restroom provided they brought their own tp because the 2 rolls provided don't even last until the service begins. There's a whole group of people who take their daily large group photo that we'll see later on during the week on Facebook. People rush to get water from the dispenser before it's gone and then congregate in tight groups to chat eating their snack if they were lucky enough to get one before they ran out. We collect our kids from Sunday School (if they went) and we leave.
There isn't a group where we fit in. Family units here are quite strong. It takes a long time to become part of a group. And we just don't. I don't know why. Our ministry is with the students at FIA. We don't speak the local language here because we spend all of our time with these kids whom we love. They don't speak the local language either (apart from a few). We have them over to the house for games and dinner, we attend game nights and OE and other fun things but it's always separate from the Filipino community. So we don't have a group of locals that we connect with. We never have. Others in our expat community do have that. They are working on translation, or literacy, or community development, or they are working with specific ministries like children or midwifery. So they can connect in ways we can't. But sometimes I wonder if people don't visit our churches in the US and never return because they aren't welcomed into a group either. Something to think about.
You know what else? We don't get their jokes and their illustrations. They don't connect with us. I remember learning in college that humor is one of the last things to learn in a culture. It's deeply rooted. Yes some things are universally funny. And sometimes we understand the illustration but it just doesn't hit us in the same deep way it hits those from our host country.
Along those same lines the topics for sermons aren't the same either. Here's an example. During All Saints (around Halloween) the sermon title was how we shouldn't leave food for our departed loved ones. Hmmm. Well, that's not likely to be something I'll ever struggle with. But it's a great message for here because people do that.
I don't know, is there a point to all of this? Maybe it's this. I miss church from back home. I miss being a part of a family. Where they have to turn off the lights to kick you out of the sanctuary because you've been talking too long. In Panama they would turn off the aircon to kick people out. I miss listening to a sermon that hits me right in the gut and makes me thing long and hard. Where I have to really wrestle with how to make serious change in my life.
I guess to sum it all up, the church building here isn't a place of safety, not that I'm unsafe here, but more like I don't connect with it as a place of safety and fun. And it isn't a place of family at all. That happens for us with our fellow workers and teachers here at FIA. And it isn't a place of exceptional growth for me. Yes I learn things, and for that I am thankful. But generally, I don't leave the sermons challenged at all.
So this week we didn't go to "church" but we watched one online. There wasn't a feeling of family, and nobody but us knew we "went". But let me tell you. I was challenged. And I'm still wrestling with what I heard from God. And you know what!? That's exciting!!
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