I am having a wonderful final day in Russia. It's Sunday and I preached at the Tokareva Wesleyan Church here in Vladimir this morning and later this afternoon I'm preaching at the first service of the new church plant here in Vladimir. At least it's their first Sunday when they are meeting separate from the older church. They hope to go public around Easter. God has given me a great opportunity to minister here.
So I'm sitting in the church service this morning and I can't tell you how many times I'm thinking this is like Collin Creek here today. The pastor opens the services here by reading a Psalm. There is only about 1/3 of the congregation present when he starts. Maybe it's true of Wesleyans all over the world that you have to sing them in!
After the Psalm, everybody walks around the room and greets one another with the words 'Peace and Grace..." This gives me a chance to show off my entire repertoire of Russian words since about the only thing I know how to say are greetings. The Russian word for grace is hard for me to say so I only passed the peace this morning. Besides, my sermon was going to be on grace!
Then the worship team takes their place. Tell me if anything like this sounds familiar: worship is lead by a lovely blonde woman at the keyboard. The drummer has long dark hair with a little curl around the shoulders. Acoustic guitar and base guitar round out the band and played by a couple of guys who really don't feel the need to talk much. The other lead singer is a student in my class who has this joyfully sassy attitude. Shannon and Lisa would love this girl! I'm thinking the only thing missing is a bald guy on lead guitar! Oh, yeah, and the sound booth is this converted lecturn behind which two young guys are busily chewing gum and trying to stay awake...
OK that last one is NOT Collin Creek! After all, our technology demands are more complex and demand state-of-the-art professionals who are always paying attention. Why do I think Helen and Keith are going to make me pay for this?
So the first song we sing is this really rockin' upbeat Russian praise song. I don't know what the words are but the people are having fun with this. There is this lady across the room who is waving her hands the way Sue Goodner does when she gets blessed. I want to go over and see if "Boomer Sooner" has any Russian translation! Probably not. When the rockin' song is done, there are actually a few people who applaud -- which never happens in a Russian church.
Then we sing a couple of songs I know: I Could Sing Of Your Love Forever and they sing it like the song could go on forever... And then we sing Amazing Grace, which almost moves me to tears because I'm preaching about grace. When this happens in a service without the benefit of a highly creative programming team like we have at CCCC, this is often referred to as a God-thing, which is why I'm moved to tears. I actually thought on my way to church how cool it would be if we sang Amazing Grace. Amazing!
The final two songs are more of what I expect at a Russian church. They are sung with earnest passion and reflection and end with this holy hush and reverent awe and whispered prayers. After the final song, while everyone is standing and whispering something to God, the congregation begins to recite the Lord's Prayer in Russian. Very cool moment!
Then comes the obligatory "Life in the Church" announcements. The pastor is doing this section because he is not preaching and so this section goes on much longer than it should -- like that never happens at CCCC! The offering gets passed and they have these cool felt sacks that don't clank when you drop the coins in. Then my pastor friend introduces me and tells them why his wife is going to be my translater.
He tells the story of this Russian translation software on the internet that once translated the story about 4 cats: 3 were white and the other was African-American. Evidently the software had this politically correct bent to it that simply could not bring itself to utter the word "black." This is the challenge of preaching with a translater. You are never sure what they are hearing. I'm kind of glad the pastor's wife is translating and not the pastor because the people would never know who was really preaching. Besides, the pastor's wife was my trnaslater during the first class I taught here in Vladimir back in 1999, so we are good friends.
I only found out that I would be preaching at this service on Thursday so with everything else there hasn't been any time to prepare. I have been praying about this message because it comes at a crucial time for this church. This is the first Sunday when this congregation would look around and notice, "Hey, 10 of our friends are no longer going to be worshipping with us." We kind of know what that feels like since our Horizons Church project. God gave me a great word today. I love that about God and His Word. Since Russians are not time conscious but event conscious, the only time I had to look at my watch was when this little kid walked across right in front of me and ran over to his mother with that look that said, "When is this guy going to be done?" I never know how to measure my preaching on the "event" meter. After two hours I decided that the service was as much of an event as it was going to be and wrapped it up. It's not like I preached longer than normal -- it's just that the interpreter preached as long as I did!
I was encouraged to hear that most of the attenders found today's service eventful! Just like back home!
Can't wait to be home!
Blair
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