Fancy a Chaat?
Well as the odyssey continues, I have not posted in a while so let me fill you in on notable events of the last week.
The first is last Sunday’s children’s celebration at the fellowship here. All the children of the church here had been practicing for some time for this occasion. The church met as normal, but with a special emphasis on the role of the children within the body of Christ, with the preaching accordingly geared towards parenting and children. But the highlight was a programme of various ages of the children singing songs and reciting scripture verses they had learned from memory. It is quite a challenge to see the effort children ranging from 7 –15 made to remember their verses. How much time and commitment do we give to writing scripture into our own hearts and minds, let alone those of our children? I sometimes wonder if someone looking into my life from the outside would be able to see that the most important thing in my life is the relationship I have with the living God. I suspect the shameful truth is probably not. Pray that I might truly strive to press on and take hold of that for which Jesus Christ took hold of me.
First impressions of the fellowship here for those back at home would probably be like mine – you might find this church a little old fashioned and might even feel there was a touch of legalism creeping into some of their teaching and attitudes on things. But one of the things that is worth bearing in mind is how pitifully little our faith often costs us in the UK. One of the things I learned in the Ukraine, and which I am frequently reminded of here, is to look at the environment a church finds itself in before coming to a conclusion on its culture. Often those Christians whom it costs the most to declare their faith, in terms of persecution and ridicule (or worse), have the hardest battle in setting their ways apart from the world’s – being in the world but not of it. I think this is frequently where rules and observances have their origins: a heartfelt desire to preserve their Christian distinctiveness and not to be deviated from following the Lord Jesus by the pressures of their socio-cultural environment This is not to justify legalism – simply to try to appreciate the difficulties that might create the milieu for it to thrive. Bear in mind that several members of this church have been completely rejected by their families, or face enormous pressure at home to renounce their faith. One of the things that is very noticeable about such converts is their clearsightedness about what is important in life. A wise believer once put to me something like this: “I am not worried about ‘achieving’ in the way our society sees it because the most quintessentially important thing I could ever do in my life, I have already done; I have given my life to the Lord Jesus and everything else is just a question of where He takes me.”
These are believers who take careful notes of what the preacher says and the scripture references he gives, and go home after Sunday lunch, or the midweek bible study, and get out their bibles and commentaries and study the passages again for themselves, testing weighing and learning. That is their thirst to hear from God. Watching their children strive to recite and remember the treasures in the words of Psalms or Philippians, committing some of the great promises and words of God to their minds just reflects where their treasure is, and that of their parents. It was great to see some of them acting out sketches of well known bible stories, and really imagining themselves into the roles and the scenes, bringing the characters to life. Are we really treasuring our relationship with God bought at such price, and his words to us, as the most important things in our life? Come on Matt – let’s get back to those Nav verses! A few of them have been very helpful to me while I’ve been here actually.
The service concluded with a giant fellowship meal of Biryani and Kulfi Ice cream. Actually, the meeting hall where we were is a real relief at that time of day from the blazing sun here. Average temperatures are early thirties during the middle of the day. To give you an idea of what it feels like, Alfie, one of the guys at the church, took me for a spin on his motorbike, and even when you are whistling down a road at 40 –50 miles per hour, the draft doesn’t cool you – it feels rather like what I imagine the Christmas turkey in a fan assisted oven experiences!
The evening was spent socialising with my friends from the building here who were busily planning the buildings celebration party and Sarasawanathi Pooja (worship ceremony of a godess) for Republic day on January 26th. When they discovered I had not yet tried Chaat (Indian snack food) I was immediately bundled into a car and whisked off to East Thane, to small cubby hole in a back street (one of a maze of market streets around here) where I was treated to the delights of Pani Puri and other similar comestibles. As I sampled the first one, I realised it was all cold stuff, with various dubious looking dips and sauces, and that the vendors were using their bare hands passing back and forth from each dip to the sauces and then the customers etc etc. Salmonella heaven. But they had made such an effort to take me to the best place in Thane to sample these delicacies that I threw caution to the wind and tucked in. No regrets! And no delhi belly either! Result. The chaat tasting session was followed by a completely mad moonlit drive in the hills over Thane. Let me elaborate on what is meant by a moonlit drive. It means that the road ahead is lit only by the moon. Despite a perfectly functional pair of headlights! Every so often the lights are flashed on to let some oncoming vehicle know you are there. Nggaaaaahhhhhheeeeeeehhehehehehehe! Well that’s the noise my inner man was making a lot of the time anyway. Adrenalin expended sufficient to ensure I slept like a baby. Actually in between the inner screams, it struck me that the continuous noise and papping of horns was entirely absent up here. You could actually hear the chirrup of Cicadas and crickets!
More of adrenalin surges in the next post….
The first is last Sunday’s children’s celebration at the fellowship here. All the children of the church here had been practicing for some time for this occasion. The church met as normal, but with a special emphasis on the role of the children within the body of Christ, with the preaching accordingly geared towards parenting and children. But the highlight was a programme of various ages of the children singing songs and reciting scripture verses they had learned from memory. It is quite a challenge to see the effort children ranging from 7 –15 made to remember their verses. How much time and commitment do we give to writing scripture into our own hearts and minds, let alone those of our children? I sometimes wonder if someone looking into my life from the outside would be able to see that the most important thing in my life is the relationship I have with the living God. I suspect the shameful truth is probably not. Pray that I might truly strive to press on and take hold of that for which Jesus Christ took hold of me.
First impressions of the fellowship here for those back at home would probably be like mine – you might find this church a little old fashioned and might even feel there was a touch of legalism creeping into some of their teaching and attitudes on things. But one of the things that is worth bearing in mind is how pitifully little our faith often costs us in the UK. One of the things I learned in the Ukraine, and which I am frequently reminded of here, is to look at the environment a church finds itself in before coming to a conclusion on its culture. Often those Christians whom it costs the most to declare their faith, in terms of persecution and ridicule (or worse), have the hardest battle in setting their ways apart from the world’s – being in the world but not of it. I think this is frequently where rules and observances have their origins: a heartfelt desire to preserve their Christian distinctiveness and not to be deviated from following the Lord Jesus by the pressures of their socio-cultural environment This is not to justify legalism – simply to try to appreciate the difficulties that might create the milieu for it to thrive. Bear in mind that several members of this church have been completely rejected by their families, or face enormous pressure at home to renounce their faith. One of the things that is very noticeable about such converts is their clearsightedness about what is important in life. A wise believer once put to me something like this: “I am not worried about ‘achieving’ in the way our society sees it because the most quintessentially important thing I could ever do in my life, I have already done; I have given my life to the Lord Jesus and everything else is just a question of where He takes me.”
These are believers who take careful notes of what the preacher says and the scripture references he gives, and go home after Sunday lunch, or the midweek bible study, and get out their bibles and commentaries and study the passages again for themselves, testing weighing and learning. That is their thirst to hear from God. Watching their children strive to recite and remember the treasures in the words of Psalms or Philippians, committing some of the great promises and words of God to their minds just reflects where their treasure is, and that of their parents. It was great to see some of them acting out sketches of well known bible stories, and really imagining themselves into the roles and the scenes, bringing the characters to life. Are we really treasuring our relationship with God bought at such price, and his words to us, as the most important things in our life? Come on Matt – let’s get back to those Nav verses! A few of them have been very helpful to me while I’ve been here actually.
The service concluded with a giant fellowship meal of Biryani and Kulfi Ice cream. Actually, the meeting hall where we were is a real relief at that time of day from the blazing sun here. Average temperatures are early thirties during the middle of the day. To give you an idea of what it feels like, Alfie, one of the guys at the church, took me for a spin on his motorbike, and even when you are whistling down a road at 40 –50 miles per hour, the draft doesn’t cool you – it feels rather like what I imagine the Christmas turkey in a fan assisted oven experiences!
The evening was spent socialising with my friends from the building here who were busily planning the buildings celebration party and Sarasawanathi Pooja (worship ceremony of a godess) for Republic day on January 26th. When they discovered I had not yet tried Chaat (Indian snack food) I was immediately bundled into a car and whisked off to East Thane, to small cubby hole in a back street (one of a maze of market streets around here) where I was treated to the delights of Pani Puri and other similar comestibles. As I sampled the first one, I realised it was all cold stuff, with various dubious looking dips and sauces, and that the vendors were using their bare hands passing back and forth from each dip to the sauces and then the customers etc etc. Salmonella heaven. But they had made such an effort to take me to the best place in Thane to sample these delicacies that I threw caution to the wind and tucked in. No regrets! And no delhi belly either! Result. The chaat tasting session was followed by a completely mad moonlit drive in the hills over Thane. Let me elaborate on what is meant by a moonlit drive. It means that the road ahead is lit only by the moon. Despite a perfectly functional pair of headlights! Every so often the lights are flashed on to let some oncoming vehicle know you are there. Nggaaaaahhhhhheeeeeeehhehehehehehe! Well that’s the noise my inner man was making a lot of the time anyway. Adrenalin expended sufficient to ensure I slept like a baby. Actually in between the inner screams, it struck me that the continuous noise and papping of horns was entirely absent up here. You could actually hear the chirrup of Cicadas and crickets!
More of adrenalin surges in the next post….
posted by Duncan at 2:11 pm
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