church

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About a month ago now we attended a church, mainly because it was close to us and because our next door neighbour goes there. We walked 5 minutes down the road and found this church or if church is a building then technically it was a modern day cathedral. We walked down with our next door neighbour friend and talk to her about the church as we skipped past the traffic. She explained as we got closer that they ran 4 (maybe 5 I can’t remember) services on a Sunday that just go on and on. She also explained that about 7,000 people went to this particular church over the course of the Sunday. We arrived at the boundary of the premises and were met by a huge security team, patting people down, running the metal detector over us and checking our bags.

We arrived prompt for an 11 30 start, I don’t think we got in the building until 12 30 as that’s when the previous service ended, we then endured the service and left before the end at about 2pm. This was an experience not to forget.

First thing we were told was that the echo is really bad the further away from the speakers you are so it is best to sit right in the middle near the front (this later meant it was hard for us to leave). The service was really just a continuation of the previous. Worship supplied by drums a bass and 2 keyboards, slightly strange but somehow worked. Sounded not too bad. After about an hour of worship in the local language (despite being an English service) which at times seemed very much like a ‘jam sesh’ with all the instrument’s having their solos, we sat down and listened to some singing and some dancers performing for the congregation. The dancing gave our ears a bit of a rest before the pastors wife began to talk. By this point in the service the collection was taken, what we didn’t realise is that we were going to have 2 more ‘collections’ before the end of the service. When I asked our friend she replied they normally have 4 or 5 collections of money in 1 service.

The preacher began to preach, and, with most sermons, in any church, they get to what you think is almost the end and say, ‘so we’ll move on from the intro’. Has anyone experienced a woman shouting down the sound system, for an hour and wonder when the PA guy is 1. Going to turn her down and 2. Going to set the EQ’s properly so they don’t make my ears bleed more than they already are. This was made worse as the women had a translator. The translator, it seemed, was trying to shout louder and faster than the women that was preaching. That meant no rest in between sentences. She thankfully sat down felt led to welcome up another guy to give us another sermon. Just before she welcomed him up, she made she mentioned what a generous giver of money he is, stating specific figures given to the church. She mentioned how much of a humble guy he is.

He was welcomed up on stage and often mentioned how he had given lots of money, how his wife has a new, amazing job earning loads money and how the reason for all this wealth is because he gives generously. The whole theme of the church service was, the more money you give the more God will bless you and give you more money back, and if you’re not being blessed then give more money. I thought about leaving but thought I might be stopped, turned upside down, and be robbed of all my change, just like an American school boy on all the movies I watch. After the final collection and before prayer time we quickly stood up and left feeling bruised, battered and exhausted. We have gone back to our 45 minute walk to our current church.

Is that the role of the church or even God? To ask for everyone’s money so that they can be blessed with more wealth? Or to send people, attending, away making them feel as though they have a splitting head ache from the night before? I went in feeling good and came out exhausted. My picture of Jesus is someone who you can go to when you are exhausted and come out refreshed.

The reason I mention all of this, almost 1 month and a half after I went there, is all this week they are having a ‘triple blessing’ conference, every day, from 4pm until 11pm and we can hear it all clearly from our flat, over the noise of our music and as we are going to bed. It is also on TV every day so I have just flicked on to the channel and feel the post-traumatic stress coming back on.

Time to put on my iPod and listen to soothing music, if I could, I’d listen to silence.

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