Church On The Move
Having just built a new church building, one might think it strange not to meet there on this particular Sunday...until you hear their reason for doing so.
The church in Bisserké has changed a lot over the years according to many locals and other Christians who know the area. The church has come alive, the people are different, and the village is transformed because of it. To show the importance of the church in their village, they built a building as a sign of permanence and value. But only after a few months of meeting there, they wanted to host a church service somewhere else.
"We see that there is a certain part of our village has not yet been evangelized," the leader of the church said. "There is still a lot of darkness there, so we want to go as a church and encourage the people in that particular neighborhood."
Thats why when we passed their church building on Sunday morning, it was completely empty, and so we kept going straight ahead towards the designated neighborhood.
When we arrived, we were greeted with joyous singing and dancing. People huddled under the shade of the mango tree, pressed in around the edges so that everyone fit under the coolness and protection of the shade. Just when you thought that no one else could fit under the tree, more people came, and there always seemed to be more room.
Several groups had prepared special worship songs and dances - first a group of women, then some teen girls, and finally a group of children. The church came alive with the beating of the drum and the rhythm of bare feet tapping the hard ground. Rebeca taught the congregation a new song in French, which everyone quickly caught on to and thoroughly enjoyed.
Rebeca and I both were invited to share messages from God's Word, so we shared from our hearts what God has been teaching us. Neither one of us are pastors; neither one of us have been trained in seminary. Neither one of us felt particularly capable of fulfilling the request. But we both love God's word, we meditate on it, we hear God speak, and then we share what he has been teaching us. In this same manner, we encouraged the believers to listen to God's word (whether by reading if literate or by orality if illiterate) because when we listen, he speaks. And when he speaks, we all become evangelists and missionaries because we all carry the word of God.
After the preaching came a time of testimony sharing. People gave God glory for healing their sick or providing for their needs, and yet one testimony in particular impressed me. A young man stood up and recounted how he had been invited to participate in an animistic initiation ceremony, which is a rite of passage into certain darker religious practices. Because this young man was a believer, he stood his ground and refused, even when many people told him he would be cursed and die because of it. He stood in front of the church and proclaimed that he believed God would preserve and protect his life and that would keep putting his trust in God no matter what other people said or did.
When the testimonies finished, the church moved into a time of prayer. We prayed together (meaning aloud all at the same time) for subjects such as the children in the church, the sick, the lost, and the salvation of people in their village who are still in darkness. At the end, a woman came forward with her child who has not been able to sleep at night for quite some time. We laid hands on him and prayed against physical and spiritual forces, and then encouraged the family to return to the house, pray over the room, and purify the room from any spiritual strongholds.
As we loaded up the car and left almost five hours later, we sang all the way back as we bounced on bumpy dirt roads for over an hour. Rebeca played worship music from her phone and we sang along and interjected our own words of praise in between. The car was full since I not only brought Rebeca but also her twin daughters, another young girl she cares for, plus Juliette and Gertrude. I love having a car full of worshipping women.
We made a good team that Sunday. We found a vibrant church in the middle of a remote, nowhere village making efforts to evangelize. We saw people using their whole bodies to worship. We heard a hundred prayers lifted to God. We got to participate in sharing encouragement from God's word with a hungry audience. We heard testimonies of real faith overcoming cultural pressure. We got to take up the armor of God and put on prayer as a weapon against spiritual forces. And when it was all over, we still couldn't turn off the praise in our own hearts.
Maybe the church should get up and move more often.
The church in Bisserké has changed a lot over the years according to many locals and other Christians who know the area. The church has come alive, the people are different, and the village is transformed because of it. To show the importance of the church in their village, they built a building as a sign of permanence and value. But only after a few months of meeting there, they wanted to host a church service somewhere else.
"We see that there is a certain part of our village has not yet been evangelized," the leader of the church said. "There is still a lot of darkness there, so we want to go as a church and encourage the people in that particular neighborhood."
Thats why when we passed their church building on Sunday morning, it was completely empty, and so we kept going straight ahead towards the designated neighborhood.
When we arrived, we were greeted with joyous singing and dancing. People huddled under the shade of the mango tree, pressed in around the edges so that everyone fit under the coolness and protection of the shade. Just when you thought that no one else could fit under the tree, more people came, and there always seemed to be more room.
Several groups had prepared special worship songs and dances - first a group of women, then some teen girls, and finally a group of children. The church came alive with the beating of the drum and the rhythm of bare feet tapping the hard ground. Rebeca taught the congregation a new song in French, which everyone quickly caught on to and thoroughly enjoyed.
Rebeca and I both were invited to share messages from God's Word, so we shared from our hearts what God has been teaching us. Neither one of us are pastors; neither one of us have been trained in seminary. Neither one of us felt particularly capable of fulfilling the request. But we both love God's word, we meditate on it, we hear God speak, and then we share what he has been teaching us. In this same manner, we encouraged the believers to listen to God's word (whether by reading if literate or by orality if illiterate) because when we listen, he speaks. And when he speaks, we all become evangelists and missionaries because we all carry the word of God.
After the preaching came a time of testimony sharing. People gave God glory for healing their sick or providing for their needs, and yet one testimony in particular impressed me. A young man stood up and recounted how he had been invited to participate in an animistic initiation ceremony, which is a rite of passage into certain darker religious practices. Because this young man was a believer, he stood his ground and refused, even when many people told him he would be cursed and die because of it. He stood in front of the church and proclaimed that he believed God would preserve and protect his life and that would keep putting his trust in God no matter what other people said or did.
When the testimonies finished, the church moved into a time of prayer. We prayed together (meaning aloud all at the same time) for subjects such as the children in the church, the sick, the lost, and the salvation of people in their village who are still in darkness. At the end, a woman came forward with her child who has not been able to sleep at night for quite some time. We laid hands on him and prayed against physical and spiritual forces, and then encouraged the family to return to the house, pray over the room, and purify the room from any spiritual strongholds.
As we loaded up the car and left almost five hours later, we sang all the way back as we bounced on bumpy dirt roads for over an hour. Rebeca played worship music from her phone and we sang along and interjected our own words of praise in between. The car was full since I not only brought Rebeca but also her twin daughters, another young girl she cares for, plus Juliette and Gertrude. I love having a car full of worshipping women.
We made a good team that Sunday. We found a vibrant church in the middle of a remote, nowhere village making efforts to evangelize. We saw people using their whole bodies to worship. We heard a hundred prayers lifted to God. We got to participate in sharing encouragement from God's word with a hungry audience. We heard testimonies of real faith overcoming cultural pressure. We got to take up the armor of God and put on prayer as a weapon against spiritual forces. And when it was all over, we still couldn't turn off the praise in our own hearts.
Maybe the church should get up and move more often.
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