REC 10
I received the following email from Erin Westmaas:
[Last Sunday] I went with 4 other people to a mid-sized church in the country near
Utrecht. Most people in the area are on holiday, so the congregation
was mostly older people and the church wasn’t full. Our host family assured us that most
people were out of town and the church is generally quite full and has more
variety in ages. The worship was mostly in Dutch, except that the pastor
greeted us in English and translated the gist of the scripture readings. For
the afternoon, our host families took us boating on a lake and to their houses
for coffee and dinner.
While we were at the host family’s house on Sunday, Vanlal was talking about
worship renewal in his country (India) and how wonderful it has been that some
Indian churches are beginning to hang onto their own cultural heritage
a bit. They are starting to write their own songs, use some of their
traditional instruments, and not feel as bound by the western traditions originally
brought to them. He feels that this is very important to the church in all cultures,
and that it is essential to making people feel like the church is their own.
Next entry: REC 11
Previous entry: Teaching Worship 9