How confused is the spiritual landscape?
Sweating, cramped, sitting on the cement pews of the Reformed Church of Zambia, I wondered how the others were doing. The 40/40 group split up and attended 14 different types of churches in the town of Petauke.
I think the church Sarah and I attended was more toward the Presbyterian persuasion. Others went to Catholic, Pentecostal, Anglican, Church of Christ and others.
The reverend preached on 2 Corinthians 5:17-20. He informed his congregation to become ambassadors for Christ – to not just be a Christian but to speak for Christ, his nation. The church was happy to receive us and all the choirs sang beautifully in Chichewa. But, the point of today and all of us attending different kinds of churches was to see how polluted Africa is with "Christian" religion. The fact that we could go to 14 different types of churches in the small town of Petauke shows just how important religion is in Africa. We saw that this part of Africa is saturated with religion that is not necessarily biblically-based. It seems that everyone had an interesting time and it has definitely brought up questions about how to partner with other denominations.
This experience has left me with questions about church planting. When do you let go? When should we give up ownership, and let it be their church? The purpose of church is to worship God. As long as we have Africans who go to scripture for all the answers then maybe its time to leave one place, and go to another.
Sweating, cramped, sitting on the cement pews of the Reformed Church of Zambia, I wondered how the others were doing. The 40/40 group split up and attended 14 different types of churches in the town of Petauke.
I think the church Sarah and I attended was more toward the Presbyterian persuasion. Others went to Catholic, Pentecostal, Anglican, Church of Christ and others.
The reverend preached on 2 Corinthians 5:17-20. He informed his congregation to become ambassadors for Christ – to not just be a Christian but to speak for Christ, his nation. The church was happy to receive us and all the choirs sang beautifully in Chichewa. But, the point of today and all of us attending different kinds of churches was to see how polluted Africa is with "Christian" religion. The fact that we could go to 14 different types of churches in the small town of Petauke shows just how important religion is in Africa. We saw that this part of Africa is saturated with religion that is not necessarily biblically-based. It seems that everyone had an interesting time and it has definitely brought up questions about how to partner with other denominations.
This experience has left me with questions about church planting. When do you let go? When should we give up ownership, and let it be their church? The purpose of church is to worship God. As long as we have Africans who go to scripture for all the answers then maybe its time to leave one place, and go to another.
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