October 30, 2006

Greetings to all!

Our home church, First Presbyterian Church of Kent, Washington, recently set up a telephone call to us as an extended part of their Sunday worship service. We were very grateful for the experience to share in personal voice. One church member asked “What are your worship services there like?” We gave a short answer about Carolee playing “chase me” with us during worship, the mud puddles she splashes in, the dogs, sheep, chickens, donkeys, and cows, and the kids everywhere. Later we realized that we didn’t really answer his question. Here’s a better description.

A typical Sunday

Worship begins at the Dembi Dollo Bethel Danka Church at 7:30 am. We usually arrive about 45 minutes late. We wake up at 6:30, deal with the morning whirlwind called Carolee, and are finally able to get out the door at about 7:45. We follow the dirt road out the gate of BESS for the half-hour walk to the church, taking the cut-off trail and following it down one hill, across the creek, and up another hill, arriving at church hot and sweaty.

Our congregation’s building was built in the 1920s during the early years of the Presbyterian Mission in Dembi Dollo. It has lived through many eras of persecution, denominational struggles, revivals and remodeling, and is showing its age. The building is about the same size as a typical small PC(USA) church in the United States, and was probably intended to seat around 300. On a typical Sunday, it seats about 1,000 people inside. We sit outside, where there is a covered shelter, common to just about every church in the Wollega Synod, which seats another 200 people or so on hand-split log benches anchored into the dirt. Chickens wander through the aisles, cocking and cooing as if selling peanuts and popcorn at a ballgame. The sounds from inside the church reach the shelter via a croaky old loudspeaker.

It is in this environment that we join the congregation in worship, which is usually singing a number of opening songs as we find a place to sit. Following the songs, the congregation recites the Apostle’s Creed, and a guest speaker from another church or presbytery then gives a short sermon. The guest speakers rarely are used to speaking with a microphone and speak way too loud and close to it, coming across with the clarity of a Manhattan subway conductor.

The guest sermon is followed by a few songs by one of the church’s choirs (four choirs in all, each with more members than a typical choir in a U.S. church, mostly made up of the youth of the church). There are many beautiful, graceful-sounding, string, wind, and rhythmic instruments that originated in Ethiopia, but none of these are used in worship. The congregations here seem instead to reserve a special awe and honor for the Yamaha keyboard. The more electronic buzzes and beeps, the better. The drum rhythm of “Miami Vice” seems to be one of the favorites on the keyboard, started by the press of a button. However, it is the spirit of worship, not the sound, which is important in directing our praise to God. And the spirit of worship is very strong. In fact, the choirs regularly write their own lyrics and music for a majority of the songs. When we think about the amount of time, study of the word, and fellowship that goes into preparing these songs, we can see that they are a part of the worship coming truly from the heart, a blessing and gift to God. Many people get very excited to hear the choir each week, and shout “lu, lu, lu, lu, lu, lu!” when the choir begins, an Ethiopian style of clapping or cheering. At the end of a song, the congregation says together “God bless you for your gift to us.”

Then the children come to the front of the congregation for a short blessing or lesson, and are then dismissed to Sunday school. We teach Sunday school once a month, and it is considerably more active than the small group we were used to back at Kent First Presbyterian. There are around 300 kids in the Sunday school program for elementary-school age kids, and whenever we teach, they are all together into one small room. Needless to say, there is a lot of energy there. As we are far from fluent in Oromiffa, we teach mostly with body language and props, which the kids love. Sunday school includes songs, Bible readings, a short lesson, memorizing Scripture, a closing song, and prayer.

Back in the main church, after a Scripture reading, the pastor or one of the church’s evangelists gives the main sermon. Sermons here are fairly similar in content to those in the United States, though longer. The main difference is in the presentation. Sermons are usually shouted out, in the classic fire-and-brimstone sense. Phrases are often repeated, each time with greater volume and emphasis. The congregation then responds in unison with a loud “amen!” From our outsider’s perspective, it sometimes seems more like a military rally than a worship service. We have been told this style emerged from the many years that Ethiopia was under a Communist government, when community meetings and rallies were given in this same manner. With this style, however, you definitely don’t see the heavy eyelids and nodding heads that sometimes accompany some sermons back in the United States!

Prayer is similar in tone to the preaching during the worship service, and people in the church here really love to pray! Instead of long, soft, sermon-like prayers typically said during worship services in the United States, people here more typically pray using short phrases with lots of repetition, volume, and “amens!” After the sermon and a second choir session, prayers are offered for the church, the community, and for specific requests. The service then concludes with the Lord’s Prayer and a blessing, typically between 10:30 to 11:00.

Next door to the church is the frame of the new Dembi Dollo Bethel Danka Church. It is a colossus, with planned seating for around 2,000, a visual reminder of the rapid growth of the church occurring throughout western Ethiopia. We have heard people say that such huge churches hinder good community worship and discipleship opportunities, but they are simply a response to the fact that there are currently only 95 ordained pastors serving 273 congregations—a total of 251,438 church members—within the Western Wollega Bethel Synod. That works out to 2,646 members per pastor, and one pastor for every three churches! Quite the opposite of the problem many congregations are facing in America today! Gidada Bible School is busy training pastors in Dembi Dollo, but the supply is not keeping up with the enormous demand.

Please join us in praying for the Bethel Danka church in Dembi Dollo, that it continue to grow and become a vital, active witness to the community of Christ’s love.

By the way, if your congregation would like to have a telephone call with us—such as doing a minute for mission via speaker phone in the sanctuary—please let us know. We would love to do it.

Mike and Janelle

The 2006 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 330