Going to church

Growing up, both Andrew and I went to church multiple times a week. The church building was a second home of sorts, and we spent a lot of time there. On Sunday mornings, never was there a week where we were anywhere else. Well, I remember ONCE when we were on vacation, we didn't actually go to church, but we still sang and Dad gave us a message from the Word, and since he's a pastor, it was pretty close to the real deal, minus lots of people. But the rest of the time, vacation or not, we went.

In college I think I missed a couple times because of having too much homework and a swim meet that took up all day Friday and Saturday. But I still went to the evening chapel service every Sunday night without fail for four years. During my grad school days, I continued in my faithful attendance, because, what on earth would one do on a Sunday morning other than go to church?!

And then I became a missionary...

Before coming to Tanzania, I envisioned myself joining a local congregation and taking part in church every week alongside Tanzanians and enjoying spiritual fellowship with local friends and neighbors. It was a nice picture, but reality met up with me at language school.

Upon arrival in Tanzania, I came to face with the fact that Tanzanian church services are in Swahili, and I didn't know Swahili. That was a pretty good deterrent for a while. Considering a screaming pastor using a bad PA system makes even one's mother tongue pretty unintelligible, sometimes it's still an effective deterrent.

So although my church attendance while in language school was sporadic, I attempted to go every other week or so. But since Sunday was the only day when a ride into town was guaranteed, I admit sometimes I used the lift to go to the Internet cafe and send/receive e-mail... And then I came to Musoma, sure that things would change when I was settled into one place and could speak the language.

The message I heard growing up wasn't that you were supposed to go to church just for the sake of going, but that you are to go serve others, fellowship, and get solid Bible teaching. So what do you do when you can't find a local church that has all of those things? Staying home listening to a sermon from home on a Sunday morning seems like a pretty valid option sometimes.

During my first term here, I finally just made a rule for myself (living by the law, I know): go to church twice a month, no matter what. In every given month there would be something happening on a weekend that prevented attendance, a week when I'd simply be too worn out to go, and two weeks when it worked out to go, and I made myself do it. I visited a lot of different churches (Musoma has over 30 denominations, most with more than one congregation), and habituated two of them a bit more frequently.

During my second term, Andrew and I have lived by grace and not the law and just go when it makes sense to go, and stay home/do something else when that makes more sense, and it ends up being about the same percentage. We have come up with a list of things that one must consider when thinking about going to a church:
-Length of service. There is a big difference between a two-hour service and a four-hour service.
-Attention. In some churches they don't pay much attention to white visitors, and in some they make a big (i.e. annoying) deal out of it.
-Sound system. No sound system is best, and one at low volume is second best. However, most churches ascribe to "the louder, the better".
-Music. We like churches which have congregational singing. Some have only the choir sing, not everyone.
-Use of the Bible. Using the Bible at all is a good thing, using it correctly/in context is a great bonus.
-Temperature of the building. Some places tend to trap heat, some have a nice breeze.
-Dance teams. It can be fun to visit a church with a good choir/dance team that really gets going while singing.
-Parking. Is there a place for our truck? Do kids at the church tend to draw with dirt all over it while it's parked there?
-Seating plan. Some churches have all the women and kids on one side and all the men on the other (guess which side fills up more...). I didn't care when I was single, but now it's an issue, since we like to sit together.
-Number of offerings. One is enough.

And the final one, which is often considered the most important...
-Type of seating. Wooden bench with uneven legs or a plastic chair? A two-hour service on a bench feels like it's about the same length as a four-hour service with a plastic chair!