Visiting Churches

Choosing a church is never any fun.  For the 10 years prior to our time here, we went to church where we worked.  We didn’t have to do the “church shopping” thing.  Here, we’ve been faced with choosing a church.  For our first six months here, we attended a Baptist church near our home.  It worked because we could walk to church, many of the employees from our compound attend there, and it was an easy way to start in the Hausa church culture.  But, about a month ago we decided, for a variety of reasons, that we would like to visit some other churches.   We may end up back where we started, but we feel like we need to explore our options. 

It’s complicated, way more complicated than the same quest in the States.  The first and most glaring issue is that we live in a city that is racked with terrorism.  It is a reality of our lives.  We check security loops before we leave our gates to go grocery shopping.  We ask our gate guards about the status of town before we go to the market.  We’re never out aftr 6:30 PM and we live almost all of our daily lives within about 5 square miles of our house.  We know that Sundays are the most risky, with military checkpoints being far more numerous than the rest of the week.  Not to mention there are lots of road closures and so it’s vital that we know alternate routes from point A to point B.  A church might be great, but if it’s a 20 minute drive on Tuesday, it will likely be 40-50 minutes on Sunday.  Honestly, it’s enough to make a person seriously consider a family church model.

Secondly, we’re white.  And we’re missionaries.  And that means that we can’t just slip in and fill out the visitor’s card and head home.  We will have to stand, introduce ourselves, be stared at for the entire 2-3 hours service where we understand about every 4th word, pray that we get the offering routine right, drink warm sodas in the pastor’s study, and hope that we don’t do anything that’s too culturally offensive while we’re there.  Oh yeah, and that’s with 5 children in tow.  

Finally, we’d like to find a place where we can serve and worship, not just show up.  And yet, we only understand about 20% of what is happening (if that.)  How do you decided if it’s a good fit when you don’t understand the language and the culture?  We need wisdom, discernment, and perserverance to accomplish this task.  We appreciate your prayers as we seek to follow the Spirit in this area of our lives.