While I was in El Salvador, I got to go to some really long church services. Sometimes we were lucky if the service was under two hours (and that was without taking into account the time we spent waiting for the church service to actually start). I love going to church- I love singing, worshiping God with other people (and sometimes with dogs, cats, chickens, and bats), hearing a good sermon, and praying for my need and other’s needs. But as much as I enjoy going to a worship service, the long worship services in El Salvador got to be very tiring.
I am complaining a little bit, but these church services were wonderful despite their longness.
Worshiping in El Salvador has given me a much deeper and greater understanding of the Church. I have come to see how beautiful it can be when Christians from different cultures, different countries, and even different denominations join together to worship, share in fellowship, and even work together. Compared to what I see in El Salvador, my home church is isolated from Christians outside our church. In El Salvador there always seems to be international Lutheran visitors in addition to national and international visitors from other denominations (Presbyterian, Catholic, Methodist, Disciples of Christ, Anglican, Episcopalian, etc.).
One worship service I went to was led by about 8 male and female pastors from El Salvador, Germany, and the U.S. The pastors took turns leading different parts of the worship service. When it came time for Communion, a pastor from Germany said the words of institution in German. I’m quite familiar with the Words of Institution in English, I can understand them pretty well in Spanish, but I only know about five words in German so I didn’t understand. But I did understand. In Communion there is something that goes deeper than the words that are said (although these words are important).
With those pastors and all the visitors and the Salvadoran congregants, it was very easy to see just how big the Church is. It was easy to conceptualize that the Church is all over the world (something that I think Americans can forget easily). Furthermore it was so easy to see how all parts of the Church can and should work together in solidarity. We all must depend on each other, we can all learn from each other, we can all be strengthened and challenged by each other.
Back at home it will be more difficult to remember the extent of the Church. I’ll have to make sure that I’m making an effort to remember and seek out the Church beyond my own church.
Going to church services in El Salvador has also given me a deeper understanding of what it means to worship God. Anyone who goes to church on a regular basis knows what to expect. Each church has their own slightly unique way of “doing” church. But when I go to church in El Salvador, worship is far from what I would expect if I were at my church at home. Worship is different in El Salvador, and yet it is still fully worship and it pleases God- perhaps the worship of Salvadorans pleases God more.
In El Salvador I learned: You don’t need a church building to worship in. If you do have a church building, it doesn’t need to have electricity nor does it need to be spotlessly clean to please God. You don’t need nice clothes to worship God. Worship doesn’t have to be in English. You don’t need an organ, or a piano, or a guitar, or even hymnals to sing beautiful songs of praise to God. Worship doesn’t have to be limited to an hour on Sunday morning. You don’t have to be literate to worship God. You don’t have to have comfortable chair to sit in to worship God. You don’t need a complex sound system, or any sound system, to worship God. Worship doesn’t have to look or sound a certain way. God only looks at what’s in a worshiper’s heart.
I think I knew all this before I ever went to El Salvador, but worshiping in El Salvador made all this true to me in a whole new and deeper way.
