Sunday's Service

Sunday, January 7
We worshipped at St Columba’s Church. It is a congregation of purportedly 10,000 members. In the first service, led entirely in English, the massive church was packed with standing room only for over 1200 people. The service began at 6:30 and lasted for almost two and ½ hours. We were introduced to the congregation and after the service there was a reception with light refreshments. The second service which began at 9 was led entirely in Chechewa, the local language. There were fewer in attendance-maybe 800 or so. The services were marked with remarkable restraint and formality. At each service several different choirs sang-the youth praise choir, the children’s choir, the older woman’s choir, the gospel choir, the woman’s Guild choir, and several soloists. The music was beautiful with many part harmonies. Much of it was accompanied only by electric piano, or sung a capella. The hymns, interestingly were old classic hymns from the Church of Scotland. We recognized several such as “Blessed Assurance”. They were sung in a slightly different cadence, but not with any particular feeling. There was very little response from the congregation during other parts of the service. Some occasional laughter, but not the usual loud boisterous “call and response” that one would hear in an African American church. There were no “Amens” called out during the sermon. The preacher at the traditional Chechewa service was very loud and emotional-a very powerful speaker even though we could not tell what he was saying- but the congregation was quite subdued-with little audible response throughout the message. Throughout we were shown great deference and honored as special guests. It was a fascinating experience of how the gospel has been transplanted from one culture to another, with some of the forms of the old culture clearly still in place, but with the new culture adapting itself to these forms.