A few months before going
to Korea I read a blog post, a sermon actually, posted by a pastor I greatly
admire, whom I’m sure many of you have heard of. Her name is Nadia Bolz-Weber
and she is an ELCA pastor in Denver, Colorado, at The House for All Sinners and
Saints. She posted this on May 10th and it is entitled, Stop Saying the Church is Dying (a sermon
for the Rocky Mountain Synod Assembly). You can view her sermon here: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/nadiabolzweber/2014/05/stop-saying-the-church-is-dying-a-sermon-for-the-rocky-mountain-synod-assembly/
In her sermon Nadia speaks
on many things and it really got me thinking about the Church today and our
place in the world.
Which brings us to my
church experiences in Seoul. The first church we attended was an afternoon
English service. Jubilee Church is big, there is no doubt about that. By the
time we were about fifteen minutes into the service it was standing room only
in the back. It was also the kind of service that I struggle to be comfortable
in. There were a lot of arms raised during prayer and song, there was some
swaying going on, and a lot of talk about accepting Jesus Christ as your
Savior.
Some of you may be
wondering why on earth any of the above is a bad thing. That’s just it. It
isn’t a bad thing. However, it is something that I have very negative associations
with from past experiences. I struggled for the first twenty minutes to reign
in my judgment, to compose myself, and try to be open to God in this place. My
own judgment and negativity was making that incredibly difficult.
Then the senior pastor
started his sermon and I felt as if I had been literally slapped upside the head.
Here I was, surrounded by my peers (most everyone there was a twenty or thirty
something), in a church full to bursting, having listened to great music,
hearing an awesome sermon, and I was sneering because it wasn’t “MY” type of
church. I felt so completely and utterly ashamed of myself. Yes, I have had
negative experiences. But here I was acting no better. I was passing judgment
just as I had been judged.
I began to look around me,
at my brothers and sisters in Christ. I have never in my life (save perhaps
Group Workcamps) seen that many young people gathered to praise God. These were
young professionals, my peers, twenty and thirty somethings, the group that I
hear repeatedly the church in America wants so badly to reach. This church had
just welcomed back one mission group, before sending out another. This church
welcomed everyone who was new by name. This church had STANDING ROOM ONLY!
My judgment was completely
forgotten. The shame lingered, to come back and bite me later, but at the time
all I could do was stare around me in wonder and the absolutely certainty that
the church is not dying. Anyone who says so has never been to Jubilee Church.
After service, we got a
snack, grabbed a taxi, and headed out to another church, Onnuri Community
Church, this one being a more “traditional” Korean style worship service.
Before we got to the church Grace told us that this service was the fourth
service of the day, and was specifically geared towards twenty and thirty
somethings. We got inside and there sure were a lot of people milling about, so
I was surprised to learn that the service had already started. As we moved
upstairs I noticed several chapels in the basement, and when we got to the
first floor we started to see big TV screens with chairs grouped around them
out in the hall, broadcasting what was going on inside. Nothing prepared me for
what greeted us upon going inside to the chapel itself.
I have never in my life
seen a church that big. Or an organ that massive. Or that many twenty to thirty
somethings in a church. Once again it was standing room only, or take a chair
and watch on the TV out in the hall. There must have been close to two thousand
people in there, and, to reiterate in case you missed it, this was the fourth service that day! The other’s had
had an even bigger audience attending (they use the chapels in the basement and
put the live recording on the big screen like a movie theater) and it wasn’t
even the last service of the day! Onnuri Church offers NINE different services
every Sunday!
To make an even more
powerful statement, about fifteen people were at the front receiving bouquets
of flowers and being embraced by their brothers and sisters. They had just been
baptized. Fifteen. In one service. Now, who knows, maybe they wait all year and
we just happened to be there on baptism Sunday. That’s how the Japanese church
does it after all, but they do it at Christmas or on Easter. It doesn’t matter
anyway. It was a very powerful piece of what I was seeing and experiencing.
I’ve been to mega churches
in the States before, but this was church like I had never seen it. There were
a couple of similarities, but not many. The size couldn’t even compare. There
wasn’t a praise band in sight. The pastors weren’t in jeans, nobody was rocking
out on an electric guitar or a drum kit. Everyone was in the pews, the kind
with the little shelf on the back of the pew in front of you were you can put
your bible and song book, and the organ was like a behemoth at the front. It
was all very traditional liturgy as far as I could tell, it was all in Korean after
all. And it was specifically for young adults. My mind was blown.
Now perhaps some of you
have heard of Onnuri Church, apparently it has churches around the world,
including in the States, but I have not, and so I can only speak to my own
experiences of what I had seen and heard. To have such an experience right on
the heels of the first service was powerful indeed and I reflected long and
hard into the night about what Korea was doing right and what Japan, and even
America, was doing wrong...
Two days later we were out
and about on the town when we realized that we were really close to Myeongdong
Cathedral. The history surrounding the cathedral is fascinating and we decided
to stop by and take a look. It was then that we discovered that Pope Francis was
coming to Seoul! Two days after we left! I was so sad we missed him. Remind me
to check the calendar next time I am traveling internationally so that I don’t
miss important things like the pope being in town. Who doesn’t love Pope
Francis?
Anyway, we could tell
there was a service going on inside, but we had seen a few people go in a side
door so we tried it out. There was a very friendly man in the back, clearly
part of the congregation, who quietly welcomed us. Like the other two churches
this one had standing room only. Every pew was full. A woman was singing a hymn
at the front, the gentleman who welcomed us told me in English that she is a
very famous Korean singer. When she sat down someone stood up to introduce the
person who would be giving the message that evening.
He was a bishop from
Africa and gave his sermon in English, which was translated into Korean. He
thanked the church for the kindness and hospitality and extended his greetings
from our brothers and sisters in Africa to those in Asia. It was a powerful
reminder that the God’s church is far bigger than we can ever imagine and, when
we stand together, when we break bread together, we are absolutely unshakable.
We didn’t stay long, and
after we left we went on that awesome ferry ride on the Han River, and had a
blast goofing off. But that night, when I had some time to think, I pondered the
most beautiful image of the bishop from Africa, preaching to his brothers and
sisters in Korea, with some American Lutherans hanging out in the back. Who
says the church is dying?
People say, “Look at the
statistics!” And then they rattle off all these numbers at you. Forgive me, but
screw that. The church has survived for two thousand years, it will survive
long after we are gone. It has survived through every tragedy mankind could
invent, with some good old Mother Nature disasters thrown into the mix. It
cannot be shaken, it will endure, no matter how it changes, and it will last
until He comes again in Glory. Nadia says it best, “So let me be the first to
say, if in your congregation, regardless of size, prestige or property, if the
Word is preached and the Eucharist shared and water poured and forgiveness of
sins received, then congratulations, your congregation is a success. So when
the numbers crunchers and church consultants say the church is dying…may I
suggest that we only say this when we forget what the definition of church is… And
when we forgot whose the church is.”
Which brings me to the
church in Japan. We have been hearing bad news about the church here since we
set foot in Tokyo. I have had firsthand experience with how small the seminary
is, how small the churches are, and I have been given my share of papers with
really depressing numbers on them. You can imagine why then, Nadia’s words
inspired me so. Christianity first arrived on Japan’s shores in 1549. It was
then heavily persecuted, its converts suffered unspeakable horrors, and for three
hundred years Christianity went underground. And yet, it survived. With no help
from the church of the outside world, it was passed down, with no Japanese
bible, generation to generation, until only a vague memory of what the Lord’s
Prayer (in Latin) meant remained, it survived.
We do not determine
whether the church lives or dies. We are not in charge here. We are merely the
keepers here on earth, entrusted to spreading the Word, nothing more, nothing
less. The church is not dying. The Spirit is in the world and it cannot die.
