Guntur--Sunday, January 14

Today I spoke at the 9am service at St. Matthew Lutheran Church, North Parish in Guntur. The service actually didn't begin until 9:30am and lasted until 11:30am. It was the second service of the morning, the first beginning at 7am. During the winter, this congregation has two morning services each lasting two hours in length and attended by between 1000 and 2000 people at each service. Rev. David Ravindra Babu serves as the lead pastor. It is a congregation within the Andrha Evangelical Lutheran Church (AELC), the largest and oldest Lutheran body within Andrha Pradesh. The AELC's equivalent in America is the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA). St. Matthew serves around 5000 people as members and during the week the doors remain open to shop owners and passers-by to come into the sanctuary for prayer.

Pastor Babu told me that a number of Hindu persons use the sanctuary for prayer during the week and he has many opportunities because of that to talk with them about Jesus Christ.

The text for the sermon was Mark 1:29-37. The vast majority of the service I didn't understand because of the language barrier. However, the service was bookended by familiar tunes to which I could add my words in English while the rest sung in Telegu. We began with Beautiful Savior and ended the service with the doxology, "Praise God from whom all blessings flow..." The experience of being the only English speaker in a worship service in a foreign language is a special one. There is a palatable sense of unity felt as we sing a common tune together, pray the Lord's Prayer, and celebrate the Lord's Supper as one people. Despite the differences the unity in Christ is felt.

The interior of St. Matthew's sanctuary is large, in the shape of the cross, with people sitting on three sides of the sanctuary. For those who can't find a seat inside, the people sit in the area surrounding the church. There are speakers outside so that those who are outside can still participate in the service.

Following worship and lunch we headed up to an internet hub to check and send emails and to write blog entries. Unfortunately, I was unable to reply and send emails after reading them and the blog entry I wrote was lost. It was 45 minutes of writing, all lost and erased because the server was bad. This internet hub was a place where people could receive information, but couldn't send out information via the web. It was quite frustrating. This is why I am writing this blog post India.

It got me thinking that there are people and churches who mimic the internet hub we visited...only receive all kinds of information and blessing, but are not able or willing to give away and send. Conversely, there are people and churches who are great senders but terrible receivers. This is another in a the number of dialectics that make up our world...the tensions that keep us healthy and balances as individuals and churches:
give_____________________receive
law_____________________gospel
active___________________passive
individual________________community

In the past 24 hours, I've been confronted with a number of people begging for money.

Tomorrow we begin the pastor's symposium bringing together the various Lutheran bodies.