Monday Morning

Sunday was a wonderful day of worship. We started the morning at the Czech church. It is housed within the same building as the District Offices. Pastor Ivana welcomed us and invited us in. We filled the back two rows of chairs, set up behind rows of pews. Also behind the pews were tables for children, who were playing and coloring while waiting for worship to start. (John has the photos from this service, so I'll have to post those later when we have time to exchange photos.)
On our way to church that morning, Gary Young had explained to us that many of their hymns would be familiar to us… only the Czech language generally has many more syllables than English. Sure enough, the first hymn was “Revive Us Again” in Czech, but we were able to sing along because “Hallelujah, Amen” is universal. :)
The service had several elements that were familiar, and others that were not. They opened with a reading from Exodus and a reading from Philippians. There was a time in when an older man in the congregation got up and started making presentations, one to a child and another to an adult. We learned later that he was recognizing birthdays. There was an opening hymn, a section of praise songs led by the youth, what I like to call “open mic prayers” (not just prayer requests… individuals said prayers aloud for whatever was on their hearts)… More singing, a blessing of the children before they went off to Sunday School, a sermon by the Associate Pastor, a period of announcements about the many activities they have coming up, a prayer (including the Lord’s Prayer), and then the closing. The church is offering Alpha (Alfa), and so Ivana spent some time explaining that (I assume that’s what she was doing… I kept hearing “Alfa” :).
After worship, many individuals came up to greet and talk to us. A young man, David, introduced himself and told us that he was a pastor’s son and had grown up in another Methodist church in Prague. Another gentleman explained to John that the church had drawn him in when he was looking for a sense of freedom and hope after leading a life of oppression.
We toured the building, seeing the formal sanctuary, which is used only on Communion Sundays once a month and the District Offices.
 


Being Americans, we can’t pass up an opportunity to shop. So we headed to Winceslas Square for a little wandering, shopping and Starbuck’s. Then, we went back down to the church area, where we ate lunch at a café across the street. A few went back to the Czech Inn to pick up a couple of things, while others of us stayed behind and enjoyed visiting and resting in the courtyard of the Methodist Church.

Gary Young arrived at the church, pulling along his “portable church” – that is, everything they would need to set up for the English speaking service. We immediately got to know the facility a little better… found the kitchen and started cleaning up from the morning service, heating water for coffee and tea, and setting out the snack spread that is their tradition. The Youngs go to a great deal of detail and trouble to transform the space from the more stark look that the Czech church uses, to a warm and inviting space. There were Upper Rooms (July-August, but only just now received), brochures about the church, small gifts for visitors, and plenty of refreshments.
Worship began with a reflective reading, music led by the wonderful Gary Young, greeting time, prayer (including words and prayer from John), a wonderful sermon from Michelle including a clip from Tony Campolo (embedded below), and a benediction like no other... gathered together, hand-in-hand, Christians from all over the world singing ourselves out of worship.
We spent the next hour visiting with the congregation, sharing refreshments. They were also celebrating the birthday of one of their members, a retired opera singer, originally from Chicago. We were tasked with stalling her after worship so that she wouldn't be early to her surprise birthday party. If there’s something we’re good at, it’s inane conversation. I’m sure she thought this group of Texans was incredibly tedious, because each of us in turn stopped her as she tried to get out the door.

After worship, we headed out in the rain to continue our "suffering for Jesus" at a wonderful Italian restaurant on the river. We had a spectacular view of the night-lit castle. Richard got a great photo of it (although he wasn't in it unfortunately), but I told the team we probably shouldn't let y'all see it because you wouldn't believe we were truly on a mission trip. :)

When we returned to the inn, we finally had a chance to sit down and talk about what we've seen, heard, and experienced the last few days. God is everywhere... and we have truly seen him here. We all have ministries and mission that are close to our hearts, and I assure you that any of you who visit this place will fall in love with it. We can expect great things to come...

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

London, Too

Image
Thursday was our day of touring London with a guide on our bus. I've been to many of the key places in London, so I was glad to get a tour that told more about the different areas of the city and how they are changing. The area where our hotel is located is known as the "Silicon Valley" area of London... so you can imagine the people we've seen commuting by foot to work around here. All young(ish). I won't go over all of the places we drove through... if you've been to London you know and if you haven't you can imagine. We stopped at the Methodist Central Hall across from Westminster Abbey for a toilet break and hoping to see the inside. Unfortunately, the hall was booked for a conference and so all we did was have a coffee in the Wesley Cafe and use the toilet. This was one place I didn't get to go the last time I was in London, so I was happy to read a little more about it and go inside, even just for a minute. Central Hall was built ...
Read more

Epworth

Image
The first stop on our Wesleyan Tour was the small town of Epworth, where John Wesley was raised, baptized and became the man he was. I'm not sure how this town would be if it hadn't been for the Wesleys... it's almost as if they loved to hate Samuel Wesley and his family when they were living, but when they died or went away and became "famous" they became hometown heroes. I guess this would just be any-old little town if it weren't known for the Wesleys. We visited the rectory that was John Wesley's home (rebuit in 1709 after being destroyed by a fire that John himself barely survived). Among the displays there was a listing of what Susannah Wesley's day typically looked like... That's a lot more time for spiritual reflection than I would have thought. I wonder how many mothers of 10 children have a schedule that looks like this? A simpler time perhaps. So far, what I've learned of John Wesley makes me wonder whether I would ha...
Read more

Curiouser and Curiouser

Image
We slept in a little bit this morning and had brunch at the appropriately named Curiosity Coffee Bar, a highly-rated little place just a couple of blocks from the White Rabbit (our Alice-in-Wonderland-themed bnb). Curiouser and curiouser, we spent the rest of the day at the South Carolina State Library.  The library staff were quite accommodating of our multiple requests from the stacks (I don't have a pic of the big pile of books we left behind at the end of the day).  The things we're curious about make some people (Kef and Dad specifically) shake their heads. Today's finds included a listing of early settlers to South Carolina, among which was my 5 greats grandfather Samuel McGill, described among the "poor protestants lately arrived from Ireland on the encouragement of the Bounty given by this Province." His age was listed as 23, and he was granted that bounty of 100 acres. Although we knew he was born in Ireland, we didn't know what year. So this 1766 lis...
Read more