In Korea, Christians will often go to worship three times a week. There is usually a worship service on Wednesday night, on Friday night, and then on Sunday. Also, they have services every morning at (I think) 5 o'clock. Some people, I'm not sure how many, go to those. This is quite different from our Western culture, where we attend service three times in one day, two in a row on Sunday morning and another on Sunday evening. This is merely descriptive, though, and no one should take me to mean that Korea is more spiritual than Canada because they have Wednesday and early morning worship services.
I suppose our Wednesday evening prayer meeting is similar to the service, because at this we sing hymns, the pastor shares a message and then people pray. However, as far as I can tell (I never went), prayer meeting is not very popular.
Koreans are also very open about their problems. They always tell me when they are distressed, and what they are praying for, and what they want me to pray for. My co-worker who sits next to me asked me how my spiritual life was going, and I my first reaction was nervousness. I'm not used to answering that question. Mostly, I don't ask others and they don't ask me. I think that here I'm learning things about the communion of saints. But don't worry; I won't come back saying, "Oh, this is how they did it in Korea." If I do, you can all bludgeon me with maces.
I heard in a interview the other day that the secularization of North America hasn't demolished religion, as it has done in England, but has domesticated it. It has made religion private, and Christ our god on the mantelpiece. Moses, on the other hand, approached the bigwig and said, "God said let them go, or He'll smite you with plagues." Contariwise, I would try to apologize for my beliefs, almost as if saying, "I know it sounds dumb and unreasonable, but..." Dei gratia, I am slowly growing stronger in all of my beliefs. I can now take the offensive by mocking and poking fun at false beliefs.
2 comments:
I've been thinking about your post for a few days now, and I've come back to re-read it a couple of times.
There are many North American churches, even here in halifax, which have two or three services DAILY. Now obviously very few people would ever attend every service in a given week, but parishoners are often encouraged and challenged to attend services during the week: not just on Sundays. These churches with a schedule of daily services seem, more often than not, to represent denominations with rich historical and liturgical traditions, such as Catholic or Anglican.
While I do not suggest conversion to the Anglican or Roman church as the path to spiritual maturity, could it be that so much of what we, in our forward-thinking, culturally relevant, evangelical churches, condemn as empty form and legalism is actually what is needed most? Is it possible that the struggle to free ourselves from the perceived shackles of formality, tradition, and history, is actually a thinly veiled attempt to disguise and justify our own spiritual apathy and emptiness?
Maybe you SHOULD return and preach to us about "how they did it in Korea".
Just a thought.
-Andrew
I have to say it jumped off the computer screen at me when I read that the first response to the question of how your spiritual life is going was nervousness.
I have to say that so far in my own experiences I have had about two people ask me that question.
In a sense it is like people are afraid or too wrapped up in their own lives to care or even think to ask the question. Christians are suppose to encourage, build up and keep accountability to other christians and I seem to seldom see this happen.
We need to search the scripture to remind ourselves what God said about our fellow christians and how we are to help them through the walk with prayers, encouraging words, and listening ears.
-Sarah
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