Psalm 47: 6-7 “Sing praises to God, sing praises; sing praises to our King, sing praises. For God is the King of all the earth; sing to him a psalm of praise.”
After last night there is no doubt in my mind that the people of Palenque take that verse very seriously. Yesterday was our first Sunday here, so we did what you do on Sunday – we went to church. In the morning we had a church service here together as a squad. We took communion and prayed together and just spent a little time with the Lord. Since there are over 30 of us, we decided to split into two groups to keep from bombarding one church. The group that I was in went to an evening service in towards the city of Palenque.
The van taking us to church pulled off of the main road into…well…poverty. As we drove down the road I was looking at the buildings trying to decided if they were abandoned or occupied. The discernment was a difficult one. As the van stopped, one of the girls innocently said, “Where is the church?”. I was wondering the same thing. The “church” was a small room whose right side and back sat against buildings next to it, and whose left side and roof were tin sheets. There was no front door. There really wasn’t a front at all. It had a concrete floor and some plastic chairs. I was dumbfounded when the pastor thanked God for providing them with such a great place to worship. Cars and lawnmowers are kept in nicer buildings than this, and yet they were so thankful for it. On the other side of the tin wall were chickens. Chickens! Yet every single person there had a huge smile on their face. They welcomed us with open arms and were so excited that we came to worship Jesus with them. We sang songs for about 90 minutes before any speaking took place. Natalie, Krystle, and Shanda all shared their testimonies through a translator, and Dan gave a 10 minute spur-of-the-moment sermon. Then we sang some more songs and just hung out with them. My spanish is terrible, and their English was no better, but we all understand Jesus. And for three hours last night we came together as the body of Christ, not in words, but in song.
Church isn’t a building. Church isn’t a sanctuary and classrooms. Church is the body of Christ coming together to worship. The people in the church last night didn’t have much, but they did have Jesus. And they couldn’t have been happier about it.
