Some fun at last... in church
Aconfession: I haven’t been in church for a long time. Really! Let’s see — the last time was 2008 back home in Kampala, when the pastor (an old university friend) blessed my good wife and then asked me to kiss the bride.
As an African man, I nearly collapsed. Kiss? A girl? In front of all my relatives? Ha! Anyway, eight years ago in Kampala. In Grahamstown? Try 15 years and nix. See, for high school, I went to a school founded by Brit- ish missionaries. Church was compulsory and bunking was severely punished.
So many of my colleagues and I developed religious “disorders” that the passing of years has not mellowed.
We, for example, preferred Catholic Mass because it was just 30 minutes long and they allowed you to eat the Host (is that correct, Father?), even though some of us were Anglican and even Muslim! So 15 years. Until Sunday 4 July this year, right in the heart of ’42. The service was in Zoo Major; the music was amplified (three guitars, two vocals, percussions and violin), the hymns were ultra-modern and the lyrics projected by laptop to a white screen.
And incredibly, while not the 30 minutes I remembered from high school Mass, the 90 minutes didn’t seem all dragged out.
But it was the God’s people who shook me even more.
They went by first names — Ralph, Caroline, John, Keryn (well, er, Sim); the fashion was hip and loose; our kids were called God’s little people and gently shooed off to their own slightly noisier Sunday crèche; the sermon invoked God and the Arts (early July being the National Arts Festival); and a bigot would have been uncomfortable, such was the diversity in race at least.
Incredibly also, there was tea at the end. And cake for me as a first-time visitor to His People’s Church! Tea!
I felt like St Paul, back when he was Saul and doing all sorts of naughty things!
And to imagine that my old man is a lay pastor who whiles away his retirement doing God’s work in a converted part of the family home.
To be fair to me, the church I remember was stodgy, the services packed with silly rituals and grown men (for they were exclusively men) wore long maxi dresses, like they were in drag.
Sunday’s sermon was delivered by a woman and even without a Bible, I could follow.
2 Samuel 12: 1-18 (that’s King David being rebuked via satire for killing his friend and taking his widow); Psalms 100: 1 (about praise, in song) and Exodus 25: 1-40 (God asking Moses to have the wandering Jews make him a re- ally classy tabernacle from the most expensive materials). Now, this is nice. If I would have a last word, I too would go the way of this church and say that Jesus Christ was a showman who would love being here at the Festival.
Imagine feeding people in High Street and walking on water at the Great Field!
Obviously, 90 minutes does not make a convert out of me. But I am glad I went.
And I might even return next Sunday.
• Sim’s views above do not in any way reflect the views of His People’s Church.