Sunday in India
Today we split as a team and went to two of the Biglife celebrations. These are times when people from groups across the city gather together to celebrate Jesus. As with the groups these celebrations take a three thirds format. We look backwards with worship and sharing of stories of how the Lord has been at work in the past week. Then we look up and a brother or sister shares a message from the word before people break into groups to consider the passage more using the Discovery Bible Study (DBS) questions. Finally we look forwards and consider our response to what the Lord has said to us, and close in worship and prayer.
We were struck by the tangible sense of the presence of God, and the heartfelt worship. The worship cut across the language barriers with songs in Hindi, Amharic and English, with a real sense of the presence of God. One of the songs has the words of God manifesting himself, and it felt so true for us this morning.
We were all welcomed and felt a real warmth in this. We were not just visitors, but had a deep
sense of being part of a family.
Ashenafi shared from God’s word at one celebration and Peter at the other. There was power in God’s word as it was shared. Both messages talked of the compassion of Jesus - feeling someone else’s pain in your heart. The openness to pray and the passion of their prayers was very moving, and many tears were shed.
Great to read guys, when I was there last week I too was struck by the worship. Singing in different languages is a great reminder that we worship the God of all tribes and nations.
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