Familiarity or the Lack Thereof

Sometimes it is disconcerting how similar Jakarta seems to me. On the surface, at least, it does not “feel” all that different from NYC or other places. The people, the traffic, the noises all are not all that unfamiliar. Sunday morning we joined some believers for worship at Gereja Baptis Indonesia (GBI) Cilandak. Setting aside the difference of language, it was little different from any other Baptist church I have attended. The same greeters at the door, the same friendly people (well maybe that is sometimes a difference to our shame), the same florescent lit auditorium. There was a piano in one corner, wooden pews and a small lectern, adorned subtly with a wooden cross, on a platform raised slightly above the congregation. Otherwise the room is sparsely decorated with white walls and high white ceiling, whose monotony is broken only by the single tube light fixtures and simple fans doing their best to keep the warmth bearable. The pastor, from Japan, preached an homiletically sound message on the attributes of the Holy Spirit, even wrestling with concepts that American churches often gloss over (blaspheming the Spirit). There were traditional hymns sung to traditional melodies in Indonesian words, and familiar praise sung the same way. The words were different, but the meaning the same. The message was bookended with the familiar announcements and the familiar application and invitation. The congregation fellowshipped with each other after the message, and the Pastor greeted the people as the walked out of the church. All in all the entire experience was eerily familiar to home. I am not sure why. I suppose I simply expected a church in another culture to be in some way (beyond language) to be radically different. After all I have come to understand that the characteristics of American “church” that go beyond what we see in the New testament to be culturally American or at least Western. So finding this in the East has left me a but off balance. However, the church here is not its building or its polity or even its ritual and liturgy or lack thereof. The Bride of Christ is the people committed to Him, gathered together to worship the Most High God in the shadow of Islam and i the melee of urbanization.