As I reflect on my trip to Namibia, a couple of things that come to mind in terms of worship gatherings is readiness and simplicity. Both Sundays in Namibia my team met with a fellowship called The Grace and the Glory Community church. The gathering of people was very diverse the second weekend there. There were Namibians, Americans (my team), Deutch, Germans. Granted its not quite that diverse every week, a majority of those were visitors, but it was cool to have so many tribes and nations represented during a gathering in the name of Jesus.
So here we are, with lots more people than we had chairs set up for, so people were grabbing the chairs that were stacked and setting them up as more people came in. There wasn't a projector, there were song books, but there were not nearly enough for everyone. And of course different people know different songs in this book, and some don't know any at all (especially if english wasn't their first language). And here I am with my guitar and voice - no sound system, but it really wasn't needed.
I came ready to play and sing worship music... just didn't necessarily know exactly what music that would be. I picked one song to start with and then asked for requests and decided whether I could recall the song from memory or not. God was praised, I broke a guitar string, but I kept going, the Word was shared in a very down to earth way and was relevant to the hearers, we had some great interactions with our new friends... there was no stress.
Then I think about all the extra elements we throw in to our services back home. We usually have a band of 4 or more people playing through a decent sized sound system. We have a projector that displays slides for the songs, readings, and occasionally videos. We have lots of chairs set up, and there's someone that is very particular about how they are set up :) We record the sermons everyone week to be posted on our website. All of this stuff usually takes a decent amount of planning and communication before hand. Sometimes we get stressed in the process of trying to pull this off, or if something goes wrong during a service we get worked up about it.
All this to say that my experience at the in Namibia reminded me that all the extra stuff we do is not as important as we treat it most of the time. Doesn't mean we can't utilize it, but we need to remember that worship gatherings can happen without the AV systems, without extensive planning, without the best ability in town to speak or sing. Those of us in the body of Christ, whatever our roles, need to be careful not to come to a worship service as a spectator for a well done religious show or program (or as the one who performs the show). What we should look for is the Holy Spirit, the Word of God, declaration of praises to the living God, loving fellowship of the saints, interact with Jesus and His story. And how about a readiness to leave from there and live out God's story in our lives throughout the week, let's not just sing about it. Blessings to my brothers and sisters at The Grace and the Glory, thanks for letting us be the church with you in Namibia.
