World Cup Churches 29: Portugal

Continuing a series of blogs heading round the 32 qualifying countries in the 2022 World Cup - I will pick out one church in each one.  I am not going to choose only churches that are to my liking.  This is an exploration not a recommendation! To see all in the series select the label 'World Cup Churches' below.

Portugal is such an interesting country that, despite its small size has influenced all corners of the maritime world.  It is also a country with deep Catholic history, but here for my blog is a Protestant Church - Igreja Evangelica Prebyteriana de Lisboa.  It was the first in Portugal and, predictably, the result of a Scottish missionary's initiative. 

There are not hoards of Evangelical Presbyterian churches in Portugal, and they have been through a lot over their history.  Although this one has ended up with a strong number in a modern building, many are in minuscule chapels in isolated locations, as typical of Protestantism in very Catholic cultures.  What drew me to these churches was something as simple as their default picture on their listings page.

What do you do when you don't have an actual picture of a church?  I've seen many techniques - badges, letters, blank spaces, Bibles, praying hands . . .

Like the photograph above, the default picture for the Evangelical Presbyterians of Portugal's unpictured churches is a picture of people:

Whether a typical Evangelical Presbyterian Church in Portugal is as friendly as this appears, I have no idea.   But I do like the idea that if you only envisage one thing about one of their churches you envisage warmth and fellowship.

World Cup Blogs 6. Costa Rica

Until the time of the last World Cup in 2014 (Costa Rica were in England's group) my knowledge of Costa Rica was limited, to say the least.  Somewhere on the mainland of Central America, probably quite small and revolutionary and possibly something to do with rice.

Though it was the time of the last World Cup, it wasn't the World Cup that changed my view of Costa Rica.  It was that, having moved to London with its international population, I was in a church where one of the members was Costa Rican.  I found myself asking about the country because I had met the person.  I found out about the country and it mattered to me because it was part of someone I now knew.

This is exactly how it often works in things spiritual.  Here is someone who has nothing but a minimal, distant knowledge of the Lord Jesus and the things of heaven.  They will happily die with no such knowledge - or so they believe.  Then they meet someone who belongs to Jesus, who is spiritual but who is also their friend.  And things that once meant nothing to them come to mean very much more.

Sabbatical Pictures No 8 Impossible Trees

Years ago I travelled to the Outer Hebrides to visit a friend and later to work on a children's mission.  The latter included a memorable winter sea crossing and a stay in a caravan that only just maintained its connection to the land by means of several large chains as the gales howled around us!

Obviously the Outer Hebrides were no place for trees.  And there were none.  The odd shrub leaned from constant wind attack, most of its branches leafless.  A few hedges well placed in shelter behind walls offered slim vertical greenness.  Otherwise it is all grass and stone walls (and some of the stone walls have scarcely survived).

Yet in Stornoway, in the extensive castle grounds, there are not only trees but a veritable forest.  You could as easily be on a Kent hillside as on an Outer Hebridean bay.  The combination that achieved this is quite simple:

a) It was deliberately planted;

b) The trees are close together for protection;

c) It is looked after.

The existence of a body of people following a man who lived, died and lived again two thousand years ago is unlikely in the 21st century climate.

But the church is

a) Deliberately planted;

b) Together for protection and prospering;

c) Always looked after.

There are two places in the world where men can most effectively disappear

(according to 19th century American novelist Herman Melville)  — the city of London and the South Seas.  He might have added - Sundays at Church.

 

In these weeks of being effectively between pastorates I get to experience what happens when you go to church as an outsider.  Of course on one level I am far from an outsider.  I was at a church today where we recited the Nicene Creed and was possibly the only person in the room that knew it off by heart.  I rarely stand up at the wrong time, rarely fail to know who wrote a hymn or song, let alone how to sing it, rarely fail to find the Bible reading quickly and even know where to sit and where not to sit.  Nevertheless, no-one knows that about me when I arrive.  This morning I attended my fifth service during this personal inbetween-time.  My wife and daughter add a couple of extra experiences to this mid 2014 survey of being a newcomer at British Churches of all kinds.  As I have found on Sabbaticals gone by there is a nearly unfailing theme here.  Let's try a picture:

 

I count it the highest privilege to belong the church of Jesus Christ.  I do not deserve it.  My sin properly excludes me from its fellowship but One has paid for my sin.  The cross is the reminder I did not properly belong apart from God's grace.  I do not need the gathering Christians to act out my deserved exclusion. Yet time and again I walk through open doors, receive a wan smile from a busy steward, find my way to a seat or bit of pew, then watch 50, 80, 150 people come in, sit around me and talk to each other with warm welcoming reunions.  The key word there is watch.

I conclude that this is a British Church epidemic of inhospitality.  I am the same person who has people gathering around me when I am the known Pastor or visiting preacher.  I wear just the same aftershave and am indeed far more friendly and relaxed than when I am about to lead a service.  My wife and daughter are the same people that people gather round when they are known.  But become a stranger and at once you are strange.  Where that leaves you if you really are generally strange in some way I dread to think.

 

A very special moment happened in one church where a pleasant older lady eventually engaged me in conversation well after the service had finished.  Her husband moved away and returned with two mugs of tea.  I was very grateful.  He gave one to her and then to my surprise turned away and drank the other one - his!

 

I note that Christ's measure of discipleship is not how we welcome each other (though how we love and forgive each other is another story).  His measure is how we welcome the stranger.  I am embarrassed that the average Estate Agent is (albeit from other motives) more exemplary of Christ's pattern of welcome than his alleged people when they gather to worship.

International

Someone visiting our Church the other week remarked, "It's very international, isn't it?"  Whilst technology changes at breath-taking speed, the make up of Wycombe has been changing just as fast.  And because the British have lost their love for God the Church is changing more rapidly even than the High Street.  Scarcely a week goes by when I am not writing a Welcome Letter to someone with a name that certainly doesn't owe its origin to the Anglo-Saxons.

 

It struck me forcibly a few weeks ago when we went to lunch with some people from the Church.  Our family was born in England; one was from Africa, one from North America, two from Central America, one from Oceania.

 

In fact it struck me that the mix of people in our Church is more international than in the International Church we visited on vacation.

 

On September 11 it is good to realise that although the world is full of differences it is also full of people with shared lives, including those whose destiny lies beyond nationality in a Heavenly City with gates in every direction.

Book Review - Love One Another

Love One Another

Becoming the church Jesus longs for

By Gerald L. Sittser

IVP 188 pp £8.99

This is a reworked version of Sittser’s 1994 book Loving Across Our Differences. Sittser’s book deserves respect because its original version was born out of immense family tragedy in which he lost his wife, daughter and mother in a car accident. The pastoral care that he and his remaining family received from his church gave him the passion for the subject of this work.

Sittser has written a straightforward, readable and useful book on pastoral and fellowship issues in the local church. There is much illustrative material but the chapters of the book are built around the ‘one another’ sayings in the New Testament. From these sayings he is able to address areas such as Comforting One Another, Being Subject to One Another, Forgiving One Another, Encouraging One Another and even, though with understandable difficulty, Admonishing One Another.

Sittser’s expositions of Paul’s pastoral thinking are often insightful and almost always helpful. It might form a supporting text for a local church studying what the Bible says about Christian fellowship or pastoral care. It would also provide encourage warmth and breadth for the thinking of Pastors, Elders or Deacons, possibly on a retreat.

Die Gemeinde

German was never my strongest language. Die Gemeinde may be one of the reasons why. It is untranslatable into English because it means several different things at once for which, in English, we use different words. But one of those words is 'fellowship'.

Recently it was a special joy to get at last to Kelkheim, Germany, during my weeks away. Kelkheim is the twin town of High Wycombe and for a long time our church has had a link with the Evangelical Baptist Church there.

I set out from nearby Frankfurt on an early Sunday morning train in warm spring sunshine. I was probably unique on the train in not having a bike with me - I was certainly unique in not having a back pack! Walking and cycling are the draw to the Taunus Hills on a sleepy Sunday morning and the train wound its way upwards past neat villages until it reached the more substantial town of Kelkheim.

At this point it is worth recording that I had been in Germany for 24 hours, and previously never before. I was a long way out of my comfort zone.
Armed with my map I walked from the station through the warm sunshine and the quiet, hilly streets for a few hundred metres and there ahead of me was the Evangelisch-Freikirchliche Gemeinde (Baptisten). As befits a former shop it looked like, well, a shop!

When the service began the generous visuals on powerpoint and my low level GCSE German meant that I was never far off what was going on. Mysteriously, somehow these hundred or so people were not passing acquaintances but everlasting friends. Our language was often handshakes and smiles more than words but we were one people. I felt at home.

The only point at which I completely lost track was, strangely enough, the very last song. Following the benediction I leaned over to the worship leader and asked if she could tell me what it was about. It turned out it was a song about Christian fellowship and looking forward to meeting again soon.

I thought that was appropriate. The mystery in the whole morning was about fellowship, for which the phrase is Die Gemeinde. Intangible yet real across the borders of history and language I was more at home with these believers than in a body of unbelieving Englishmen. What a privilege it is to have been saved into the Church of the living God!