Sunday Celebrations / A double-dose of church!

 Jodie:

I got up early this morning to accompany Peter and Ben to Bishnupur Baptist Church. It was just over an hour away and down a little lane. The church was a large, bright, airy space full of beautiful, rich colours with all the amazing Sunday attire. There were a few hundred people (300-400 I estimate) of all ages present. The church was celebrating its 178th anniversary, so there were balloons and decorations up.

It was brilliant to enjoy the children worshiping Jesus with a few songs (including an action song) leading from the front of church, followed by a song and dance from some of the teenagers.

There was prize-giving for various competitions from art to music to sewing.  All helping to add to the celebratory feel.

A women’s group did a little drama with a strong message about the importance of Godly character, the older young people did a drama about overcoming evil and difficult times by focussing on God’s Word and trusting in Him alone.

I got to bring greetings from everyone in the Yorkshire Baptist Association. Peter shared about the importance of being fishers of men and how we all have a responsibility to share Jesus with others, all of the time, in every setting and that everyday we should expect to speak about and demonstrate Jesus’ love to others. Ben brought further encouragement and challenge to their pastor and the whole church.

Then we were dashing off (before the service had even finished) to drive back through the manic roads of West Bengal to Kolkata and the Celebration service for Big Life communities held at the BMS centre.

Worshiping together in Hindi and English is so powerful and encouraging! We especially enjoyed watching Peter who was volunteered to help lead the action song!

We were blessed and honoured as visitors with amazing fresh flower garlands.

Peter shared from God’s word (a double preach for him this morning!) around the healing of the paralysed man (Luke 5: 17-26) focusing in on the different people in the story and what we can learn from them.

We then split into four groups and did a three thirds study using the same passage. It is so great to hear so many different reflections and perspectives around the same passage using the four questions. Then to look forwards about how we will obey, train and share from the scripture we have discussed today.  

What a joy to be able to share with so many other followers of Jesus; to bring encouragement, to be challenged, to pray for and with one another, to witness the love of Jesus in others’ eyes.

Tracy: 

Today our adventure with God took four of us to a celebration made up of several Biglife groups from the nearby area.  The meeting took place in a hall within a market – not the usual place to find a group of passionately worshipping believers but I’ve learned to expect the unexpected here.

We arrived after a short journey along the surprisingly quiet Kolkata roads – more on that later.

As we arrived we were ushered to the front row and treat like honoured guests, we were even presented with flowers.

Nicola

Jonathan

Tracy

David

Not for the first time during our time here I was completely humbled and recognised just how much we have to learn from these wonderful people.

The meeting reminded me of my home church, with young people happily wandering around and being completely accepted by those attending. Children also were very involved in the service and we were led in worship by a young boy singing in English ‘All to Jesus I surrender’ which was incredibly moving.

After a little hiccup of the wrong scripture being read out Jonathon gave a great message and spoke on behalf of the team about the many things we have to learn from these passionate followers of Christ.

We then split into groups to look at the passage (the right one!!!) Biglife style. John 6:1-15

What do you like about the passage? What do you find challenging about the passage? What does it say about God? Does it say anything to you about how you live your life – how can you obey, train, share?

These are exactly the same questions we ask each other in the groups I run each week back in the UK - with the same things picked out for all the questions here as they are at home. It has been eye opening to see first hand here in such a different culture but yet everything being so familiar.

These two beautiful women are amazing – the lady on the left was leading the group I was in and also runs many other groups throughout the week, and the lady on the right prayed for me/us at home at the end of the service.  I have no idea what she said as there was no interpreter but my goodness she meant it, so passionate, so powerful, so much love and trust in the Lord.

So back to the reason the roads were so quiet – well it’s the Cricket world cup final with India against Australia.  As I have been typing the final result has come through of Australia winning.  However it has been a joy to sit out and join in the anticipation and excitement with everyone here.