"Where two or three are gathered . . ."

Sunday, February 5, 2012

It's Sunday morning in New Zealand but only Saturday in the U. S.  That means that over here, people won't be able to watch the Super Bowl because it won't be on TV until Monday.  Strange, huh?

But it's Sunday morning for us in Whakatane, and we've decided to check out the local Lutheran church.  We haven't been in a town that had a Lutheran church on a Sunday morning since we've been here, so this will be a new experience.  The church here is Whakatane Lutheran Church and it was easy to find it from our motel, where we checked out.  Unfortunately, not too many people were finding the church with us today.  The last time this happened, Sandra wanted to just keep on driving around the block.  But today, I pulled into the small parking lot at 9:25 am, walked to the door and found the pianist and guitarist rehearsing some songs.  There was no one else there and they assured me that church would begin in a few minutes.

Whakatane is what might be called a "tripleparish."  The main church is in Hamilton and two other churches are partnered with it and served by one pastor.  He comes out to the two smaller places once a month.  On the other Sundays, worship is led by a layperson.  At about 9:28 am the lay leader walked in with his wife and by that time three others had also joined us.  We began the service.  It was Lutheran, just like home.  There was a printed liturgy in a booklet which included confession, absolution, prayers, creed, Scripture readings, sermon and hymns.  The hymns were projected on a screen and brought back memories of the 70's.  I hadn't sung "It only takes a spark to get a fire going" for a long time.

The sermon was pretty much a reading.  I was told later that lay leaders choose sermons written by pastors from some kind of resource.  The guitarist, a man named Tony, put together the worship guide and chose the hymns.  He was formerly a missionary with the Salvation Army, but joined the Lutheran church because he kept hearing the bell on Sunday morning from his house down the street.  On this Sunday, the sermon was based on Isaiah's verse about "flying like eagles."  A good job with Law and Gospel properly distinguished.

The Lutheran Church of New Zealand has about 13 congregations.  Most are in or near larger cities and were begun when there were Lutheran immigrants moving to those communities.  The 13 congregations form a "district" and are officially part of the Lutheran Church of Australia.  They are served by a full-time president, who is going to be installed into his office this next Sunday.

Apparently Whakatane Lutheran is content to be a small little group of Lutheran Christians.  There would seem to be much potential for outreach and growth.  There were other churches in town, but there are also probably many who no little about Lutherans and even less about the Gospel.  We wondered what we might add to this little group if we were members here.  We do know that true to His promise, Jesus was there in our midst that morning as promised.