Our First Week of Church
Sunday, September 22, 2002
Today we attended our first church service in Sweden. Very few people in Sweden regularly attend church, so while several people at work were concerned about making sure we were able to find a church, nobody was able to offer a recommendation.
A search on the web indicated a couple of possibilities. Johanneskyrkan (St. John's Church) had the distinct advantage of having one of their pages in English. No theological problems were evident, and it appeared that the church was growing, and had some young people. So we decided to give it a try.
On Saturday we set out to find the church so we wouldn't have problems on Sunday. We found that it meets in a children's school (Kungsbergsskolan). It is only about a 10 minute walk from our apartment. On Sunday morning we left a bit early, since we didn't know exactly where in the school the church met. We heard the band practicing before we went in, and at least some of the words were in English, so that was a bit comforting.
I think we looked a bit lost as we entered the building, but a woman quickly introduced herself and led us in. She explained that they being with a half hour of having coffee and fellowship (called "fika" in Swedish -- the dictionary says this means "have coffee", but I think it describes the social aspects that go around having coffee together. This isn't just a religious thing...we have fika at work too.) Next comes half an hour of worship, and then the sermon. The service is held in the cafeteria of the school, and everybody sits around the tables. So it's a very informal environment. Most people's clothes are informal too -- most people wore pretty much normal everyday clothes, and many were in jeans. [In fact, our second week there, the pastor was preaching in jeans.]
During fika, several people introduced themselves to us, and they were all quite friendly. The woman who first introduced herself turned out to be the wife of one of the pastors. She told us a bit more about the church. She also told us that the service is usually at 4:00 in the afternoon, but this week it was at 11:00 in the morning because there was a guest speaker who had to catch a flight in the afternoon. The woman had to leave once the service started so she could work with the children. The church has about 150 people, and about 50 children on top of that. Another girl translated the welcome for us, but then she had to go as well.
The style of music was reasonable similar to the Celebration service at home. The band consisted of a guitar, bass, drums, and another percussion player for bongo drums and shakers and stuff. The guitar player sang, along with two girls. [The second week there was a different worship team with a slightly different mix of instruments, but the style was similar.] A couple of the songs were Swedish songs that we didn't know. A couple of the songs were in English, but we didn't know them either. Another song was sung in Swedish, but we know the same song in English. So it was a pretty good mix of Swedish and English. [Apparently this week was more English than usual -- the second week I think there was only one song in English.] And if nothing else, we were at least able to read along with the Swedish songs and listen to how the words were pronounced. Maybe in a couple months we will be able to sing along even if we don't know what the words mean. And maybe by the time we return to the U.S. we will even understand most of the words.
Normally the sermon is in Swedish, and they have a couple of people to translate into English at the tables where it's necessary. But this weekend they had some kind of conference at the university with a speaker form St John's college in England. So this week the sermon was in English, with translation into Swedish.
After the service, we met the senior pastor, who wasn't very senior -- he appeared to be in his 30s. The church meets in house groups during the week, and the pastor sent someone to find one that we could join if we wanted to. The leader of the group -- the man who played guitar during the service -- explained that their group usually has three ordinary weeks, and then on the fourth week they do something different. This happened to be that fourth week. He wasn't quite sure what they were doing this week -- he thought it might be Laser Tag. [It turned out to be something else -- more on that later.]
I think we will probably try another church or two while we are here -- although since this church meets later in the afternoon we will probably go to it too. But we felt pretty comfortable at this church, and I imagine that it will probably be our church home while we are here in Sweden. Not bad for one Sunday of searching.