The Vineyard church in Krasnoyarsk had their 16th birthday today. People from the church plant in another town came into celebrate the day with them. There was a time of worship. Then it sort of turned into a performance event with MCs etc, etc. After a little while I was starting to feel that it was a bit over the top and not very worshipful at all.
After the event had been going longer than a regular service Melody started to tell me of a couple of "Prazdniks" (праздник- celebration/ festivals) that she had been to in the past. She recalled that she had been to a "День Знание" (Den' Znaniye- Day of Knowldge, which is the celebration held on the 1st of September, the first day of the School year). Melody was a guest of honour at this school (as she was an English teacher there), the event went on for hours and Melody was seriously bored long before it finished.
It dawned on her that this was going to happen today at the Vineyard too. So where I initially thought that they were being a little event oriented in a worship service, I began to realise that they were actually being true to their culture and worshipping God in their own cultural form. I could be quite sure that many years ago when the church was planted by Americans, that an American pastor would not have allowed such an event to go on so long.
In Soviet times there were prazdniks for everything. They were always regimented events where everybody who wanted to got to say their bit and present something. That was what was happening today. It was sort of an AGM without the political side of things. There were songs, skits, videos etc. (I remember way back when, when this church owned an overhead projector but could not afford a new light bulb for it. Today they were using computers and data projectors etc. Russia has chaned a lot in the last 10 years.)
Despite them enjoying their celebration, and we did enjoy it too, after a couple hours there was no sign of it ending so we snuck out and made our way home. I am still learning so much about Russian culture, a year and a half after living here.
1 comment:
Aaah, it all makes sense now.
Many, many moons ago when I went to Perm to stay with nickolai, I arrived on 'old New Years Eve' and the church was having a celebration. I was very tired from my trip, but it was apparently necessary to show up. I thought it would not go much past midnight after starting at 8pm. How naive! At about 3am I asked Nickolai when it would end because I was fading fast, and he said probably about 8am!
Well, I just guessed that once public transport stopped sometime around midnight, there was no other way to get home and so 'why not?'. So I went and found a hard bench and tried to sleep lying down instead of sitting up!
Now I think you may be right and they just like to celebrate LOOOOONG. I have often had it commented how short our services are in comparison to several other cultures. Maybe we 'westerners' just don't have the fortitude or attention span? I know I don't!
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