Most of my ministry I have struggled to see the value of pews. They have been an impediment to the free flow of worship. However, recently when visiting a numer of churches in Cuba it struck me that its not what you sit on that matters but how you come to worship that matters. Early Methodists and others in Britain built churches with pews beacuse it is a matter of getting as many people in as possible whose hearts are right with with God to worship and celebrate together. Pews are no impediment to the movement of the Holy Spirit - resistant people are. I was in such a church that is in the process of being built and has 250 members and as many members in the satellite congregations (missions) and house churches that I showed the pastor a church I will be at from September 2013. "What a beautiful church - what beautiful pews - there must be hundred's of members worship there?" was said to me. The Church I showed then was Sparty Lea Methodist Church, it has a congregation of five, the members do the best they can to fill the space.
The pastor of the Church I was at was called Blanca Nieves and as all the Spanish readers of this will know her name translates to Snow White. You can see how in this photo the inside and outside of her church.
Note the pews - blocks of wood and salvaged wood. Note the front, the grand appearnce of the columns etc. The result of the limited mental stature of Party "officials" that having tried all kind of ways to prevent Blanca from "rebuilding" the church, came up with regulations about having to stick to the "building line". Desired outcome - less prominent Christian building, actual outcome - even more grand a building than was intended. It seems true that opposition to the faith often benefits it. As I bid farewell to Blanca after a beautiful dinner under the sky, there was a sense of, I wish we could move these pews from a place where they struggled to be filled to a place where they would have hundred's of people praising God every week. Maybe there is a way??. Blanca prayed for me and the churches I will minister to, asking God earnestly that the Holy Spirit would bless my ministry, I felt strengthened and encouraged, filled with the possibility that yes, with the same kind of faith response, they can be filled.
A few days earlier I had been at the Methodist Church in Mota, Cuba. The pastor's wife welcomed us with sincere apologies that her husband had gone on "an adventure" - his mother had taken ill, and without transport he had set out hoping and praying that along the way he would connect with transport that would help him get to his mother's. The encounter was one of those where you feel you are in the presence of Jesus. The church had been a mission of the nearby town church, but had grown to be a self sustaining community with about 125 members and several missions of its own within the space of a few years. We sat where the church had started, we talked about the dryness of the location and she said "Its something from God - I don't know why, but look all around you and you see scrub and barren land around here, but look we have green everywhere, look at the trees and the neighbours plants"... there was an abundance of greenery. It struck me that at one level we had been talking about the water supply to the community, yet at another level we were talking about where and how the church grows, takes root and flourishes. "I don't know why - its from God" I had talked before hand with her about the strategy for growth the church followed... she just did not quite understand. "We don't have a strategy" as she smiled at me "It's a blessing, it's from God" We prayed together and she prayed that the Holy Spirit would bless my ministry, that the Holy Spirit would bless the Methodist Church in Britain, that the dessert would bloom and rejoice.
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