Mamelodi church meeting

Yesterday we had a meeting of our congregation in Mamelodi. A few months ago we moved out of the classroom where we used to meet, because the school board put the rent up. We started meeting in a house, but most houses in Mamelodi are small, and there is not much room.

So we met in one of the bigger houses to discuss what to do.

Mamelodi church meeting

We began with a requiem for the people who had died over the last few years. They died, but were not replaced, so the congregation is diminishing, and getting older.

We discussed this, and some of the young people said that the services are boring in a house or in a classroom. It’s different in a church, they said, where you can see the ikons, and something is happening. But in a classroom or a sitting room in a house with only two ikons, it is not the same.

It sounds as though the idea of the house church has limitations.

Mamelodi church meeting 30 July 2011

So this mroning we met again for the Sunday service, the Hours and the Readers Service, in a smaller house, the house of the oldest member, Christina Mothapo, who is 85, and finds it difficult to walk far now. And there were six of us, only one of us under 60.

Perhaps inspired by the meeting yesterday, the singing was pretty good. It reflected the Epistle reading, “Now may the God of patience and comfort grant you to be like-minded toward one another, according to Christ Jesus, that you may with one mind and one mouth glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

It did indeed seem that we were singing “with one mouth”.

But when the last of us is buried, that will be the end of the church.

Unless there is a miracle.