It's 5am and almost 1,000 people are gathered and are clapping!

It is Wednesday morning in South Korea and the singing awakens us at 4:30am (3pm on Tuesday NET - New England time) so that we can prepare for the early morning worship service.  Every day, 365 days a year, at churches around South Korea, people gather for a time of prayer and the hearing of the good news of Jesus Christ.  Lisa and I do a little preparation, put on our Sunday go to meeting clothes, and walk the short distance to the main sanctuary that can hold a couple of thousand people for worship.  It is raining quite hard outside and we are grateful that the sanctuary is connected to where we are staying.  As we enter the sanctuary we see almost 1,000 people who have traveled from their homes, walked in the rain, and are in the sanctuary at 5am.

Some of our folks went yesterday but today is the first prayer service for many of us and I am expecting some quiet reflection time with some good preaching and maybe even some familiar hymns to sing.  What happens at 5am though changes my images completely.

A young man walks up to the pulpit with a song book and the keyboard player begins.  This is not a quiet, let us peacefully awaken song but rather the leader begins to pound out a fast beat on the pulpit and everyone starts clapping.  This is not a robotic clap but one with emotion, joy, enthusiasm.  They are there to praise God and to let God know that they are filled with joy because of God's love in their lives.  The voices fill the space, the clapping keeps the pace, and the keyboard leads the group at a volume that is surprising and takes some getting used to.  There is another song or two, a time of prayer, we are welcomed as visitors, I know for we have a translator to help us with the meaning of what is being said, we open to Luke 8:44, and then the senior pastor preaches about getting closer to
God.  All good stuff and a new experience.  We sing a little more, the pastor reads the names of those
who have brought their offerings on this morning, sang "blessed assurance" to the clapping of those gathered and at a pace that would proclaim that Christ is indeed alive,and then it is time for individual prayer.  Certainly this is where people will sit and prayer quietly like in New England.

Not exactly.  The organ begins to play a lively tune at a very high volume, one of the associate pastors begins a passionate prayer, and the people all around us begin to pray in a variety of ways.  Some a re quiet, some rocking, some speaking out loud, some shouting or shivering, while others are clapping and celebrating.  The senior pastor is on his knees in front of the chair in which he sits, at the foot of the cross, in prayer.  I am in awe.  For the next thirty minutes this continues and people are just as passionate in the final moments as they are when we first arrived.

During the time of personal prayer I am thinking of all those times in New England when the idea of
a prayer service in a local congregation is met with little enthusiasm.  I am confessing how difficult it
is for me to take a little time for devotions at 9am during the week and how I am not always enthusiastic and thankful for those few minutes with God.  I try to reason that in New England we just are not the same kind of folks around our faith but it isn't holding water.  I know we are called "the frozen chosen" as a people who are not always responsive in worship but I feel it goes deeper
than that.  If we took away the clapping, the motion, the music, and it was just the folks in the pews, I believe our answer to revival in New England would be found.

The folks we worshipped with this morning were filled with a rich and deep joy.  There was thanksgiving in their hearts as they gathered on this morning to start the day by celebrating the One who gave them life, hope, and invited them to draw even closer in that divine relationship.  now I am not saying that in New England, as individuals, we don't have any of that in our relationship with God but I am wondering if we might find ways to be the living presence of such love, joy, and hope to all
of those around us on Sunday morning but even more importantly throughout the week as we serve
our neighbors.  What might that look like in Marlow or Pittsburg, Concord or Chesterfield, Manchester or Warren?

While the church here may have 4,5000 in attendance and some might wonder how anything can be translated into the smaller membership churches of New England, I believe this morning gave a real good example.  Joy, hope, and love, not just for ourselves or for those in our congregations, but for all. Meet each day of the week.  This doesn't require any money or other limited resources but rather some of our time and the sharing of the joy for Jesus we have in our heart.