City-Wide Church Celebration

Yesterday we were blessed to attend Blagoveshchensk's city-wide church celebration.  As far as we could tell there were 11 local churches in attendance.  We were unaware that there are so many different denominations in this city.  But what a blessing to see all different denominations who hold to Christ and Him crucified gathered together in one room singing praises to the Lord!  Those who were comfortable with raising their hands did so and those who weren't did not.  Those who cared to pray out loud while the leader in front prayed did,  while others prayed in their hearts.  Each fellowship was given a chance to share with the multitude in whatever way they chose, which mostly ended up being singing and dance presentations.

Chinese church's women's dance

There were at least two sermons given, and the last one was a real encouragement to us.  Although the pastor spoke very quickly, he spoke very clearly using simple language that we could understand.  We were able to understand more from his message than we have from any other message in Russian before.  He simply reminded us all of the immense miracle it is that Jesus, being in very nature GOD, chose to take on human form and walk among US!  And after Christ arose the miracle continues as God lives in each one that believes.  Ironically, he told a story about being in a very large congregation of believers where a pastor spoke in English and he had to listen through an interpreter.  Many people laughed at his story about how he didn't understand, but we didn't really understand most of the story.... :o)

The service ended with all 11 of the pastors singing "When the Roll is Called Up Yonder" (in Russian, of course) and then praying.  Believers all across the auditorium held hands as they sang and prayed together.