We're not as different as we may seem...

Churchgoing in Ghana, part two:

Communion Sunday at Accra Ridge Church - a multidenominational church that has Anglican, Presbyterian, and Methodist services. This is a good fit for me, as that hits most of the denominations I've been heavily involved with. We went to the Methodist service, I'm pretty sure, as we sang from the Methodist hymnal and the sermon was entirely about grace. The service was also three hours long, and included readings from Philemon (the weirdest book of the New Testament) and Luke, chapter 14... including Luke 14:26 which is the "Whoever does not hate mother and father, wife and child, even life itself cannot be my disciple" verse that I quote on at least a weekly basis. Clearly, love. Also, super welcoming. Went with one of the seamstresses that lives on my street and my friend Ashley, and, again, hospitality was incredible. They had everyone who was there for the first time stand up and say where they were from and then gave us all soda afterwards.

Also, it's communion, and we know me and communion. I love it. Put me inside a church and my heart starts burning - serve me communion and it becomes a bonfire.

Throughout most of my life I've heard debates on styles of worship. Traditional vs. contemporary. Liturgy vs. praise bands. I have often triumphed more "traditional" worship, saying that, no, youth of today do not necessarily only connect with "contemporary Christian worship" and that there is huge value in liturgy.

There are many reasons the city of Accra can be slightly disconcerting to Americans, and a large one has to do with design. Americans really like things to look unified. We like things to look like they belong together, like they match. We like things like prepackaged dining sets with tables and chairs that work together in unison. Even the places and styles that are more mismatched and uncoordinated, we have taken and christened, "Oh, well, that's the Village," and that disconnect is eliminated because we have deemed it a new style.

Accra is not like that. Accra was built with whatever scraps were found. Nothing goes to waste. In America, we would rather throw something out than have it look out of place, but here, everything that can be used is used. Outside of the palaces the British built, Accra is pieced together chaoticly, but beautifully. There is a definite beauty, but it's so strange to American eyes (it's not even the exocitism we associate and therefore glorify in places like India) that we don't know quite how to take it. It's a similar reaction as some people had watching the Tonys this year. There's a musical on Broadway right now, Fela! about Fela Kuti, a Nigerian musician who was (well, a very interesting person and) the creator, basically, of Afrobeat. His story is big and political, and the musical is, of course, a "sanitized version of his life" (so says my African Popular Music professor, who worked with him, lived with him for a bit though not on purpose, and notes that "people can like him more now that he's dead and they don't have to deal with him"), but is reaching many many people who wouldn't have heard of him otherwise. (It's set to close January 2nd. I hope it doesn't close sooner, as I'm trying to find a way to get up to New York and see it as part of my "dealing with re-entry to the US" plan.) Anyway, I was, of course, rooting for Fela! while watching the Tonys in Black Mountain this summer. (For those of you not up to speed on your African geography, Nigeria is basically next door to Ghana. There are two countries in between, Togo and Benin, but they're tiny slivers.) The reaction to Fela!'s performance from most people I knew was mixed - they didn't know what to do with this jumble of music and dance of a kind they'd never encountered before, and I think part of it was that it did not flow together the way they were used to.

This is also how worship styles in Ghana mix. We'd sing "Great is Thy Faithfulness". And then we'd all get up on our feet and dance to praise songs sung in a mix of English and Twi. (I also suspect the church was using an old version of MediaShout.) There was organ - there was synthesizer. There was the Apostle's Creed, the Gloria, the Agnus Dei, and there was the prayer where everyone prayed aloud at the same time in their own words at the spirit moved. To me, the justaposition of the two was very strange, and I admit a lot of the lifetime churchgoer in me couldn't comprehend the two together.

But it made me wonder: if two things seem diametrically opposed, are they? Does one really have to triumph over the other? Or is there a more colorful solution?

(Also: this is my 200th blog post. Whoa.)