Culture Shock

My little American brain has wrapped itself in knots. I have just done something that I never, ever would have done in the States – spoken about God to an assembly of students at a public elementary school. Here, church and school are fairly closely linked. No arguments about prayer in schools, no legal wrangling about the right to hold a Bible study on school grounds, no teachers afraid to speak of their faith. Several members of my church are on the Board of Governors for the primary school down the road. The school holds assemblies periodically and invites people, usually local pastors, to speak about God, citizenship, Jesus, or whatever. It fell to me to entertain about a hundred 7- to 11-year-olds for fifteen minutes. I spent the week trying to figure out what I would do to hold their attention. At last, I settled on telling stories. One was Biblical, Peter’s vision about “clean” and “unclean” animals from Acts 10. The other two were from my own experience. (I actually had way more fun than I thought I was going to.) After a couple of days, I was able to wrap my head around the fact that I was basically giving a sermon to public-school children. I was, after all, an emissary from the church, and so talking about Jesus would be expected. But I wasn’t ready for the way the assembly opened: all hundred-odd children joined together in singing “We Want to See Jesus Lifted High.” I haven’t really heard that song since two friends and I tried to start a praise band in high school. And I certainly wasn’t expecting it in a school. It’s a different world-view than I’m used to. There’s less of a sense here that God belongs only in church. Society is more used to hearing about God and religion. I don’t have the sense that people shy away from Christian pre-schools just because the program is Christian. There’s not a lot of suspicion about the church. And yet at the same time, there’s not a lot of involvement with the church, either. This is a culture change I wasn’t expecting, and it’s one that I haven’t yet gotten a grasp on.