The Pastor's "Living Room"

The open door on the old mud house called to us.  Perhaps it caught our attention because the theme scripture for this Convention of our partner synod is Rev. 3:8.  “I know your works.  Look, I have set before you an open door, which no one is able to shut.  I know that you have but little power, and yet you have kept my word and have not denied my name.”

We turned aside from the path we were on and as we approached the old building, I recognized it as the first building constructed on what is now the IBS compound.  The land had been given but the municipality would not allow them to build a church.  Instead they built a pastor’s house and the believers gathered there for worship.  (About 1970)  As the size of the congregation grew the pastor expanded the “living room” of his house twice, finally ending up with a “living room” that was bigger than the original house.

To serve the worshiping needs of the growing congregation a concrete platform was later added which partly obscures the door to the rest of the pastor’s house.  The congregation continued to grow and in 1994 with a membership of 2,000 and with help from their partners at First Presbyterian Church in Winchester, they built a beautiful new sanctuary.

The membership at the Mettu Church is now 800, but not for the reasons we might think.  As the church continued its amazing growth they decided that they should start more churches and they sent groups of their members to help those new churches.  The Mettu church started the Kata congregation (now 1,200) and the Kolo Korma church (now 800).  Kata congregation in turn began the Botto church (now 600) and a new church at Mettu University that now has 200 members.  All together the Illubabor Bethel Synod membership has grown from 30,000 members to 363,257 members during the 22 years of our partnership.

We followed the noise of children’s voices around the old house to where the “living room” had been enlarged and we saw happy children running up the steps to be part of the Saturday morning Bible classes.  The adults were happy to see them and welcomed each one warmly.  They begin with worship together in the old living room and then divide into classes according to their age.  After worship the children quickly and noisily moved out to line up outside a different building for their classes.

I took a closer look at the condition of the old living room where so many had defied the authorities to gather for Christian worship for so many years.  The walls had crumbled in one corner of the room.  The roof leaked and was open to the sky in another place.  Yet in this place the people had gathered, the word had been preached, the sacraments celebrated, faith had been nurtured and lives had been changed.  All because God had “set before them an open door, which no one [not even the militant communist authorities] were able to shut.”

Through the lively children’s Bible school in this old living room, lives are still being touched and formed by the love of Jesus Christ, even as the roof lets in the sunlight and the walls now provide additional unplanned “ventilation”.  Not even the many needs for repair could dampen the spirit that is still felt in the place.  Jesus said that “God is Spirit and those who worship him must worship in spirit and in truth.”   By every indication that is exactly what happened here, and what is still happening here.  And by the way the door is still open.