A week has past since my last Friday church post. Many things have changed. I have met ladies. We’ve been invited to many outings by these
ladies. I’m appreciating where we are
living in town. (It is very centrally
located in Muscat.)
 |
| A glimpse inside PCO. |
This week we went to Protestant Church Oman (PCO) at the
Ghala church campus Friday morning. They
have many different services of different types at both their Ruwi and Ghala
campus. We went to the 9am Friday
service which is their contemporary service.
It was indeed a more contemporary service. The songs were probably 10 years old, but one
of them was a favorite of mine, “Revelation Song.” They did a great job with the song. I inwardly giggled when one of the poor singers
looked in panic every time they didn’t have the words up yet. I also giggled when I saw the words on the
back screen. The projector is so close
to the screen that the display was incredibly small. I know of a few singers that would NOT be
okay with that setup. The song they sang
for the offertory was an updated hymn. I
wish I could remember which one. What I
do remember was the very country notes that were hit after the first verse. It tickled me so! I had a hard time stopping my outward giggles
then.
I hope that my discussion of the music does not make you think that the music is what matters when it comes to choosing a church. It is, however, an easy discussion point and variation between churches. Of more importance is the content of the sermon. While there didn’t seem to be anything Biblically wrong with the sermon last week at Bread of Life Fellowship Church, we weren’t so sure about some of the logic on the way to his points. And it took him a long time to get there. At PCO this week, I didn’t have the same concerns. The pastor dove into the book of Acts where they are currently in the 18th chapter. The entire chapter was read before diving into specific verses. I appreciated his historic insights that aided in the understanding of what Paul was facing in his day. I always appreciate when a pastor goes verse by verse as opposed to applying verses to a topic. There can be good applications of topical studies, but too often pastors fall into the trap of pulling verses that fit and possibly pulling them out of context.
The Anglican pastor was leading the sermon this week. I believe one pastor is on vacation in India and another just arrived from New York. I’m still unclear on the structure of the
leadership around 3 pastors. I don’t
know if one is a head or if they are all equal.
Maybe time will tell. They are
also short a youth pastor and a children’s pastor. Unfortunately, church vacancies are old hat
for us. The new pastor did lead parts of
the service and referred to the day as being Sunday. Oh how hard it is for me to get it straight
in my head that I’m at church on Friday instead of Sunday, too.
 |
| A sample of the order of worship and list of activities for the week. I read these multiple times before feeling like I had taken in the information. |
After service, Stephen saw an engineer he has done much work
with from PDO. I saw one of my new
friends passing out registration forms for an upcoming women’s conference. We signed up the boys for Awanas (It will be
our first time with Awanas. We are
trying it to see if it’s a good fit.) The
church felt a bit more our speed, even if they are much more liturgical than is
normal for us. They offer Bible Study
Fellowship classes for both men and women.
While we have not done BSF ourselves, Stephen’s parents have. All of these church activities are what we
are looking for. We believe we have
found our church home!