Last week I experienced a different sort of intersection with the Methodist Church in Central America. There is a small group based out of Duke Divinity School that goes to El Salvador every six months to teach Course of Study. (Course of Study is the sanctioned alternative to seminary for Methodist pastors.) This time one of the classes was preaching, and so more small group leaders (a.k.a., TA’s or preceptors) were needed, which is why I was tapped to go.
The 40 students came from El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua. Of the four countries, Methodism has the longest history in Guatemala, where the Primitive Methodist Church was founded over 100 years ago. It speaks volumes that those pastors are willing and wanting to come participate in this Course of Study where not all women wear skirts and some are in positions of authority. When I visited a Primitive Methodist Church in Guatemala two years ago, we ladies had to wear skirts, preferably long skirts, could not wear make-up, and the women sat on one side of the church while the men sat on the other side. The pastor of this church and his son were among the students in this Course of Study.
There were eight students in my small group, three pastors and five lay people. (Assignments were made at random; next time we/they will be more careful.) Three of those lay folks had never preached before. I had an exciting and loving small group, as we carefully affirmed and praised what each preacher did well in their sermon and gave suggestions on how to improve.
In addition to the classes, there were two other events happening earlier in the week. One was ordination interviews of the pastors from El Salvador. Six interviewed; two were clearly ready and will be ordained in February, the first Methodist ordinations ever in El Salvador! The second concurrent event was a roundtable discussion with the heads of the Methodist church in Central America as well as a Duke professor and UMC elder, a District Superintendent from Mexico City, a caballero from Argentina representing the General Board of Global Ministries, a señor from Colombia whose role or title I never figured out, and an Englishman representing British Methodism. They all met to discuss how to support the Methodist Church in Central America. How exciting is that!
The theme that I saw throughout the week was one family. We celebrated communion at the opening worship. To hear “because there is one bread, we who are many, are one body” took on a deeper meaning because I looked around at the 50 or so of us standing in one huge circle and representing El Salvador, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Honduras, Canada, Mexico, Colombia, Argentina, England and the U.S. places of North Carolina, Oklahoma, Seattle, and Puerto Rico. One of the songs we sang later in the week was “Somos el Pueblo de Dios” – “We Are the People of God.” We are the people of God, one people, not the many peoples of God but the one people of God. These (and you) are my brothers and sisters, not just my brothers and sisters in Christ but my brothers and sisters. Period.
One of the Duke professors commented that his vision of church is like the bus ride. During the course of the week, students and teachers always take a field trip. This bus is an old school bus from the U.S. and it is crammed full with everyone. At some point on the trip, this same professor always starts the singing and the group sings their way to whatever site they’re going to visit. Probably 60 people on a bus, including kids, singing out praise songs in Spanish. Sometimes off-key, sometimes with harmony, always clapping, and always happy. We are all interspersed on the bus, on any given seat are at least two people who are not from the same country. And we’re praising God together. One God. One people. Gloria a Dios.
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