The church in the Brunsstraße was nearly full when on the 20th of November, a few minutes before halb past 10, at the front the countdown was projected. Moderator, preacher, translater, worship team... - all were a little nervous. With excitement, the congregation looked to the front. The countdown finished. Pastor Reinhard Dorra spoke a few words and invited everybody to join the first song, one, which he knew was known by the worship team in German as well as in Polish: 'This is the day that the Lord has made'. Edita, Kamila and Jan, armed with microphons, keyboard, guitar and percussion, started, and the congregation joined powerfully.

This was the beginning of our first joint service of both our churches, the EfG Baptist Church and our IMG International Mission. Hardly any other occasion would be as suitable than the Sunday in Commemoration of the dead, looking back with a little tear of passed things and persons and at the same time forward with a deep trust in the Lord expecting new things to come. Pastor Reinhard spoke about the resurrection of Lazarus. Jesus had done a big miracle, but the message of the story lies also in the words of condolence of Jesus which we might apply to any such situations where the wonder of ressurrection is not experienced. The triumphant end is still to come, and there is reason to expect resurrection, if we put our trust in Jesus. The question of putting our trust in Him is the question where we would spend eternity.

For everybody, this service had familiar moments and others which were new and strange. The latter ones, for the brothers and sisters of the EfG, this might have mainly been the shifted starting time by half an hour, the bilingualism because of the Polish translation, and the percussion within the worship. For us as IMG it was, in turn, the starting time, half an hour earlier than in the past, the song books and a bit more liturgy and structure. Pastor Tadeusz, who also welcomed the EfG people from the pulpit, put it like this: 'We all will need to learn from the other!'

After the service, while sharing coffee and cake, the service was of course the main topic to talk about. But any feedback was very positive: The worship was not to loud as some had expected, and the translation of the sermon provides the hearer with some nice breaks to think about the sentence just spoken. This a way to see things positively. And now, we've got plenty of time to find the final style!

Jan Pahl