If there is a day in which I think about home, it would have to be Sunday.  Here in Bonn, our Sundays are very different from home.  Firstly, there is no church service like at home and one can’t help but miss hearing the Word of God or spending time in worship.

This morning, I set out to find a local evangelical church that was offering Sunday services.  Just as I stepped outside, I heard church bells ringing in the distance.  I followed the sound for about 10 minutes until I finally came to the Johanneskirche.  The Johanneskirche, as I found out, is one of the largest in Bonn with about 5,000 members.  It is one of about 10 churches in the Rheinau area and operate on a rotating basis.  This means that Sunday morning service is always in a different church. The reason they operate this way, is that they have too many churches and not enough people.

I thought it interesting that the message this morning was about the Early Church in Jerusalem.  In particular, the minister talked about the Early Church as described in Acts 2:42, 44

“Sie alle blieben standing beisammen; sie liessn sich von den Aposteln unterweisen und teilten alles miteinander, feierten das Mahl des Herrn und beteten gemeinsam”.

“Alle, die zum Glauben gekommen waren, taten ihren ganzen Besitz zusammen.”

The minister then went on to talk about how strife entered into the Early Church, but also how it was solved.  The apostles called a meeting at Jerusalem and made sure everybody knew what the problem was.  Also, when they finally came up with a solution, they wrote letters to all the churches so that everybody knew what the Church had decided.

Afterward, we were all invited to share a coffee and talk with each other.  I talked with a couple of people who naturally wanted to know where I was from, as I was a stranger in their church.  So, using the text from the morning message, I was able to explain about who I was and what a Hutterite is doing living in Bonn.  They were very interested in Hutterites and had actually heard about Hutterites and Mennonites.

One thing I noticed, there weren’t many young people in this church.  One of the other people mentioned that as well.  I must say, that is one of the things you can’t help but notice, is the lack of religion among the younger generation of Germans.

One evening, over a couple of beers, we had a lengthy, and interesting discussion among our group about religion.  In our group, we had nominal Roman Catholics, we had Calvinists, Lutherans, Hutterites (Anabaptist), and agnostics.  Everybody shared a little about what they believed (or didn’t believe) and then we discussed similarities and differences.  Of course, they couldn’t believe their ears when I explained how our communities back home function.  One area where we differed significantly was regarding morality.  I’ll suffice it to say that this area took up most of the evening and I’ll defer from sharing the contents of this discussion!

Anyway, our Sunday here is rather peaceful.  After I came back from church, I attended a classical brass concert in the park. There usually are concerts here everyday, but not all of them are free.

Jordi drove to Diesseldorf with some Russian friends.  They left this morning at 9:00 and should be back this evening.