Colorless Sunday Services

During all our 18 months here during the war we had never attended a Sunday church service!  That was the result of both my Jesus Freak skepticism of organized Christianity which gained intensity with the exposure to Thieme’s cult-like teaching that cast aspersions on other pastor-teachers.  I had conducted a few Sunday morning services for recruits while in Bulawayo, but had never visited an organized church meeting.

One of the many changes during our five year absence was our conviction that the local church was central to our spiritual growth.  We had to find a “home” church before leaving for Africa.  And although we came to Africa to start churches, we hoped to find a Zimbabwe congregation which could serve as a home base.  Since we expected to be actively involved in evangelism and teaching ministry day-in and day-out, we hoped to find a Zimbabwe church home where we could receive ministry and be refreshed.

I wasn’t looking for a pastor to be my spiritual mentor.  Rather, I hoped to find someone to be my spiritual peer--a comrade-in-arms.  I considered ministry itself to be a form of warfare--spiritual warfare.  At this time in my life I was very conscious of what I believed to be a grand cosmic war between the forces of good (God/angels) and evil (Satan/demons).  

Yes, I really did believe that there was a devil who was fighting against God.  Satan was an unfortunate preoccupation for those in the Charismatic movement who tended to live in a dualistic universe.  Illness and bad fortune were typically ascribed to the Devil.  Healing and good fortune were ascribed to God.  Pegi and I were disturbed by this preoccupation with Satan and demons in many of the charismatic Christians we met.  Yet, as I read through my journal entries from this period, I am shocked to see just how preoccupied I had become with Satan.   I will spare you, the reader, and translate most of this into saner discourse!

Before leaving Louisville, we had subscribed to the Zimbabwe Herald newspaper.  We regularly examined the religious section trying to familiarize ourselves with the local churches in Harare.  It was there that we had first seen the mention of Rhema Church. [After a “fallout” with Rhema-South Africa and Kenneth Hagin Ministries, the name changed to “Hear the Word” and recently “Celebration Church”].  Since we were familiar with the “Word of Faith” movement in the States and had been attracted to the music of American churches associated with it, we decided to check out Rhema first.  

Rhema’s Sunday services were held in a rented auditorium and every one of the 600 seats was quickly filled that morning.  For the 15 minutes before the official start of the service, a pop-rock worship group consisting of piano, guitar, bass, and drums played quietly in the background.  The service itself began with rousing praise and worship for about 20 minutes.  It was followed by a sermon given in a conversational tone by the American missionary pastor, Tom Deuschle.  I later learned that his wife, Bonnie, had been leading the praise and worship from the piano.  They sang an assortment of choruses, some of which we knew from our time in the States and others which had been imported from Rhema-South Africa.  

We were very impressed with the music.  Music always had a strong influence on me.  Although there was nothing “wrong” with pastor’s message, something disturbed me.  After the service, we introduced ourselves to him.  Tom was about five years younger than my 34 years.  When he heard we were staying at the Jameson Hotel, he immediately offered to find us a place to stay with someone in his congregation.  We appreciated the offer of hospitality, especially since we couldn’t rent a home until we had worked out our visa issues.

[Pictures:  Jeff and Pegi outside Mt Pleasant Hall for Rhema service-1983, Rhema Worship Service-1985, Jeff & pregnant Pegi as part of Rhema Praise Band-1986]

That evening we visited the Christian Life Centre recommended by our hitch-hiking friend, John, from the previous day.  This church also had several hundred people in attendance which was impressive for a Sunday evening service.  They had a co-pastoring arrangement which we found interesting.  One of the two pastors was an American, but neither seemed to care that we had come to visit.  Maybe it was the nighttime venue, but the musical worship here seemed darker and less lively than Rhema’s.  Once again, the message was fine, but something was troubling me about this place too.

As we drove back to the hotel, it hit us what had troubled us--it was the “colorlessness” of both church services.  There were few if any black Africans.  We had seen only one in the morning at Rhema and didn’t notice any black faces that night at Christian Life Center.  These were ministries that seemed focused on the tiny (but prosperous) remaining white population.  In 1983, there were less than 100,000 whites in the midst of a sea of 7.5 million black Africans.  Apparently, it was still “Rhodesia” in the large charismatic churches!  This would at least be understandable if these were older “survivor” denominational churches.  But, these were churches that had been founded in the last few years since end of the white Rhodesian regime.  More significantly, they were churches focused on evangelism, filled with the recently born-again.  How could they ignore the huge and needy black African population?

We would ask Tom Deuschle that very question when we met with him the next morning.

Next:  A Whiter Shade of Pale