Becoming Relevant

We had an interesting night that I wish I had pictures to show you.

On a typical Monday night we go to a small group and study the Bible. This Monday night we met with our small group but we had a special guest, our pastor, he came to give us an glimpse into the Sikh religion and Punjabi culture. He himself was a Sikh and through his troubled teen/young adult years found God in a jail cell, his life is an amazing example of God's grace.

Anyways, after about an hour of learning about how we can relate to our Sikh friends and neighbors he took us to a Sikh temple so we could see exactly how they practice their religion. As we entered the temple we covered our heads and split up, men and women, and went up our separate stairs. At the top we removed our shoes and washed our hands and entered the sanctuary, women on the left, men on the right. The first thing I noticed as we walked in was the men at the front wearing white robes playing traditional Indian instruments singing from their scriptures. The next was that it was a wide open room with no chairs, front and center was an altar adorned with colorful fabric, Christmas lights, gold pillars, and a really elegant chandelier.  This is where their book of scriptures was held and where the people would give their offerings.

After a few minutes of observing their religious practices we left the sanctuary and returned downstairs and shared an Indian meal together. This is something I wish we could incorporate more into our North American churches, where we come to worship together and fellowship together, time being of no essence. Another aspect we all agreed was cool was that the temple was open all day, they welcome worship at all hours, I wish we could see this in our churches, understandably people can worship God in the comfort of their own home, but there's something special about doing it together.

So that was our night, definitely not your typical night for a group of Caucasian Christians but I think very neat, important, and relevant to learn more about a people group that is very prominent within our community.

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