Sunday in Tel Aviv

We googled to find a church to attend on Sunday morning.  We were looking for the closest equivalent to a mainline Protestant Church we could find, within walking distance.  What we turned up was Immanuel Church in Jaffa.  Service was at 10 am (just like home!) and we followed the careful directions I wrote down from the Google map.  We immediately got lost, which is par for the course for nearly every place we've tried to walk to or drive in Israel.  We were walking across tightly-built neighborhoods on streets that were not clearly labelled.  Pretty soon it was just guesswork, but after 30 minutes of searching we (miraculously?!) arrived at the church at exactly 10 am.

Immanuel is an eclectically ecumenical group of Christians from all over the world.  One of the reasons we chose to attend is the church's historical connection to the German Evangelical Church ("EKHN" - our partner Church in Germany; SSBUCC will be hosting an intern from the EHKN soon for a year.)  The church is currently affiliated with a Norwegian Lutheran missionary society.  The building is tucked away on an alley in the historic German/American Colony in Jaffa, near the border of Tel Aviv.  German immigrants started the church - just like our church at home!  The building was constructed in 1899 but was remodeled more recently.  The modern, colorful windows are made of chunks of brightly colored glass showing scenes from Scripture - very similar to those at SSBUCC.

Worship at Immanuel was not unlike our own church or that of many mainline Protestant Churches in the U.S.  We followed a basic liturgy, but the "feel" of the service was quite informal.  I was intrigued by the extent to which this very historic, traditional church in the Middle East has adopted practices that our American churches struggle with.  Pews have been replaced with chairs, allowing flexiblitiy for arranging the worship space.  All of the liturgy and words for hymns were electronically projected at the front of the church.  One of the things I really liked was the intentional mix of traditional (Lutheran) hymns, gospel songs, and contemporary praise choruses.   At the close, everyone moved toward the front of the sanctuary and stood in a circle to receive Communion.  Each worshipper received a small silver chalice into which the pastor poured wine.  The bread was matza, of course!

Following worship, Leroy and I wandered back through the confusing streets to Tel Aviv.  We returned to the Carmel Market where we bought some cheap t-shirts.  We brought three changes of carefully-chosen clothes with us on the trip, and we're getting tired if wearing pretty much the same thing all the time.  We've got room in our packs, so we expanded our wardrobe.  It is still HOT here in Tel Aviv.  In the afternoon, the temperature hit 99 degrees while we were at the beach!