Articles - Miscellaneous

Richness of diversity

Colin and I attended the evening service at the New Testament Church of God to mark the end of the Leeds Prayer week celebrating ethnic diversity.

The service gave us an idea of the many national Christian groups in Leeds with contributions from the Iranian church choir and the Korean Church choir singing in their own languages (translations provided on an OHP) and very lively singing from the Church of God's own choir with quite a lot of congregational participation. The congregation were also asked to get into groups of 8 with people from different ethnic groups to pray together.

Two of the organisers of the service spoke briefly of the groups involved in the week focusing on justice and peace and then asked those who wished to do so to get together, again in groups of 8, and arrange a meal together. These 8 would then repeat this with another group of 8 and so on so that people from different races and backgrounds would get to know one another. This is something we would like to consider doing at a later date.

The service then moved on to communion. Church members moved through the church giving out what looked like the little cartons of UHT milk provided with coffee or tea at pubs. After prayer the pastor at the front blessed the wine and bread and asked us all to open the top which contained the wafer so we all received together and then opened the bottom which was the wine.

After more lively singing different groups prayed for justice and peace in their own language. This we found a bit wearing since we had no idea of what was being said. The pastor then delivered the blessing and the service ended nearly 3 hours after its start!

We left with a sense that our Christian faith binds us together and there is great hope for the future.

Martha and Colin Jaggs

© St Edmund's Church, Roundhay - Charity Number 1131904