# Believers Church and worship in Nepal



## yeutter (Oct 18, 2016)

Greetings from Kathmandu. My wife and I have been in Asia for since late August and expect to be here till the end of February. We have been in Nepal now for more than a month. Their are more then 400 Churches in Kathmandu; almost all are Pentecostal. I am told that the Assembly of God is the largest denomination in Nepal. 

We are aware of some solid Churches in the far south of Nepal. We also know of some solid confessional Lutheran Churches in the far North of Nepal. Kathmandu is not a place where solid Bible believing Churches abound. Sadly the one non Pentecostal evangelical Church in Kathmandu, which we were aware of was moving to multi media presentations during its worship service. 

Their are Anglican parishes in Nepal. They do not use much liturgy and are Pentecostal. The Anglican Deanery of Nepal is part of the Diocese of Singapore. The Diocese of Singapore is badly infected with Pentecostalism. The legacy of Bishop Moses Tey, I suppose.

Most Christian worship services in Nepal start with at least 30 minutes of sing, sing, sing. Their are many repetitions of the chorus of the hymns. The music is almost always accompanied by a guitar and drums. Sometimes it is also accompanied by a keyboard. A few hymns are based on the Psalms. A few more are based on other Biblical canticles. Most are of human authorship and speak much of our experience. The hymnsing portion of worship is followed by pray, pray, pray. The prayers are done in unison. Much confusion. In many Churches this includes much speaking in tongues. This goes on for 20 minutes or so. This is followed by preach, preach, preach. Sermons are usually over 30 minutes.

The idea of intentional worship with well defined worship services are somewhat alien to most Nepali Christians.

Needless to say we went looking for a congregation where we could worship. We found that the Believers Church parish 
www.believerschurch.com 
in Kathmandu offered a refreshing change from what we usually find in what passes for Christian worship in Nepal. The normal weekly worship service is very much modeled on the service of Morning Prayer from Anglican Book of Common Prayers. 

I have my reservations about the para-church organization Gospel for Asia and its founder K. P. Yohannan. K. P. Yohannan is the founding and presiding Bishop of Believers Church in India and Nepal. But in Most areas of Nepal, the Believers Church probably is the one Church that consistently offers solid preaching of God's Word.


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## Edward (Oct 18, 2016)

yeutter said:


> This is followed by preach, preach, preach. Sermons are usually over 30 minutes.



Depending on content, that generally sounds like a good thing.


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## yeutter (Oct 18, 2016)

Edward said:


> Depending on content, that generally sounds like a good thing.


Sadly, in most Churches in Nepal the sermons are not expository.

Some Presbyterian, Fundamentalist Baptist, Reformed Baptist, and Believers Church congregations are the exception.


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## Leslie (Oct 25, 2016)

Are these churches English medium, or Nepali or some other language? Are the congregation mostly expatriates (embassy personnel and the like) or nationals? There is a similar problem in Addis Ababa. An exception is the one Episcopal church, in quality fine, but the sermon is seldom over 15 minutes and the whole service entirely too short. And we can get there only twice a year at the most, less now that road travel is prohibitively dangerous for white faces. I wonder what other experiences PBers have, who live in non-English-speaking countries.


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## yeutter (Oct 26, 2016)

Leslie said:


> Are these churches English medium, or Nepali or some other language? Are the congregation mostly expatriates (embassy personnel and the like) or nationals? There is a similar problem in Addis Ababa. An exception is the one Episcopal church, in quality fine, but the sermon is seldom over 15 minutes and the whole service entirely too short. And we can get there only twice a year at the most, less now that road travel is prohibitively dangerous for white faces. I wonder what other experiences PBers have, who live in non-English-speaking countries.


 Almost all Churches in Nepal conduct their worship services in the Nepali language.

We are aware of two congregations with English language worship services in Kathmandu. One is the Roman Catholic parish. That is the parish most expats attend. The second is one parish of the Anglican Deanery of Nepal. That parish conducts a Sunday morning service of Morning Prayer. It serves English speaking Nepali Anglicans not the expat community.

We visited one Bhojpuri language Presbyterian congregation near the Indian border. The Bible is not translated into Bhojpuri so they used Hindi Bibles.

Nepali is a first language of only about 45% of Nepal. Most Christians in Nepal are from ethnic tribal groups, they were not originally caste Hindus. [We have met both former Brahman and Chhetri/Kshatriya caste Christians. They are very much the exception] Most Christians in Nepal speak another language at home; but are literate only in Nepali.

The Believers Church has a Nepali language liturgy that is closer to the 1662 Book of Common Prayer then the liturgy used by the Anglican Deanery of Nepal.


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