Going to Church in Ghana
by Angene Wilson

While I was in Ghana for six months last spring, I participated in a number of church services and attended fairly regularly a very small Baptist Sunday School and church which met in a schoolroom across the road from the university campus.

At Northgate Baptist, we had fascinating discussions in the English Sunday School class on Philippians, Titus, and later Numbers. Our teacher was the manager of a local poultry farm and class members included university students, the art instructor who had invited me to Northgate, and sometimes the pastor. One of his favorite sermon themes was the importance of reading and interpreting the Bible in context. Church usually lasted about two hours with lots of music, humns in Fante and in English, some sung and danced to an accompanying drum as well as an electric organ. I confess I was homesick at Easter when we sang “Now Thank We All Our God,” but no familiar Easter hymns.

One Sunday I went to the oldest and largest Methodist Church in Ghana, with about 1,000 people in attendance. They collected four offerings and after the service started raising money for their conference meeting by auctioning a live sheep and cakes and cloth. Another Sunday we had an ecumenical campus service, presided over by an Anglican priest. All the top adminstration of the university were dressed magnificiently, traditionally, “in cloth” as they say, and more than 500 of us sang “To the front of the hall according to our birth day of the week during the special, competitive birthday offering.

I also attended a student Sunday evening service at which the student choir sang and one of my colleagues, the chair of Home Economics, gave a warm, teacher-like sermon. And I was invited as a sponsor to a student Presbyterian service when they were raising money for a sound system. All their hymns were sung in Twi. I didn’t ever get to their Wednesday prayer meetings which were at 4:00 a.m.!

I admit I occasionally stayed home on Sunday mornings and listened to Bach organ music, but mostly I enjoyed the variety of worship experiences and admired the faith and enthusiasm of Ghanaian Christians.