M: Yes.
J: OK, so the director has said to you, ―If someone makes a mistake in chapel you need to show them.‖
M: But me, I disagree with it.
(S 6.5; Mopheme; 79; 172-205) ________
J: I see. Well, how about worship here at the seminary? Do you find worship to be helpful to you spiritually?
I: No, it is just the practice, yes it is good for a practice. So that it look to a person who doesn‘t know it, it looks respective.
J: It looks respective or respectful.
I: Respectful.
J: But you‘re saying that it‘s not really respectful?
I: No, it is not useful spiritually.
J: I see.
I: To someone who is from outside might see it as respectful.
J: I see. But for you, it‘s not useful spiritually. What is it practice for?
I: One part of it is learning to dress up. OK I find it being well but the very bad point of it is when a person can make a mistake, when we find that that was not the worship at all.
J: What do you mean? What happens when someone makes a mistake?
I: There will be shoutings of different sentences all of them making someone to feel small.115
J: Has that ever happened to you, Itumeleng?
I: Not in this year but it has happened.
J: I see. And in this year has it happened to other students?
I: Yes, it does.
J: Why do the students say these sentences to make people feel small?
I: Some lecturers encourage it.
J: Some lecturers do. Does the director also encourage this?
115 Recall (as presented above) that this notion of ―feeling small‖ was mentioned by ―Limakatso‖ in a description of the opening chapel service:
L: The way that we have to introduce ourselves before the whole congregation made me feel small. J: Made you feel small. L: Yes.
As reported (above) from my field notes, one of Limakatso‘s colleagues used similar language when referring to the opening chapel service of the same year: ―I was contradicted. I felt so small.‖
My first encounter with the concept and phrase ‗making a person feel small‘ occurred during an MTS faculty meeting in 2004 when the seminary‘s Administrative Assistant had forgotten to type and distribute some minutes. The Director asked one of the expatriate staff members to go and get the Administrative Assistant so that she could be ―made to feel small‖ in front of the entire staff. The expatriate staff member tried to refuse, indicating that he did not wish to embarrass the Administrative Assistant. The Director, however, insisted, remarking that, ―She will only learn the proper way to behave if we make her feel small because of this mistake.‖
I: I‘m not sure but it happens in his presence.
J: I see. And do you feel that that‘s appropriate during a time of worship?
I: I don‘t find it being good at all.
J: OK. I‘m going to ask you to speak a little more loudly so that this machine can pick up your voice. But thank you for sharing with me. So do you have any suggestions for how worship could be better or do you think it‘s OK that we just have practice worship?
I: I find it being late to come up with the suggestions. And I don‘t think they will be of any use.
J: Why wouldn‘t they?
I: Because it‘s like I will be alone. I will be alone to be against what is in the process now.
J: And that makes me want to ask you this: Do you think you would be alone because you would be the only one who would say something, or do you think you would be alone because you‘re the only one who feels this way?
I: I think I will be alone because I have never heard someone being against it.
J: I see. OK. But it doesn‘t make you feel good.
I: It doesn‘t make me feel good but I gave up.
(S 7.3-4; Itumeleng; 102-103; 94-131) ________
J: OK. Alright. Well, I‘d like to ask about worship at the chapel here at the seminary. When you attend worship, do you find it spiritually uplifting for you?
L: [sigh] Sometimes, especially if those who are conducting it they are not doing mistakes, but if they do the mistakes because I was told to correct them, that correction, once I make a correction, when conducting the service, I lose everything.
J: I see. You were told to correct them?
L: Yes.
J: Even if you‘re sitting with the congregation.
L: Yes.
J: And how do you correct them – do you speak in the middle of the service?
L: No, I just say it in my head sometimes we have to tell that ―no that one is not good or it is not like that in this way.‖
J: I see.
L: Yes.
J: What if you‘re supposed to stand up but I, as the leader, forget to move my arms in this way and you know I want you to stand up, will you stand up?
L: No.
J: No, because I have failed to move my arms in the proper way.
L: Yes.
J: I see. Who told you to correct these mistakes?
L: I think that one we get it from other students. But the director himself sometimes if you sit near him, he will tell you, ―Ask him which one to take if he make a mistake or say two things at same time.‖
118
J: I see. And so when this happens, then you lose the spirit of worship.L: Yes.
J: I see. And does this happen at every chapel service?
L: No, sometimes.
(S 8.3; Lizzy; 116; 101-127) ________
J: Well, let‘s talk about the chapel some. Do you feel like the chapel services are spiritually uplifting?
L: Mn, mn [negative]. No, because it is too formal because I think when someone prays, he must be free to pray in whatever way he or she feels. There shouldn‘t be some comments made directly to him during the service.
J: Some comments?
L: Yeah.
J: What happens?
L: Because if you have misspelled some writing when you are reading the Bible, immediately we will say, ―No, that is not the real thing.‖ Or we just clap our books or laugh. Even if you can call a wrong hymn, maybe you have said we are going to sing the second hymn, but because we repeat everything twice, if in the first place you have said we‘ll repeat the – we‘ll sing the first hymn, the first verse and then for the second time when you repeat you said the second verse, then we are going to sing whichever verse we want despite of what the leader will sing or else we will just sit and watch you do it, you will just have to sing it by yourself.
J: This is during worship service.
L: This is during worship service.
J: And what do the lecturers and the director do when you do these things?
L: No, it‘s a good thing because that person will feel ashamed and next time he or she will remember when he had to do something then he wouldn‘t have to do some stupid things before us.
J: So you say it‘s good to shame people in worship?
L: That‘s how it has to be.
J: Why?
L: Because –
J: Who says it should be like that?
L: Because we are told that if you are doing it kindly, one will not learn it quickly.
J: Who tells you this?
L: Our brothers and sisters. They said you must go through that thing so you can be alert at all times.
J: I see.
L: And be able to withstand everything the congregation might say to you like,
―When we correct you, as to when we evaluate what you have been saying, there is no time when we say that we congratulate you.‖ Never ever will you hear us say,
―You have preached well.‖ ―You have singed well.‖ ―You have done this well.‖
No. We are told, ―No, such a thing doesn‘t happen at MTS.‖
J: By whom, who tells you these things?
L: By the director.
J: The director says, ―We do not praise at MTS. We don‘t say
‗congratulations‘ or ‗you‘ve done this well‘ or anything.‖
L: You won‘t hear such a thing.
J: How does that make you feel?
L: It makes you feel – you just keep wondering what is good and what is wrong because now you don‘t trust the students, you don‘t trust the lecturers because there is no time when you do a good thing. You will be told only when you have done a bad thing. And that makes someone to wonder because if you had preached and maybe you had done a good introduction, that must be said that at least you have tried to do this and this but then the whole thing it will be all wrong and you will be told, ―You are lazy. You don‘t want to study.‖ All those things.
J: Who tells you this, your fellow students or also the lecturers and the director?
L: The lecturers and the director also because he‘s the one involved in that class, the homiletics and it‘s not good because in the first place you are not told how to write the sermon.
J: Well, of course, in homiletics class he must teach you how to write the sermon, doesn‘t he?
L: No, no, we have never been told. We are just told that a sermon must have an introduction, the body, and the ending, those three things. How, you don‘t know.116
J: So how often does your homiletics teacher lecture?
L: Twice in the beginning of the year.
J: In the whole year only twice.
L: In the whole year.
J: And what things did he say during that lecture? Those two lectures?
L: I think in the first class it was just our introduction. He introduced himself to us and us to him and what he expects us to do. Then the second time that was when he told us that we were going to have some sermons and a sermon you have to do this and this and whatever and the introduction about his subject only. That‘s what he did in the second class. And then from there that‘s when we started preaching and all those things until the end.
J: And did he give you notes and books to read and bibliography and places where you can find…
L: No.
J: …more information?
L: No, he just told us that the library was there and that‘s all.
J: I see.
116 I once asked the Director if the students ever got to hear him preach. He told me that he didn‘t like the students to hear him preach because he feared they would then just try to emulate him. This was echoed by a student in an unrecorded interview: ―Ntate Moseme says he will never preach where students are because all students will imitate him‖ (Field Notes 31 August, 2006). The Director does not preach at MTS, and is rarely, if ever, invited to preach anywhere in the LEC. In four years I never heard him preach. He is the only Homiletics instructor at the seminary, and the students attend Worship and Homiletics class with him during every year of their on-campus seminary education.