What have I been up to recently for the past 1 month? Been studying and researching about film actually. Despite the lack of opportunity still with audition I still do some work to understand the essence of film. Acting to me has strange therapeutic effect, it has the ability to relax my mind, and I really enjoy the process, of being on set, creating characters out of imagination, improvising diagolue etc.. I pray that God will teach me to rest during this period, with no agenda attached as I truly have no one to impress this time round except perhaps myself!
Life has taken a slower space allowing me to see the details which I cannot do so during my hectic and distracted lifestyle.
I would like to take this opportunity to write about my church life. I attended church when I was very young. Probably around the age of 5? My grandparents actually brought me to church back then. I think the church was called church of Singapore and we would actually take bus 31. It felt like long bus ride back then. And I think my grandparents actually was baptized there. Not long after for some reason I joined church of ascension which I have no idea why I ended up there. Probably at that time the church was reaching out to my primary school. My grandparents attended CHS too. Then my grandfather passed away when I was 8. At age 9 occasionally after my sunday school service I will drop by chs and wait for my grandmother's Chinese service to finish before going back for lunch.
It was at that time that I realized my primary school classmate, X was actually attending that church as well. We spoke chinese and were neighbours in fact. We have many things in common and I decided to join my grandmother for service instead. The full time staff at that time decided to put me on chinese sunday school. There were only about less than 10 of us back then and I got to know many people which I could connect.The sunday school teachers encourage us to join English sunday school in the morning and at noon we will attend chinese sunday school. It was just fun and play back then.
When I was about 12. Pastor T which was the chinese congre pastor at that time wanted to form a chinese youth group and I was pulled by him to join. I think it was at this age that I started to questioned many things about Christianity. I learned to be obedient, faithful and strive to be righteous in my life so that Daddy God will be please with me and bless me.
The youth group had about 20+ ppl that time mainly made up 3-4 guys and the rest are girls. I made a lot of wonderful friends within this group which the relationship I still hold dear till this day. X which was my sunday friend backslided from church back then not long after the youth group was formed. (although we were in the cca in sec school). Den which was also from the sunday school batch was older than me by 2 years. He was everyone role model from sunday school to the youth group. He is smart, good looking, play the drum, studied in a prestigious school. Every girl's prince but lo and behold he has shortcoming too. Dar was the most popular and funny guy in the group which actually made him more charming than the rest of us guys. To this day he is still single. which I have no idea why.
The youth service runs for about 2-3 years by Pastor personally. Every week we have P&W then deep bible study sessions from books materials. Every other week we would hang out after youth service from 2-3pm onwards till late7-8pm. Once a year we will have a camp where every morning and evening we have bible study sessions and we had games, outing and barbecue in between. Sometime we will disturb one another about who has a crush on who. It was so much fun and every year I would look forward to it.
At around 15, our English youth wasn't doing well. Infact many youth left due to a revolt. The only remaining left was less than 10 and I heard previously they had about 100+ of them. Pastor T at that time took over the leadership of the English congre as well as the youth. As our chinese youth progress some became not too active and new friends joined us. To boost the morale, Pastor wanted to combined the youth group into 1 entity instead. When the youth camp came, the English youth took over the planning as they reach out to the boys brigade in the sec scool as well but only 2 people from the chinese youth were elected to be in the committee. There were misunderstanding and miscommunication here and there although nothing has resulted in any aggressive confrontation.
As a chinese youth back then we will still close because youth service runs on every sat but we still have our cell group during weekdays. And we still hang out after church service on sun. Pastor hand over the running of our cell to Zhu, who was older than me by 12 years old. By right he should have graduated from the youth but he became our youth leader and disciple us.
During late 2003 to 2004, my school and church needed to relocate because they wanted to build a village, combining the kindergarten, primary, secondary and jc together. Our church actually was using another church premises and I think in between some people left the church due to inconvenience. During this time, it was the most important phase our lives as we will preparing for O level and A level. Of course hang out and fellowship became less frequent.
Zhu at time was engaged and together with his spouse couldn't come to a solution which church to attend so they decided to move to a church that both are not familiar with. Pastor T decided to hand over cg to Sue's parents. Sue is our cg member and I really look up to her parents too. In 2005 when we moved back to our original premises Pastor T announced that he is going for studies. Moving on to Scotland for his phd. Somehow he has been an inspiration to me and being naïve I would always think after 4 years he will be back but that is not true.
We had cg after church service but there was no P&W anymore. Cg is run by everyone of us, different person each week. It was like that for a year or so till I was 18. Cg was down to 10-12 of us and rarely we have full attendance. It was this point of time that only Den and I are in chinese service. I picked the bass and was serving every week. HH plays the piano and attends service only when she is serving and don't join us for cg anymore. Most of them attend English service due to various reason. Some moved on due to following their dates, parents or just backslide because they are too busy with school and other commitment.
One fine day we did not received any news about upcoming cg meeting anymore. For months, we did not bother and after that realized Sue's parents have moved on to another church. It was really shocking to me because for the rest of the cg they just have to join the youth adult cg in the English congre. For me and Den we will shepherdless. Den and I have been very close since then or maybe few years before that during his army days.
Every sunday after service we became the only 2 that hang out together going for movie, shopping or just see see look look different place or find a nice place to eat. I got to know a lot of his friends and we were very close as we talk about almost everything. I vaguely remember in 2007 one sunday we were in suntec shopping or eating. We saw a large crowd queuing outside rock auditorium and we knew it was new creation church as we have visited 1-2 times before. We decided to just joined in the queue and attend the service. I remember there wasn't enough seats and we were seated on the floor but I was blessed by the sermon. I didn't really understand the gospel. Church to me at this point is really just a family to me, blessings me to learn guitar, sending me to combined youth church camp as a youth leader.
When I was drafted to army, I attend ncc service like once a month. It was difficult time because for 2 years chs did not have a pastor. And after every sunday serving, we had to have quick lunch then attend ncc for their 3rd service. When I joined my previous company we attended ncc more frequent almost 2 times a month. I also did bible study with my colleagues and their church friends. That is where different denomination and school of thoughts take place. I needed to make a stand. I find that Pastor Prince place his argument very well. I returned to chs to confront the new pastor as I couldn't stand his heck care attitude towards the congre and after a year nothing was done and so I left chs totally. To my surprise nobody called me. I have been attending ncc ever since couple with many of my previous company devo teaching I really learn a lot about Daddy God and his unending love.
I left chs at the time that Den got attached and I learned that he has moved on to another church as well. Pastor Prince's teaching has impacted my life and perspective of God although sometimes it is hard attending church service alone for the past 2 years. Nowadays I will noticed that I'm slipping in Pastor Prince teaching into my everyday conversation. True evangelism is sharing one's life testimony. I do find it hard back then to evangelize through community event. My whole life I have been finding grace but Grace which is the gospel which is Jesus which is love, found me instead. Thus the title of my post. This overview of my church life has shown me that nothing is coincidence. This has been a lengthy post and I shall end off here.
"And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who[a] have been called according to his purpose".Romans 8:28
