Saturday, April 07, 2007

Where Love Leads

When Uncle Kah Wan first lent me a copy of the book "Taming The Tiger" by Tony Anthony, never would I have thought that he would one day make a visit to Malaysia. So I was obviously thrilled when presented with the chance to see him in person at a youth rally of sorts at SAGC. Things never turned out the way I planned it of course, otherwise I wouldn't be posting this here in the first place..

Earlier this week my friend approached me to attend her church's Easter play and persistently hammered into my head the whole 'my church is the coolest and most fun one, so you better come' sort of thing. I wasn't so willing to let go of the chance of the chance to catch Tony Anthony's message however, so I hesitated initially, though in the end I made the decision to go for it anyway because a non-Chirstian ex-classmate of mine didn't quite have any teman to go with. The church is called City Harvest and is located behind 3K (somewhere there) and is actually a renovated warehouse-style building.

I went there today at around 5 something and there were just SO MANY people who attended the play..the church sits a maximum of 1000, I think. But the turn-up was probably 30-40% more today. The queue poked through the main door of the building and though unable to squeeze inside into the hall, me and my friends managed to settle in a small room with a dozen others watching the play on a tv set. Not the best of scenarios, I know, but hey, it was better than totally missing it.

Being the charismatic church that they are, the order of things were of course Praise & Worship, A Short Bible Discussion, The Play, Altar Call and then a final song to sum things up. Overall, I thought the play was pretty good and managed to inject a lil' bit of humor into the events leading up to Easter (I mean, the first song item was in Hokkien, singing that popular Million Dollars song by dunno who and the actors were happily swinging their hips around).

Personally, I think their acting is just okay, not bad at all actually but not quite good enough to leave a strong impression. Perhaps I'm too used to plays acted in the style of our Footstool Players, which are more serious and detailed, while the play at City Harvest was more like a musical in terms of the story. But that's just my opinion, of course. The team that took part in City Harvest's play deserves credit for their efforts, nonetheless. (pats their back)

The one thing about the church that caught my interest is the friendliness of the church members there. They seem to give a lot of emphasis on running their cell groups (there are 70+ of them) and the cell group members looked very close-knit and warm to each other..not an easy feat considering the size of their congregation (~1000). As always, I found it very encouraging and cool to see the many members there who serve in the different ministries. I was certainly most curious at a girl who did a simultaneous translation of the pastor's speech inside the room where I was watching the play on the tv. She was pretty good, but that's beside the point. What I found most entertaining was her constant smile and the way she did what she did with not only hardwork and dedication, but total passion that drives a person to continuously do better..probably what we'd normally call 'the joy of serving the LORD' :D It's great to see people who eager servants of God and I only pray that our church would also be blessed with more of such people. Time to sleep then xD

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