Church day

I had a special Sunday last week. Got to know an ex-OCFer and current staffworker of FES Singapore through Philip, and I followed her to Holy Trinity Anglican church. It was a good experience, learnt about apostle Paul’s focus, priority, devotion, and attitude according to Philippians, and got to know some very friendly church members and local CFers.

In the late afternoon, I went to another church introduced by Lilis, was surprised initially because I realised the service will be conducted in Indonesian language. I’d never attend an Indonesian church or service in my life, therefore I was a bit nervous. Nevertheless, I was surprised by the number of people attended the service, and the ‘presence’, I mean the worship was very powerful when all the congregation sang and give glory to God together. Although everything conducted in a rather traditional way other than the rock or modern style, I feel that is something I familiar with and can identify with the church which I used to go to when I was a child, and perhaps close to my idea of how a church suppose to be. I was even more excited when the choir sung a traditional hymn orchestra by Felix Mendelssohn, was amazed by the glory and awe which no words can describe, it actually enabled me to have a glimpse of God’s glory.

When the speaker Rev. Ps. Stephen Tong went up the stage to start to share and preach, he looks somehow familiar, I felt like I seen him somewhere before, but I could not remember. Though I was a bit struggling at understanding Indonesian language, I was impressed at myself that I actually could understand 60-70% of the whole service since I received Malay education since young. Pastor was sharing about the story Joseph’s brothers when they arrived Egypt to buy grains, and Joseph put the silver cup inside Benjamin’s grain sack when they about to leave. He relate the passage to other Christians who being treated unjustly, like Wang Ming Dao, my tears start falling when he shared about the story of Wang Ming Dao, of how he defended the gospel and being persecuted by the Chinese Communist. He talked about Christians will be persecuted and face suffering, and where our treasure is, there our heart is. Well sorry I am neither a good summariser nor reporter nor I noted down anything during the sermon. But my point is I enjoyed the service and shedding a little light of truth and who God is more touching and powerful to me than telling any me other good doctrines.

Today I found out I attend this preacher’s evangelical talks when I was young, and he can actually speak Mandarin and is a well-known preacher among Asia. He has a great impact on the Christian world in Asia and even Europe and America. It was my privilege to be able to shake hand with him after the service even I did not really know who he was.

Don’t misunderstand I am not trying to promote or idolise this well-known preacher, nor I think he is perfect. He is a man used by God to reach out to many people, but I do respect his zeal and knowledge and willingness to serve God with his whole life. I respect people who take God’s Word seriously and live and die for the sake of the gospel. I pray that other churches will follow and be radical, no more just following traditions or set of marketing principles but question everything and find the answers from careful investigation of the Bible.