Hello! As you guessed,this is day 4’s record! =D=D and it marks the start of us reporting to church at 9.30 at level 3 meeting room 2 =) this is our office area btw! So if you’re free or anything come and crash! Heeee
The music ministry training was organised by preacher Rebecca (yi xin chuan dao),and there were four teachers teaching us,yili (can you picture her being a teacher!!),jia xi (this helps you further fulfill your dreams doesn’t it!),jia ying (hi I don’t know much about you but thanks for teaching me on fri! =) and yi xin chuan dao herself! So the training started with the chuan dao sharing about her love for music in general,and how she viewed it as the best way and the one of the most meaningful ways of serving and worshipping. But she also shared about how sometimes the instrument used as a medium for worship can betray your true feelings and reveal your heart! Having played the piano for years I really feel what she says. So one lesson we might take away is that we should always worship with a clean heart! One that is forgiven in God’s eyes =) After that,we had to split up into different groups,each one containing 3-4 people (oh,around 15 students attended btw) and mentored by a teacher. I was under yi xin chuan dao,how stressful! Hahaha =) but the lesson was rather enriching,cause sometimes,no matter how I experiment at the piano,I won’t get all the rhythms and variations and inversions and whatnot!! So thank God that at least there’s He gave me a chance to learn and use this training programme as a springboard to develop my piano playing further hopefully! =D but still rather taxing! Cause you need to keep up with the people,and I have a tendency to repeat whatever I played wrongly. Sorry to everyone who was affected and couldn’t sing cause of my piano playing!! >< >< will try harder next time =)
So after that,lunch! There’s this mall called peace centre (seriously!) located further down the street after pomo plaza,and there’s a malay stall on the 4th floor which sells rather good food! Interesting though,cause there’s lots of shops around which offer lots of printing services,and sell all kinds of stuff. So basically most of the shops in this place,though old,fill a gap which the shops in the newer shopping malls fill and act as a vital complement to them,since one never,or rarely sees printing services being offered at Nex or something right? Quite a pity!
And so begins the next programme of the day,visit to Bukit Batok! The journey from providence to bukit batok church was X.X cause we need to take a 30 min train ride from dhoby to raffles place to jurong east and then take another 15 mins bus ride,so factoring in the waiting time it took ONE HOUR to travel,my goodness! But thank God we still live in Singapore (red dot!) ,so I guess we should count our blessings before grumbling!
The preacher in charge of bukit batok is called rui fu (not sure Chinese heh) =) and he gave us,in summary,a very enlightening introduction of and explanation to the structure of the church,and how the youth ministry works in conjunction with this.
Here’s some of what he said,and how I felt with regards:
1) One of the points that struck me most was the church’s emphasis and very strong prayer. why is it that their average attendance at dao gao hui can reach an AVERAGE OF 170 PEOPLE? One of their methods,we were told,was to place all the verses in a balloon filled with during mid-autumn festival,attach it to a string and tie the string to the roof of the church,and after the dao gao hui,they burst the balloon such that verses spray all over the church. The scene would be so beautiful right! Hahaha. Basically they are very creative when it comes to thinking of ideas to get people to come,couple that with most members staying very near the church premises and its easy to see why so many come every dao gao hui. Gideon encouraged us to do something similar too! More of,and more fun youth dao gao hui sessions anyone? =D=D
2) Another point was their structure. They are very specific and well-defined in terms of groups,having nearly 20 zhi tis in all! And furthermore,each zhi ti has to be under the charge of a pastor or preacher or deacon and so this ensures no zhi ti is left out of the support of the church. A lot of manpower is needed as the number of groups grow,but I guess this is an incentive for the church to grow faster? Haha =) however having that many groups ensures that the church has room to grow and can steadily support itself since the burden of the church is distributed among the groups,not everything being piled upon the church deacons,preachers and pastors. Our youth service has already come up with something like that,but It would only be implemented next year,so hopefully our structure will work out as well too!
3) The difference between our church’s youth service and tuan qi and their youth tuanqis in terms of organization is rather striking. For starters,all the children aged 0-13 attend zhu ri xue,then those 13-16 attend another service,17-23 attend a tuan qi called,creatively enough,1723 tuan qi! 23-30 attend yet another,and 30 onwards attend another. So we can see that they separate the youths primarily by age group,from cradle to grave,literally! While one may think that the structure is too rigid,but the advantage of this is that most of the youths are very close knit,since youths of the same age will always get together,and these youths then move into the different tuan qis with little problem since they move as a group. Also,if the youths are uncomfortable moving into another tuan qi when they reach the age limit,the preacher in charge will allow them to stay in that tuqn qi for the next year or so until they are ready to move on.
4) While I’ve never met them in person before,1723 tuan qi left another deep impression on me. For starters,their tuanqi is also divided into many groups,just like the main service e.g. under guan huai shi gong they already have jun ren zhi gong and zu zhang. The committee for the tuan qi has very clearly defined roles,which are all neatly printed in black and white on a small booklet,and also the direction for the tuan qi is set clearly by the preacher; these two combine to greatly reduce the burden on the committee to figure out what to do and how to do it.
A distinctive feature of 1723 tuanqi (because as far as I know no other tuan qis do this) is also their meeting day and time; Saturday at 4 in the afternoon! You can imagine how surprised some of us (or was it just me) were when we heard that,but this proves to be a huge asset because little time is wasted meeting up to have tuan qi on Sunday and instead those attending tuan qi can serve full time on Sunday as well. Hence you see that over 40 attends 1723 tuan qi,and over 40 will also serve as zhu ri xue lao shis and such on Sunday. But maybe one’ll ask,won’t this clash with other outside commitments e.g. school and work? The preacher said that most of the members end their commitments in the afternoon,and so they’ll head over to tuan qi straight after. Also he warned us that if we have to change the tuan qi timing from Sunday to Saturday,there’s gonna be an inevitable loss of people,because 1723 went through the same experience. But he also said that,if we do the transition properly,we can minimize this loss,and in the long run the gains would come to outweigh the losses (econs!!) can faithfulness embark on a similar idea? Should it? Haha it’s a good point to mull over!
Nice christmas tree!
Close up!
Phew,that was quite a lot hmmm >< anw so after the meeting,we toured Bukit Batok premises,and took two pictures!After that we went off to Gideon’s house to have dinner! If faithfulness is ever gonna have any meals we should have them at his house cause his mum is really an awesome cook! I mean,she cooked the 3 plates of chicken,a plate of tofu,a bowl of eggs,a plate of kai lan,a plate of beansprout,2 bowls of gravy and lots and lots of chicken rice all by herself! Idk about you guys,but to me it was 0.0 cause I rarely see people whipping up entire meals all by themselves these days; one ingredient or another is usually bought as pre-packed food. Gideon you and your brother and sister are quite lucky! =)
So,after that we chilled abit,played piano and went home around 10! Tiring,but a busily good day =) ok my post ends here,sorry for the delay,and the length,cause I was held up for the past few days and I like to type very long sentences! =.=
-Guess who this is hahaha =D
