samedi 30 mai 2009
Canadian evangelicals
I heard about this documentary at work the day after it aired, so I'm hoping they'll rebroadcast it soon. Revealed: Hip 2B Holy takes a look at Canadian evangelicalism, so that should be interesting to see how the media portrays it. In one of the articles I came across on Tuesday, I found it funny to read that "there's nobody from western, rural Canada in this documentary", which probably means that there isn't anybody/anything from western, urban Canada either. While it'll be good to see how this movement is being reported on in Ontario, I'm wondering if there will be differences between evangelicalism in the East and in the West (primarily Alberta, since that's my context). I'm excited to finally see something like this hit the air, although it would have been great if I had it for my thesis last year :)
Libellés : Canada, church, media
mardi 12 août 2008
Church culture
One of my favourite websites this summer has been Stuff Christians Like (inspired by Stuff White People Like, which makes me chuckle but not nearly as hard). It's hilarious and serious all at once, with just the right amount of sarcasm to drive the point home - absolutely perfect for Christians who are willing to laugh at their own idiosyncrasies.
As a result, I'm starting to notice more and more things that escaped my attention before, such as when worship leaders add the word 'and' to song lyrics or how some worship leaders are becoming increasingly metrosexual. The other posts are just as ridiculously entertaining but I guess the worship ones stick out more. One paragraph that has been stuck in my head since last month comes from this wonderful piece on "Talk Singing":
The surprise songI don't know why but this one makes me laugh to no end, especially as I'm driving home from church; I wonder if there's a course on how people seem to be able to do this so well on stage?
Sometimes a worship leader will kind of pretend she's not about to sing a song. As if she's having a normal conversation with you, she'll say, "Me and my husband we're talking this weekend. We were sharing a coffee to discuss some issues we're facing and we realized ... everyone needs compassion, love that's never failing, let mercy fall on me." And before you know it, you moved from hearing about weekend coffee to being a verse deep into the song "Mighty to Save."
Other observations about church culture that have surfaced in my mind have been how Christians tend to be late in coming to church - why is that? I understand the ones that come in five to twenty minutes late, but I've seen people enter worship services an hour late. It remains a mystery to me.
Another one has been the whole issue of handshakes and germs. I realize that in our culture, handshakes are a very welcoming and friendly thing to do, but have people considered how many germs get passed between people on a Sunday morning? And what about when you go out to eat after church and you need to use your hands? I usually carry hand sanitizer with me in case I don't have a chance to go to the washroom but I guess that paints me as a germophobe (okay, I'm not always diligent with this and I do worry about superbugs but still...). My best friend's mom words this situation perfectly though - when I once left to go wash my hands before eating after church, she asked if I was going to "wash the fellowship off." Hehe. Oh, church culture and its special lingo :)
dimanche 24 février 2008
Sunday afternoons
There is something so freeing and wonderful about Sunday afternoons, especially after I get back from church in the morning. It's as if the whole day is welcome to any number of possibilities. In high school, a friend and I would go to one of the local Italian restaurants after church; I always ordered the same dish (still do) and it got to the point where the staff would recognize us and even know what I was going to order. That was a nice feeling and a comforting routine, which usually led to other fun activities following the meal.
In college, my schedule was much more sporadic and so I would usually switch between service times from week to week. When I used to work at the library, I would attend church on Saturday nights, which would mean cheesecake afterwards every once in a while. As much as this made for yummy (and fattening) times, I still preferred going to church on Sundays - Sundays feel light and open for some reason. I ended up going on Sunday evenings for a while so that I could meet up with some friends but there's something disheartening about getting out of church and it being pitch-black outside. It just makes me want to curl up and wish that it was the beginning of the weekend rather than the end of it. The darkness leaves me with no motivation to face the upcoming week (granted, this mostly pertains to the wintertime with the shorter hours of daylight).
So I've decided to go back to church on Sunday mornings once again. Personally, I love, love, love the earlier service because of the hymns and the traditional feel but while I'm in school, I have the absolute hardest time getting up in time for it - much less the later service! Summer is fantastic for the early service because I can miraculously get up early and enjoy the whole day of sunshine. Another reason I like early Sunday mornings is because of the lack of traffic, allowing me to belt out worship songs at the top of my lungs to the radio (bad image/sound, I know) and not having curious drivers look at me while I do so. Actually, I still do this even though I attend the later morning service and the roads are more crowded ;)
I guess what I love most about leaving church while it's gorgeous and bright outside is seeing the sky reflect the state of my soul and how it feels so refreshed after feeding on the Word of God. (And yes, we do have the most number of sunny days year-round in all of Canada, so this analogy pans out). I walk out of church with an air of lightness; if it wasn't for the number of people who go to this service, I'd practically skip out of the doors (hmm, is there a correlation between my attitude and the colour of the sky?!).
And since there are usually few concrete plans for these lazy afternoons, I can do whatever strikes my mood each Sunday. I can go home and take an afternoon nap. I can go out to lunch with a friend. I can go to a bookstore and content myself with browsing the shelves. I can dive into a book that I've just borrowed from the church library. I can clean my room and get a fresh start to the week. I can go for a walk in different parts of the city or leave the city. I can finally catch up on emails, although this can sometimes be more of a chore than a fun task. I can also decide to do homework if I so choose :)
As for this Sunday afternoon, I've wasted enough time on the internet. I'm going to finish clearing out my church bulletins (yes, I am guilty of having saved every single one from each church I've been to in my life and am now removing some of the bulletin inserts to make room for more bulletins - what a sad confession for an unclutterer), crack open a fun book, look over one of my courses and watch the conclusion to Pride and Prejudice on Masterpiece tonight. What a fun Sunday; what a good God who has given us rest and fun and a chance to do something different from all the other days of the week!
My only wish? That Sunday afternoons lasted much, much longer. I'm definitely looking forward to the eternal rest of God that He promises to His people. For more about resting and delighting in Sunday afternoons (or any other time/day of the week), I recommend The Rest of God. I finished this last week and it was such a pleasure to read.
Libellés : church, everyday life
mercredi 10 octobre 2007
Seesawing back and forth
I think my Thanksgiving "weekend" was far too short, although I did manage to squeeze in a variety of things, such as attending a friend's wedding, assembling some furniture with my dad, hanging out with my best friend and her boyfriend, going to church, reading a few books, and eating two poultry dinners (one chicken and the other one turkey). I wish I could have fit more homework in there; that way I wouldn't have to play catch-up this week! It was nice to spend time with friends and family though and I'm grateful that I could take some time to just sit back and enjoy being with people. Wow, I have so many countless things that I am thankful to God for in my life :)
It's been a couple of interesting weeks for me as I've been readjusting to a tough semester (I think I may have mentioned this already so I may just be repeating myself here). I'm cutting back on a lot of things, most notably serving in ministry at my church somewhere. I felt absolutely guilty about this for all of September but finally realized that with my school demands, I had to be realistic. I still feel horrible that I'm in seminary and yet I'm not really participating in church life apart from the worship services and small group times - I wonder if this is common among other students? Sigh, I think I'll need to find a new topic to dwell about on here; this struggle between school and church is going to get the best of me for the next however many months until graduation!
mercredi 23 août 2006
Scattered summary
It is such a relief to finish school for the summer, even if I only have two weeks left to enjoy my time off. I've been able to get out a bit more and even received my first mosquito bites of the summer (obvious hint: staying indoors and writing papers is a great way to prevent insect bites)! Unfortunately, I received six of them just from sitting on a lawn chair in a park.
Over the past two months, I've enjoyed helping out with children's ministry at my church and I'm really excited about this coming weekend. It's going to be salvation weekend and we're praying for the kids to invite Jesus into their hearts for the first time (prayer would be fantastic)! All of the lessons that we've been teaching has been leading up to this and I know God has been drawing these little kids closer to Him through these presentations of Christ. I admit I'm nervous about this and I'm praying that the Holy Spirit will guide me as I pray with the kids.
I'm not transitioning between my paragraphs too well here, probably to the dismay of my English professor. One of my friends is getting married the first weekend of September but it's in a different province so I won't be able to celebrate with her. Another one of my friends just got engaged last week. And I'm waiting for one other engagement announcement to come soon from some friends in Quebec. In addition to this, I think there was about fifteen or so weddings that took place with fellow Bible college classmates. Phew!
I'm noticing that some people on my blogroll have stopped blogging... either from the end of a mission experience or a decision to stop writing online after a certain period of time. I'm going to miss reading some of those great posts but such is the variable nature of the internet. There have been times when I thought about ending this blog since I'm getting pretty horrible at updating but I'll keep it for now.
And to end this summary, here are some random links: If only we had these books and class was like this via Challies
samedi 5 août 2006
Church s/hopping
"No wonder Paul calls the metaphor of the Church as the bride of Christ a profound mystery! God invented romance and pursuit and the promise of undying love between a man and a woman so that throughout our lives we could catch a faint glimmer of the intense love Christ has for those He died to save. What passion He has for His Church! Even if you've never studied the Bible, you've heard the echoes of this amazing love throughout your life. Every true love story has hinted at it. Every groom weakened at the sight of his radiant bride has whispered of it. Every faithful, committed, and loving marriage has pointed to it. Each is an imperfect echo of the perfect love song of heaven." - Stop Dating the Church! by Joshua Harris, page 30
I've just started reading this book after seeing it in my church library, and it has been amazing so far. Definitely a wake-up call for us who have treated the church as another "market" so to speak, where the consumer's needs come first. I appreciate that this book tackles a relevant subject for Christians today; before attending Bible college, I had no idea just how many Christians did not go to church. I was quite shocked after finding out that some people my age thought church had no place in their lives even as believers.
Speaking for myself, church has been absolutely essential to my growing as a Christian. When I became a Christian over 7 years ago, I was forbidden to go to church. My parents were against it and I would say it was an opportune time for me to convert back to Chinese folk religion, which was precisely their goal (a smart way to do it wouldn't you say - preventing contact with other Christians or anything having to do with Christianity would have discouraged me from pursuing my faith further).
As I didn't have much of a choice then, I ended up taking books out from the public library and trying to read as much as I could on Christianity. But that could not have substituted for church. I was able to go to a church nearby a few times despite my parent's ultimatum, but I wasn't part of any community there. It wasn't until the beginning of high school that God brought me to a different church through some fun circumstances that I finally felt connected to the family of God. And miraculously, my parents didn't object to this church which I am now a member of! I am so incredibly grateful to my church; without its influence and impact on my life for over the past 6 years, I know I wouldn't be the person I am today.
I guess I could say that after looking back at how I desperately wanted to go to church but couldn't, that I can't understand why Christians who have the opportunity and freedom to choose not to. I don't want to be insensitive to those who have not yet found a church to belong to for whatever legitimate reason, but I do know of those who are simply stubborn and willfully resist being part of a local church. I'm hoping to finish this book after completing some more assignments as the first few chapters have really grabbed my attention. It's not too long of a book and I recommend picking it up, even if you are already committed to a church as it will only reinforce your love for it even more. And if you aren't part of a church, well you're pretty much the target audience!
lundi 31 juillet 2006
Thirty questions
In between working on my assignments, I was interviewed by Mikao Walters for the third installment of her Random Interview Project. Here are interviews #1, #2, and #3. It's been fun to see my responses from over the years on her blog.
I'm still tackling my papers which explains why it's pretty much all I talk about on here. Ah, the unending adventures of a student blogger :) Thankfully, I've been involved with some kid's ministry this summer which makes for a nice change. We've been going through an excellent curriculum and yesterday, the kids learned about church planting! I never thought I would help out with children's ministry again but I think God knew I needed it for when I'd be stressed out with school.
(Haha, I accidently spelled something in French on here. Maybe there's been more of an effect than I thought!)
Libellés : church, questionnaires
dimanche 19 mars 2006
Thoughts on a Sunday
I miss my home church. And in a few weeks, I'll miss my French church. I wish they could be side-by-side each other rather than a few provinces apart.
Libellés : church
mercredi 12 octobre 2005
Indistinct architecture
The Age of the Megachurch: An interesting look at how some modern churches look and feel more secular than sacred. (via DYL)
I can see the point behind this photo essay; if churches don't evoke awe or inspiration, something seems to be lost in experiencing God. I'm obviously not talking about churches/church plants that meet in rented facilities but rather churches that have the option of starting from scratch. What does church architecture seem to look like nowadays? Is there the sense that when we are on holy ground, we are moved by the wonder of Christ's body on earth and that we are lost to the transcendence of God's presence with and among us?
Libellés : church
dimanche 10 juillet 2005
Sunday cleaning
Boy, when you read this sentence, it doesn't exactly bode well with you: "Canada and Italy are the only two countries on an al-Qaeda hit list that have not yet been attacked." - Source
I'm heading to church again later on tonight. My weekends this summer are going to be filled up somewhat, especially now that I'm back as a video director. It's been quite the up and down year, going from a technical director (entirely different position now) to a video director to a backstage manager and now I'm back where I kind of started. While I do enjoy the role, I've never once felt confident in my abilities, mostly because I feel I lack them or I'm not aggressive enough on carrying them out. It'll be a challenge for me this summer knowing that I'm choosing to serve God in a manner that scares me to no end! Is volunteering supposed to have me shaking in my boots/shoes? :)
Also, I think I've figured out why I haven't started my paper yet. My room is messy. And for some compulsive reason, I cannot sit down to read or research until my desk is clear and there aren't tons of junk lying around. I've been told it's more a procrastination problem than anything, but I may be bordering on some mental block. I don't know, a physical inability to write connected to the surrounding environment? It's plausible. Too bad it'll take forever to clean everything!
Your Slanguage Profile |
| Canadian Slang: 75% |
| British Slang: 50% |
| Aussie Slang: 25% |
| Victorian Slang: 25% |
| Prison Slang: 25% |
| Southern Slang: 0% |
| New England Slang: 0% |
- via Kim
Funny that I spent two weeks in New England and picked absolutely nothing up, other than "laaadder" and "caaar". They really like to overextend their a's.
dimanche 26 juin 2005
Concerts and church
I haven't been up to too much lately but felt the need to update anyways. I went to an Avalon concert last week and got to hear a couple of independent Canadian artists at the same time. Also had a chocolate fondue party with my friends while watching some movies - that experience needs to be repeated again! I went to another concert today at church, and almost ended up attending all of the church services for this weekend. I'm going to use this week to do as much as I can before I have a regular summer schedule, because right now I am really enjoying this break!
Still have that space issue on here :(
Libellés : church
dimanche 12 juin 2005
More goodbyes
I guess one of the hardest things about being in a big church is that you end up going through a lot of staff changes. It happened so often when I was working in youth ministry that I had no choice but to get used to it. I think I said about ten goodbyes in only three years! But now that I'm working in a different ministry, it's hit me all over again and it's been really hard trying to deal with it. All in the span of two weeks, I've found out that three people that I've been particularly close to are no longer working in the department that I serve in. Two in just two days, actually. The most difficult part is that these people have known me since high school and throughout college, and they were always there for me. Whenever I had a spare in school, I would stop by the church just to hang out with them. The church staff was my church family and I knew their homes were always open to me. After just saying farewell to my friends in Montréal, I'll have to go through it all over again.
Libellés : church
dimanche 17 avril 2005
It's a small world after all
I finally ran into Kyle's sister-in-law at church yesterday. The funny thing is that we've both been attending the same church for the last five years. And the last time that I saw her was in Vancouver. It was kind of a fluke that I ran into her, but she's going to be in serving in the same ministry as me, which is really cool. Huh, I guess this is what people mean when they say my church is huge! Anyways, I'm attending a big church dinner later this week; I'm sure I'll be running into lots of other people I never knew went to my church :)
(Still trying to finish my papers for this semester. My first final is tomorrow and I don't have the course textbook, so we'll see how I do!)
Libellés : church
dimanche 13 février 2005
Multiculturalism in the church
I'm starting to notice this more and more, partly because I'm leaning towards this topic as a part of my thesis paper.
The world all around us is multicultural (Canada, at least), but are our churches reflective of that? Something that I've been doing for a while has been to sit back and look around me when I'm in church. I mentally calculate how much of the congregation is of a visible minority. One of the incredible joys I have at my own church is seeing so many cultures being represented in our worship services, choir, ministries, and staff.
I just had the opportunity to attend a different church for a school project, and noticed that it was completely homogeneous. It was an awesome church and everything, but I always wonder what it must feel like for a newcomer of a different race and ethnicity to sit in and look around. One thing I know about being a visible minority is that it never escapes you. No matter what the setting, it's always at the back of your mind, even if it is subconscious.
True, there are ethnic churches that people can attend. But for people growing up in a multicultural society and life who are used to such an environment, it can almost be a shock to revert to a church of only one cultural group. I hope more churches are recognizing this and doing their best to accommodate a multicultural setting so that people of all races feel that they can worship the Lord without wondering what the other 99% of the congregation thinks of them.
I'm somewhat rambling here. This thought will (hopefully) get more refined in my paper. I guess the picture I have in mind right now is Revelation 7:9. What a glorious day that will be!
Update: I found this great quote, just an hour after I wrote this post.
Ethnic, racial, and other conflicts are tearing cities and nations apart, and many believe that our cities are sliding down the Bosnian road. Where will the world look for examples of inter-racial relationships? We believe that a significant part of the church's public ministry must be to model healthy cross-cultural relationships, to look more like the kingdom and less like our hyper-segregated culture (2 Corinthians 5:17).
- Mark R. Gornik, "Between Resurrection and Reconciliation", 1994 Urban Mission magazine
Libellés : church
vendredi 26 novembre 2004
Big churches vs Small churches?
Neely has a point in regards to statements made about big churches.
We all need to respect each others' church communities. Big churches are not just places where lukewarm Christians come every Sunday only to say that they went to church and to spend the rest of the week doing their own thing. Usually a big church is made up of smaller communities of people who have chosen to come together to partake in fellowship with one another outside of meeting with their small groups. I have on more than one occasion been told that a big church is not a real church because it is so large that you can never find "true" fellowship there. These people have not really taken a good look at what makes up a larger church and have already made a judgment as to what it is made up of. Mind you, I am not saying that everyone from a small church does this; I would actually like to think that it is only a small group of people.
Last night, we discussed James 2 (Good job by the way Neely :) ). In that chapter, it talks about not showing favouritism and how our faith is displayed through our actions. Are we not showing favouritism when we say that because a church is larger it is not a good church because it cannot be a true community so smaller churches are better, or that because a church is bigger it is growing more so a smaller church is not as good because they are not growing? Are we not all a part of the body of Christ regardless of the size of our church?! Are we really showing that we have faith and truly believe in the God who has shown us such grace and mercy by attacking our brothers and sisters in Christ, over all things the size of their church?! God doesn't judge us in regards to the size of our church, so why should we? He judges us based on what is going on in our hearts.
Thank you Neely for bring to light such an important topic that I think doesn't get addressed enough.
Libellés : church
mercredi 17 novembre 2004
Would that I had the answers
- What do you write when someone calls your church soul-less and ugly?
- How do you respond when they don't think that you even love the same Jesus as they do because your church is different?
- What can you do when your church constantly gets picked on no matter how much it is doing?
- What would it take in order for other Christians to accept that yes, people in your church are Christians too and that they love the Lord?
- Why is it that when the world is needing love and food, etc., that Christians are concerned with things like church sizes?
- Why do some Christians feel that they are better than a body of Christ?
- Why can't people get past the building and see the people?
- How do you keep from getting angry that someone is criticizing and insulting the church family you love?
- Will there ever be a day when other Christians do not think you're an inferior Christian because of your church?
Gosh, there needs to be a new hobby other than attacking big churches. And people need to get off their high pedestals and see what's really going on, rather than making biased assumptions about what typical megachurches do. Just for the record, they're not all the same and they're not all evil corporations out to steal money from unsuspecting victims. For every (biblically faithful) church Christians attack, they are causing division within the body. Now if Jesus is all that He means to them, why are they condemning their fellow brothers and sisters?
(This is for every time a Christian has said hurtful and rude things about where I, along with a few other thousand people, worship the Lord Jesus Christ.)
Libellés : church
samedi 2 octobre 2004
The odds are infinitesimal
This has to be the funniest Mikey's Funnies I've ever received, mostly because it's absolutely true for me!
You Know You're In A Large Urban Church When
A response to yesterday's Small Country Church Funny by Funnies reader Charlotte Riegel (Calgary, Alberta, Canada)
- You have to ride a shuttle bus from the far end of the parking lot, or from an off-site overflow parking lot to get to the main building for a worship service.
- You stand in line waiting for the previous service to end and when it does, you feel as if you are swimming upstream.
- You have attended the same church, at the same time each weekend, for the past month and have not heard the same preacher twice.
- You wonder why there are hymn books in the pew rack that are never used. [powerpoint]
- Baptisms take place any time of the week in the atrium water feature. [waterfall]
- You can meet with a leader of the church in the atrium coffee shop.
- There is a 400-seat prayer chapel besides the 2000+ seat main sanctuary.
- You have to speak with a pastor through the appropriate administrative assistant after getting past a receptionist.
- The staff are required to wear picture ID tags.
Copyright 2004 Charlotte Riegel. Permission is granted to send this to others, but not for commercial purposes.
I wasn't exaggerating about it being true; this funnies is actually based on my church :)
Libellés : church
lundi 23 août 2004
Here and there
Blogger is now offering AdSense to bloggers where they can get paid for allowing advertisements to be shown on their website that pertain to the topic of their posts. I wonder how it's going to change the medium of blogging - if people will become less personal and start writing more about what they think will generate profit for themselves. I guess I'll have to wait until someone on my blogroll joins the program and then see if their writing has transformed in any way.
I came across a great post the other day about how the church is being relevant in culture. Tim from challies.com posed the question, "How Relevant Is Too Relevant?" Even though he wrote it pretty quickly, I thought it still hit on a lot of good points.
And in other news, Vanity Fair will be theatres on September 1. I had to read the book for my Lit class and because it was so huge, I kept reminding myself that the movie was coming out soon. Now it's just a week away! I've heard mixed opinions on Reese Witherspoon's performance of Becky Sharp, but as I was reading the book, I could picture her in the role. It's great to see a recent movie adaptation of a novel from 19th century England. I hope this trend continues.
Well, I should be off to practise my Greek alphabet. I've got most of the letters memorized but none pronounced correctly. It turns out that some of the ones I've learned from math, chemistry or physics weren't said the way they should have been. One of my friends told me that pi (3.14159..) is actually pronounced pee rather than pie. But I don't think that would fly too well with junior high boys.
Libellés : blogging, church, college, media
dimanche 11 juillet 2004
Change of scenery
I don't know if I want to continue technical directing. I've been feeling this way since we've moved to the new building and I don't think I belong in that role anymore. It's funny because I took this on just a year ago (with much trepidation) and while I've had a blast learning new things and taking on more responsibilities this year, I really hate waking up at 6am on a Sunday morning. Granted, it's not every week but I treat it as more of a duty than a joy. I'm afraid to own up to it since I've been serving in video production for over three years now. I don't want to leave either but maybe it's time for me to transition to a different role or take a break. There are much more qualified people than me who could easily take over. Yeah, I think after this summer, I might just have to stop doing this.
Libellés : church
lundi 29 mars 2004
Running behind
Well, we had our first church services in the new building this weekend. And it was already packed, isn't that wonderful? I also went to a Leahy concert last night with my friend, which was fantastic. I've always loved listening to Celtic music so it was a real treat for me.
I'm currently catching up on all the schoolwork I've neglected over the last few weeks. I hope I can get it all done today but as usual, I'm such a procrastinator. I was supposed to help out with a concert tonight but I don't think that's plausible anymore. Just three more weeks of classes, I can survive it!
Libellés : church
