I have always wanted to know what is it like at a church service? What does a church look like? Sammi, my friend from university invited me to a church service in conjunction with Father's Day. I said yes to the invitation. We had a hard time looking at the place, I saw Sammi standing outside at the main entrance of LifeGen Church.
We took the lift to the third floor, the moment we stepped in, I told Sammi: "Wow, I didn't know it could be this big!" Joann and Jia Xuan were my attendants before the service. I spotted Joshua, my coursemate from college! We caught up on a few key milestones in our lives and most of them asked me why I came to the service.
I just said: "I want to know what are the similarities between the two and to create a better society. Besides, we focused too much on our differences," Once the doors were opened, everyone went in to take their places. Sammi told me there would be singing later on and the people would come before the stage. Once the music started, everyone got into the energy and I thought "Am I at a concert or at a service?"
Pastor Michael took the stage to share a story about a relationship between a father and his two sons. At some point, one concept came into mind when he was telling the story - one of the four gratitudes 四重恩 which is gratitude to our parents 父母恩. We have to honour and respect our parents, it's just in different contexts.
We always believe that action speaks more than words" when it came to parenting but I think it's affection and words of affirmation that will boost the child's confidence - this is a missing element in a parent-child relationship. Besides physical support, mental and spiritual support help in a growth of a child, especially during the early years.
One more song to end the service. I shared a couple of the Buddhist songs to Joann, it's just that for me as a Buddhist singer, I can feel the message in the songs and the teachings, slowly applying them in my life. The crowd started to subside and headed to the cafeteria to have tea. I had a chat with Pastor Mike about the differences between the two beliefs - Buddhism and Christianity.
All in all, no beliefs teach us badly, they all want us to do good, it's only so-called man-made rules which made us divided.
Note: I'm a Buddhist, just my personal experience visiting a church
