Part 1: On Church
A lot going on in my head this Sunday- I came to church a little scared and wary. In the past thirty days I have attended three different churches and lived in three different cities/countries. During the sermon I was phasing in and out of it having a hard time concentrating thinking about, to be honest, Andrew, his blog and his 'struggles' at church.
There's one line I remember from the Pixar animated film, 'Ratatouille', that really resonates within me as an artist and a blogger:
In many ways, the work of a critic is easy. We risk very little yet enjoy a position over those who offer up their work and their selves to our judgment. We thrive on negative criticism, which is fun to write and to read. But the bitter truth we critics must face, is that in the grand scheme of things, the average piece of junk is more meaningful than our criticism designating it so.
Isn't it so true? Most of the time we get extremely defensive and critical about the work of others whom they offer up vulnerably for others to partake in. Yet critics automatically seize this opportunity of vulnerability and assume they can take the position of being higher than the creator and shred the work to pieces. The critic nitpicks and take apart- without having thorougly examined the process, the heart and intention of the creator himself/herself.
If everything we are is supposed to glorify God, that includes our blogs right? When I hear people's personal testimonies prior to baptism or whatever at RHCBC, are they not full of both hope and frustration, darkness and light, anger and joy? And aren't testimonies basically a summarized version of a blog? All the concerns, worries, questions, discoveries, experiences and understanding condensed into a two page document? Yet when we tell others that God sent us burdens to bear, we smooth over the frustrations of the past, riding on the knowledge of hindsight.
Therefore, is not this blog a testimony to my walk with God? It's a day by day walk- and yes it can be painful at times in my questions of the uncertainty of the future- yeah I have fallen and probably will still fall in my confusion of 'finding' myself in the grand scheme of things, but I know, as in all personal testimonies, that God will somehow get me through.
I think people have become too focused on trying to 'fix' other people and have lost focus on their journey in getting there.
The pastor spoke today about being a genuine Christian who does not do the Sunday fake smiles and the Monday to Saturday grumbles (basically a 'part time Christian'). Honestly, I am not being really genuine as a person if I'm not pissed one day or another. And when I'm annoyed, I usually end up writing it down here in hopes of finding some understanding and reason to my anger.
Having traveled quite a lot this past month has given me a taste of three different style churches whom I am all familiar with.
Remnant Westside (NYC): I love the worship- you see passion and heart in their music based worship and I just love worshiping with this really free body of Christ. They jump, sing, raise their hands, yell- whatever. The sermons are really lacking though and I don't feel nourished at all mentally/philosophically/whatever requires knowledge in the word of God but the people are great there.
ECC (HK): I'm somewhat a stranger now having not attended this church for 2.5 years but man, their prayers and sermons are so simple, precise and straightforward you are not left wondering what they mean by really broad, theological phrases. The sermons do not waver from the featured Bible passage and include a personal example from the pastor himself that makes it easy for everyone to comprehend. Why is it that so many pastors find it so difficult to preach from the Word without trying to induce false emotion out of the congregation or find some elaborate theological reasoning to back up their very simple themes?
I'm not trying thwart what I said earlier about being a critic, I'm just trying to find answers. As for my thoughts on RHCBC, there's too much and at the same time, a lot of things I'm probably not aware of so I'm not gonna say anything here for my sanity's sake.
+++++++++++
Robyn, I found out the name of the song from Christmas dinner, The Stand thanks to the worship team today. hahaha...
So I'll stand, with arms high and heart abandoned in awe of the One who gave it all.
Despite all reservations of myself, singing a line like that gave me that "screw it" attitude, let's do it Remnant Westside style- we verbally sing it, therefore there should be some follow up with the body.
There's one line I remember from the Pixar animated film, 'Ratatouille', that really resonates within me as an artist and a blogger:
In many ways, the work of a critic is easy. We risk very little yet enjoy a position over those who offer up their work and their selves to our judgment. We thrive on negative criticism, which is fun to write and to read. But the bitter truth we critics must face, is that in the grand scheme of things, the average piece of junk is more meaningful than our criticism designating it so.
Isn't it so true? Most of the time we get extremely defensive and critical about the work of others whom they offer up vulnerably for others to partake in. Yet critics automatically seize this opportunity of vulnerability and assume they can take the position of being higher than the creator and shred the work to pieces. The critic nitpicks and take apart- without having thorougly examined the process, the heart and intention of the creator himself/herself.
If everything we are is supposed to glorify God, that includes our blogs right? When I hear people's personal testimonies prior to baptism or whatever at RHCBC, are they not full of both hope and frustration, darkness and light, anger and joy? And aren't testimonies basically a summarized version of a blog? All the concerns, worries, questions, discoveries, experiences and understanding condensed into a two page document? Yet when we tell others that God sent us burdens to bear, we smooth over the frustrations of the past, riding on the knowledge of hindsight.
Therefore, is not this blog a testimony to my walk with God? It's a day by day walk- and yes it can be painful at times in my questions of the uncertainty of the future- yeah I have fallen and probably will still fall in my confusion of 'finding' myself in the grand scheme of things, but I know, as in all personal testimonies, that God will somehow get me through.
I think people have become too focused on trying to 'fix' other people and have lost focus on their journey in getting there.
The pastor spoke today about being a genuine Christian who does not do the Sunday fake smiles and the Monday to Saturday grumbles (basically a 'part time Christian'). Honestly, I am not being really genuine as a person if I'm not pissed one day or another. And when I'm annoyed, I usually end up writing it down here in hopes of finding some understanding and reason to my anger.
Having traveled quite a lot this past month has given me a taste of three different style churches whom I am all familiar with.
Remnant Westside (NYC): I love the worship- you see passion and heart in their music based worship and I just love worshiping with this really free body of Christ. They jump, sing, raise their hands, yell- whatever. The sermons are really lacking though and I don't feel nourished at all mentally/philosophically/whatever requires knowledge in the word of God but the people are great there.
ECC (HK): I'm somewhat a stranger now having not attended this church for 2.5 years but man, their prayers and sermons are so simple, precise and straightforward you are not left wondering what they mean by really broad, theological phrases. The sermons do not waver from the featured Bible passage and include a personal example from the pastor himself that makes it easy for everyone to comprehend. Why is it that so many pastors find it so difficult to preach from the Word without trying to induce false emotion out of the congregation or find some elaborate theological reasoning to back up their very simple themes?
I'm not trying thwart what I said earlier about being a critic, I'm just trying to find answers. As for my thoughts on RHCBC, there's too much and at the same time, a lot of things I'm probably not aware of so I'm not gonna say anything here for my sanity's sake.
+++++++++++
Robyn, I found out the name of the song from Christmas dinner, The Stand thanks to the worship team today. hahaha...
So I'll stand, with arms high and heart abandoned in awe of the One who gave it all.
Despite all reservations of myself, singing a line like that gave me that "screw it" attitude, let's do it Remnant Westside style- we verbally sing it, therefore there should be some follow up with the body.
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