This year, I had to travel to Bukit Timah. With mum. It's her "first Christmas" in a church, so I thought it might be a sweet gesture to accompany her.
Now, I've always known Christmas services to involve some sort of drama, praise & worship, preachings, altar calls, chitter-chatters amongst friends/strangers, etc... but my my... I had quite a different one today.
Mum and I arrived at 630pm (cos one of her friends told her so). We gathered around the carpark area as the church helpers started setting up chairs. We spent like a good hour sitted, waiting for "something to happen". I had no idea what the agenda was, and erm, apparently neither did my mum! (or her friends). I sat there all fidgety, wondering why I made that decision to go in the first place :s
In comes a van, and out poured a whole group of old folks... and before you know it, all the empty seats were filled up in a flash and the announcer came on and said "let's say a prayer for the food" blah blah blah, "amen. and the buffet starts!"
"Older folks and younger kids to go first."
I thought I fitted in with the "older folks", so no hesitation there. (And no kids were harmed in the progress too). Well, here's the cute part. It's a buffet, but you're not allowed to take your own food! Ha ha ha... So we were being served like in an army camp, "servers" behind the food, just shoving portions onto your plate. The best part? This ah ma on my left conveniently scooped up her piece of curry chicken as it was plonked onto her plate, and then re-plonked it onto MINE! I was like, hello? Do I even know you? But being in a church environment, I had to maintain my manners... so I looked at her, faked a smile, and said "oh ok"
Moving along, the food wasn't fantastic but the honeydew sago saved the day. It was decent at least. At this point, I still wondered if there was ever gonna be a service/preaching.
Fast forward to like 830pm, where I thought, this is it. I'm getting my Christmas service, finally. But noooooo, not yet. Two people came forward to share their testimonies. I'm all for that, don't get me wrong, but when the 2nd person couldn't stop sharing... I wished she would so stop already. She mentioned she was 65years old, but she was going back to testimonies dating back to her 8 yr-old days! Oh, yes, she had to be whispered to, that "we're seriously running out of time liao" (ok, I'm sure that wasn't exactly what the nice lady whispered to her), but even then, that didn't stop her from talking about what happened when she was 25. O dear Lord.
Fast forward some more and we were told we're gonna be watching movie! Yay! Until the DVD screen came on, and it said "1992 productions". Great. Could you imagine all these thoughts going through my head the whole time? I actually felt bad. It's like, this is a Christmas service, I'm not supposed to be bitching or talking mean or thinking rude thoughts! But I couldn't help it! And I'm sorry, God!
If you ask me, I'll think a 'live' drama would have driven the message across, better, to the older folks, rather than make them watch a dvd that's produced 18 years ago. Yes, it's the same story, but I really didn't think a lot of them felt the impact. I meant, like when the nails were being hammered to Jesus' palm on the cross, the sound effect from that 18yr old dvd did not justify the 'pain'. There were no surround sound and people sure did not feel the impact that would have otherwise made them feel how much Jesus had to endure, in order to die on that cross to redeem us from our sins. I remembered years ago when I watched the nativity drama play out 'live', the moment when the nails were being hammered, along with the really loud sound effects, I cringed as if I could almost feel the hit. And I'm quite sure I teared.
But then again, every church have their own way of preaching the message. And as long as souls are saved, it's a call for celebration. And a couple of souls were saved at the end of the day.
So hallelujah, and have yourself a merry, little Christmas everyone.
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