The Church We Attend Now

After attending three churches in Hong Kong, we finally settled on the church that we're currently attend. Last Thursday at cell group, we were reading James 2 and I shared why we decided that The Vine is where we know God wants us to be.

¹ My brothers and sisters, believers in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ must not show favoritism. ² Suppose a man comes into your meeting wearing a gold ring and fine clothes, and a poor man in filthy old clothes also comes in. ³ If you show special attention to the man wearing fine clothes and say, “Here’s a good seat for you,” but say to the poor man, “You stand there” or “Sit on the floor by my feet,” ⁴ have you not discriminated among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts?

James 2: 1-4

The passage hit home. When we first attended The Vine, I was kinda surprise that there were people from various nationalities. When I mean various, I really mean various. There were not just Africans but Africans from different parts of Africa that I never even knew existed. There were helpers from Philippines serving in Sunday School and also being greeters. Nepalis serving the Nepalis's community. It was almost like United Nations. And yes, I've even seen HK actresses sitting next to anybody and everybody. It was later that I found out that the church supports a large community of asylum seekers. Recently, someone shared with me that a family of 8 who are asylum seekers came to church seeking for help. Well, they are not even Christians and the church opened their arms wide open. And in turn this family told another Egyptian family who is need to come to church. The Egyptian family's reply was that, 'We're not Christians, will they make us convert?'. And the family's reply was no, just go to the church and the church will help.

That warmed my heart. Jesus came to call the poor and not the rich. When I walked into church, there's this warmth that everyone is equal in the eyes of the Lord. Yes, this is an international church where pilots, bankers and high fliers attend too, but do I know who are the rich and the poor? No, I don't. From my point of view, I can't tell. The pastors often preach and encourage us to reach out to the poor in our congregation and in our midst.

One of my favourite songs that's written by the church band is, God of Justice. Sorry, can't find the lyrics. But in the chorus, its goes, 'We must go and feed the hungry, stand beside the broken. Keep us just from singing but move us into action.' I pondered upon those words and then I thought of my home church. Let me apologize to those from my home church in Singapore who may be offended. But this is honestly how I feel and see things. Maybe I've been in my home church for too long. When I was growing up in my home church, I felt that the rich in the church were sort of better cared for. And people were rather judgmental. My parents stopped attending church for a while and I've always felt that there were stares. But these all pale to something close to my heart. When people from my home church found out that we were adopting, there were questions why and why don't we make our own and a barrage of questions that were discouraging us. But when we share with our cell group in Hong Kong, sure there was a why and we told them that God told us to adopt and we must follow Him. And that was it. They prayed with us and encouraged us along the way. There were never discouragements but only encouragements. I remember in the early stage of adoption, I shared with someone from my home church about adopting. She was very encouraging but she said, be careful of the gossips. That hit kinda hard. I love that sister for warning me but didn't Jesus ask us to go and support, give and care for the widows and the orphans?

Anyway, if anyone from my home church is reading this. You are the ones that can make the difference. Are you willing to go and be a friend to the newcomers? Are you willing to take the step and sit next to the foreign worker that comes to service? Or is the friendship or the welcome dependent on how big a car someone drives? Will you go and comfort the broken? Each time I head back to Singapore, I don't really head back to my home church anymore. Maybe I'm feeling that it doesn't really feel like home anymore. It's sad. My heart aches.