Settling In A Local Church

For those who are concerned how I've been faring in Brissy, finally here's an update! :)

The moment I touched down on 3 August evening, I went to a bible study straight from the airport. W attends a fellowship group for young adults, know as "CLAY". Clay meets every Friday evening and now, they are studying a study book "Six Steps to Encouragement". Having attended 2 sessions since, it encourages me to see 15-20 of them gathering every Friday to study God's word and encouraging each other in their walk. There's not much difffernece between Clay and my DG group back in Singapore. Except that they gathered in church and because the group was getting too big, they spilt up into 2 and I'm in the group where the church's young pastor and his wife are in. W leads the other group with someone else. Clay has grown since I first attended one session last year. Now, there's also another group of Clay that meets at the other branch location of the same church.

In case you are wondering which church I've been mentioning above, its the Chinese Christian Church of Brisbane (CCCB) 布里斯本华人基督教会. CCCB has 2 locations - St Lucia (where University of Queensland is)and Coopers Plains (nearer to where I am staying). W attends the St Lucia branch and so I follow suit. The SL location has been there for long time. The English congregation averages 80 people each Sunday. I think the Chinese congregation is slightly larger. For the CP location, the English congregation is larger than that in SL and the Chinese congregation is probably just as big. The young 'ang mo' pastoring over the SL congregation was a graduate from SMBC and he preaches as well as pastors from my home church in Singapore. But compared with church back home, CCCB is small in size. Its people are very loving and warmth. It probably looks like ARPC in its old days where it was small and almost everyone knows everyone.

Just on my 2nd weekend in Brissy, I actually served in the music team singing with W (coincidentally, my music team in ARPC was also serving the same weekend) . There are only 3 teams and each are only about 5-6 people, including the singers. In the team I served in, there was a drummer, a pianist, 2 singers (me included) and the song leader (they call them "Chairperson" because he/she pretty much chairs the entire service except for preaching the sermon) who also played the guitar and leads the service. It was really nice to be able to serve. In short, I'm somewhat refreshed to serve God and seems to be motivated in a different way as never before. Maybe its the different people and different culture. But it surely is worshipping the same God and I'm glad that the pulpit work is similiar to ARPC's.

The same Sunday afternoon, the CCCB at CP had a dedication service. The CP location and building were newly acquired. The folks have had been worhsipping at various locations and moving around over the years. But by God' grace, they finally was able to find a building which was previously a car showroom, to have a permanent place to congregate and grow. They have only recently obtained a license to be able to operate as a church at the premise. Most of the SL congregation also gathered there together for the service. And what was best for me, was to be able to see my pastor (APRC) there! Pastor was there for a sabbatical and he has been invited to be the guest speaker at the dedication service. It was really nice to be able to see him and hear him preach again and especially when all others back in Singapore don't get to hear him because he has been on sabbatical :p Of course I also got to catch up with pastor and wife a bit. Will be meeting them again soon before they head back to Singapore next month.

See those familiar faces?

The combined SL and CP music team. They had 2 flutists, 2 violinists, 1 pianist, 1 keyboardist, 1 guitarist and a drummer. W was backup singing. The musicians were a really talented bunch.

I am not sure if I will eventually settle down and serve in CCCB. There's probably a great possibility that I will. Will pray through about this and see where the Lord leads.