(continued from part 1)

Now I’ll share on some of the good things I’ve noted about the churches here. Thinking about it, they are fruits that come from clear faithful biblical teachings, to the degree that it’s unadulterated by any worldly unbiblical culture or passing fad of the day that so infiltrate our churches especially in the West today.

Methinks they’re praiseworthy 👍

~ Reverence

It may be the Eastern culture that has an ingrained sense of respect for authority, but they surely have the right attitude to church services, part of which we have lost in the West. What’s casual to us will be offensive to them, and perhaps rightly so. Legalism has become such a convenient excuse on our sleeves we forget our behaviour actually reveals and also will influence our attitute toward God and the things of God.

Like everywhere, they had online streamings during Covid. While I remember in Melb we joked about having coffee in pyjamas while watching the online church service, here I came across this code of conduct of joining a live-streaming service:

The four points above are:

• Joining the service on time ⌚
• Dress neatly for service 👚
• Be focused throughout the service 🧐
• Stay with the service from start to end ☑

Over the past few years, it seems many of us pretend we’re attending a Sunday worship while we’re really treating is as watching a movie 📺🍿. So I thought that’s pretty cool they have expectations clearly communicated to their congregation.

The other thing I note when I went to these churches is that before each Sunday service began, they spend some time praying together (for those who are present early). Also, right before the service start is a few moments of ‘quiet time’ for people to prepare their hearts for the service.

Like most churches, the service ends with benediction. Before benediction is singing of doxology, returning all glory to God. I think their liturgy is right and proper.

I once heard there are people who visit old churches in search of a sense of sacredness that’s been lost in their secular society (although those churches offer nothing of substance but empty reverence). If you’d like a church with solid contents while still maintaining a right sense of reverence, then here’s one.

~ Evident commitment and clear priority to their faith ✝🛐

Not unrelated to the previous point, I can see a clear commitment and priority in the lives of the congregation.

Expecting crowds, I went early to their combined service (i.e., all branches gathered at the main headquarter to celebrate their 33d year). I drove in 20 mins early, took ten min to find parking, and then as I walked in to the church (still ten min early), it was filled up at >80% attendance. Mind you this is a place with a culture of super-late comers. As there is generally no concept of respect for people’s time, it’s actually uncommon for people to turn up on time! 😶

For example, I turned up 9.50am to my cousin’s holy matrimony recently thinking I was getting late (it was scheduled for 10am on the invite) and this was it:

People started coming in 40 mins later and the ceremony started at 10.50am (50 mins later than scheduled). I was told later that’s common. Because everyone is always so late, they have to tell people to turn up an hour earlier to get a decent crowd to start an hour late! 😬

Therefore, I was surprised to see most people not only turning up on time, but early to that church service, with 80% of them earlier than me (who’s already early). Meanwhile in Melb, being late is a culture despite repeated reminders..

Secondly, in Melb we hear of difficulties in getting people who serve to do so properly as ‘they’re all volunteers, how much can you expect from them?’ Well, here I notice people who are serving taking their roles seriously, paid or not. One I noticed during that same service was the translator. I’ve seen him in that role for the past many years.

• The preacher spoke in Mandarin, he translated to Indonesian
• The preacher switched to Indonesian, he translated to Mandarin
• The preacher decided to speak a few sentences in English, he translated it to Indonesian / Mandarin

All in the same talk 🤣. ‘Translator’ is his role indeed, hahaa. With my understanding of all three languages, I thought he did so effectively and succinctly, especially given how many numbers and figures quoted by the speaker. Yet at the rare occasions he misunderstood the speaker, made a translation mistake, or paused too long to process, he was corrected on the spot. Depending on the context, sometimes it was received with humour from the audience. It’s not an easy role to do so faithfully so humbly so well for so many years. It’s always long talks too.

Also in that service, when the preacher recalled a time before they launched the Calvin Christian School (Sekolah Kristen Calvin), he said he asked Pastor Ivan Kristiono (I mentioned him in a previous post too) to make preparation and find good teachers to fill the roles as they hoped to open the school next year. He continued, ‘without another word, Ivan said Ok, and off he went (getting the job done).’ The following year, the school opened with the help from a team of good teachers who are aligned with their vision.

They’re blessed with many such reliable competent whole-hearted helpers, not surprising their ministries are thriving.

These people know they are serving the living God.

~ Redefinition of standards 🎯

In short, what is rarity for us seems normal (as it should be) to them.

Awhile ago in Melb, I heard someone mentioned how the seminary students ask for extensions for deadlines and I remember feeling disappointed to hear that the standard of bible college intakes seems to be dropping all the same as that of the secular college. Where is the higher standard we ought to have, how are you to change the world when you’re no different from the rest of the culture?

Here, regular attendance at Sunday worship + serving in church + taking active part in evangelism is the norm, they’re expected to do better than that. We aren’t even near their baseline.

We compare with worse, they compare themselves with the better, much better ones. They compare themselves with people like John Calvin. They have appreciation of and therefore gains derived from knowledge of the long lasting and time tested heritage we have, meanwhile we’re busy getting intrigued by passing fads.

In my previous post, I mentioned their teaching sessions (apart fr Sun talks) on the Reformation. They went in depth to gain understanding on the lives of people worth emulating. For that Reformation series, they took 3 weeks to get an insight into the life of John Calvin (as a reformer, pastor, and author). We learnt of his struggles, his timidity, and also how God could used someone (yes a natural, prolific, and even obsessive writer, but also one with so many various roles and quite so sickly much of his life) to produce writings that is unbelievably substantive in both volumes and significance. Learning of God’s work in particular people make them yearn for the same drive and love for the glory of God that was given to those.

Because they look to good role models, the standards they aspire to isn’t set by our culture, but is raised high. In small ways, the piety, diligence and self-discipline they learn of are replicated in their own lives and the impact of the Gospel on those reformators long ago are repeated in their lives.

What you fill your mind with shapes who you become. They know to set themselves apart by faithful preaching and educate their congregation with things useful for the mind and heart. Meanwhile when we mindlessly fill our lives with junks in social media like the rest of the world, sadly there goes our standards 🗑

(continue to part 3)