Church Life 101

I've been a christian almost my entire life since i accepted the Lord at the playground. i was 7 then. I started to attend church services since i was 13. That means I've been an "active" christian for more than 2 decades. GASP!!!!! Time really flies except when you are on the treadmill or nursing a baby.

My first church Geylang Church of Christ, well,was conveniently situated near my old home in Sims Drive. I actually called up the Pastor from the Yellow Pages. I let my fingers do the walking and soon one thing led to another and I was a regular bible study correspondence teenager. My mum was really anti-Christ. When i asked her if I could convert she slapped me immediately and I tasted blood in the mouth. YUCK! THAT!!! made me want to DIE for CHRIST!!!! I did not have the luxury to attend church services on Sundays then and could only tune in to BBC for worship and sermon, trying hard to understand the stiff upper lip sermons and the choral in cathedrals.

I struggled much in prayer, Lord am I a follower or not??? Why is it that I cannot go to church. My first bible from Gideons, the book of John from the New Testament was given to me one day just outside school. Then I remembered this good looker named Roger Lee from Tanjong Katong Technical that "preached" to me from the orange coloured 4 Spiritual Laws booklet and I accompanied him to his church, Fisherman of Christ. The first sermon I heard was "Jesus said I AM the vine and ye are the branches.... if ye abide in me, I'll abide in ye"John 15. Although the message was in mandarin, its was nevertheless my first church experience. I felt happy and peaceful.

After this chanced encounter, I soon lost Roger's contact. Mum had found the bilingual 4 spiritual laws booklet and threw it away with the free bible booklet . In addition, she gave me a really bad beating with many canes, I was almost 13 when she threatened to disown me. I was really upset about the bibles that I decided to buy many more bibles. That started my bible collecting hobby.
Each time I felt "persecuted", I turned to the LORD in much tears and prayed earnestly for His deliverance. As time goes by, my longing to attend church grew. I remembered my mum would have my brother Ron spy and follow me where ever I go, so that I would not set foot into any church. During this "terrible" time, I had no access to the telephone and all mail correspondences were destroyed. Its Funny...but I did not HATE my mum, in fact I took it all to the LORD and my faith grew stronger each day with adversity. God also became more real to me each day.

Relief came, a year later when I found a flyer in the lift. The same Geylang Church which by now thought I had lost interest in the Bible study correspondence advertised their weekly meetings. Hmmmm.. so since my parents were busy working, I started to attend Bible classes in person, I was the youngest still in school uniform and enjoyed learning about God and His ways and fellowshipping (also meant eating) with His people.

Finally, opportunities came when I started college life. In 1990, when I was 17, I asked to be baptised so as to become an official church member. I had grown up in the church so to speak and frankly my mum cannot "control" me that much any longer. I started being a regular worshipper and for the next 11 years I contributed much to that small family church, leading small groups, prayer meetings, teaching Sunday school, leading the youth, painting church wall murals, organising church camps, preparing the bulletin and Lord's Supper, collecting tithes and offerings and yes, even painting and fixing the wall lamps. The one area that I was most interested in was music. Unfortunately this particular church was vehemently against the use of music in church services and though I sing pretty well, I cannot help but feel something very crucial was missing. - the band!!!!

Soon, after attending several cell group conferences with my pastor Paul, I started to pray in tongues and felt led to attend Faith community Baptist Church (FCBC). Afterall, the samll family church was against speaking in tongues, prophesying and women leadership to mention a few - ISSUES. Now, FCBC is one great church. It was there that I met my husband Yan and we had Rachel. Both of us were actively serving God in the music ministry for many years. I felt much satisfaction serving as a vocalist.(until I was "downgraded" to be in the chorus) I love to worhip God and I love music. The more I worship God the more I love music. I realised that I had loved music my whole life since I was little. In fact, I had always wanted to learn music and SURPRISE, God bless me with a musician husband. Yan supported my musician dream. He encourage me much as I practice the violin and attend many a concerts. He often pram Rachel out to the beach so that I could squeeze in an hour of violin learning. GOD IS GOOD.HEE

I also learnt to tithe in FCBC. Previously, in the ex-church we just give as a cheerful giver any amount. But in FCBC we learnt the significance of the tithe (10%) and also the offering. I also learnt to tithe my time. There was a time in my life 10 months exactly when I did no paid work, the economy was really bad and God shut the door to almost all potential jobs. In those 10 months, I was staying away from home, alone in a friend's empty pre-renovated flat and I learnt to seek the Lord daily, to play the keyboard, to take care of myself with very very little money. There was no TV or air con and I read the Bible or books etc. Living alone is a welcomed change since I was crammed with 5 other family members in a 3 room flat and religion wise it was oppressive in my mum's place. I often times see "things" or was attacked by "things" that would quickly disappear when i cried out to the Lord. When I was home I made sure my room, which i shared with my sister and mum was "sanctified" singing worship songs. The spiritual climate was volatile with ancestral and idol worship aplenty. Although I was staying out, I made it a point to visit my mum each week and by God's grace, the relationship healed and improved.

FCBC is a "workaholic" church. I often felt a lot of stress with the many cell meetings, cell targets, leaders meetings etc. In fact, I was super pissed when a pastor closed down a satellite cell that i was asked to lead as growth stagnanted for 3 months. The members actually came from various churches to pray for kingdom advancement.

Years later after Rachel was born, it was really tough attending cell meetings without any helper. Rachel would cry often at new faces and I felt that I was disrupting meetings much to feed her or comfort her. It also did not help much when we struggled much with mortgage on a sudden single free-lance income. It was the time when I had left my previous banking job due to pregnancy bleeding and lost 3 months maternity benefit. Yan had just given up his stable boring job in a property firm of which he had no interest to be a full time piano tutor.

Occasionally, we had to turn to credit for the many baby immunisations, hospitalisations and also to help pay my mum's chemotherapy bills. Although God did provide, it was NOT ENOUGH! I humbled myself to raise money with flea markets and we forgo the cab rides which we needed much due to the baby and the pram. Life was hard. I pawn my wedding jewellery since I was not a into jewellery any way and liquidated much investments.

Many a sundays we dashed to church services at the EXPO only to find ourselves shut out, pram and baby too, as we were late. One time, I was so fed up, I kicked the church door when the "grace period" of 15 minutes was up. The pastor, KM shut the door in my face just when I was carrying the baby and about to walk through the EXPO doors. I pleaded with him, we were late as there were no cabs. He said NO and slammed the door in my face repeating that we should wait for the next service about 2 hours later. THAT WAS IT!!!! That was my last FCBC service. I cannot believe it. There were some elderly and parents with young children behind me who were similarly LOCKED OUT. If I had walked any faster, the heavy EXPO door could have hurt my baby. THIS IS TOO MUCH LORD, I WANT TO GO TO A BETTER CHURCH, I remembered complaining to the LORD. As a sleep deprived mum without any helper or car, I was really upset within me. FED UP!!!!!