in TO, after much prayer, thinking, and talking it out with others, i wanted to get away from the chinese church too. (well... except for CCSA. haha) so off to Harvest i went!
so now, in sydney, guess what? i feel the most at home at 2 asian services.
1) Hillsong Chinese extension service
2) New Life Community Church.
and unless i'm rostered to serve elsewhere, im pretty sure my sunday mornings will be at hillsong chinese, and afternoons at nlcc (at least nlcc cell groups in the evenings).
hillsong (english) seems so "perfect". like they have enough ppl serving (plentiful!), everything goes well, ppl flood the place... they seem fine and dandy. the chinese service on the other hand, could use more help. definitely room to improve. and its no coincidence that im fluent in english (born and raised in TO!), yet at the same time, my cantonese any that bad (communicatable, and limited reading/writing), and my mando is.. umm... somewhere. hahaha
i also like how its a smaller service. like 3 services still, but ~100 ppl each! (my guestimate... i only went to 11am service. haha) but their a/v can definitely use some help (in operating it). and not in the camera/tv stages yet.
nlcc! ive decided to join cell groups here, instead of connect groups at hillsong. why? cus i need a break from the hillsong bubble. i really dont wanna go back to canada in 2012, and not have met any australians. i mean, its great meeting ppl from all over the world at college, and i'll have "free accommodation" when travelling the world (HAHA... one of the college trainers mentioned that! =P). but what good is it, just being bubble'd up in the hillsong community 24/7?
for one, im sick of hillsong songs. i really dont like how their setlist is the same few songs, aka stuff off their latest album. like... ENOUGH ALBUM PROMO ALREADY. i thought i was here to worship. not being "marketed" to. (didnt work anyways. im not buying the album. haha)
two, theres so many ppl at church on sundays, no one knows who is who. its very very clique-y. ppl stick with their connect groups, or college groups stick together... tbh, it was pretty sad seeing the numbers at sisterhood. altho it was on a thursday morning (i dont know how the work like sched works around here) but with 3-4 services each weekend, 3-4k per service, lets say half of them are female, yet only 1/3 of the auditorium was filled. with a few hundred of us being college students cus its mandatory attendance for us.
i dont know about the rest of the attendance rates for hillsong's other ministries, but i guess its just like most other churches, there is a high number of ppl attending on sunday mornings. but when you compare that number to the attendance numbers for fellowship/small groups, there is a clear difference (not the ideal 1:1 ratio... or more, if ppl are a part of multiple ministries).
haha... hillsong ranting. =P clearly, its not a church i would settle at if a church like hillsong was in toronto. haha... but i AM hearing positive reports from my housemate who are serving at different hillsong campuses and extension services! so its not all bad. just that cus we're living hillsong 24/7, anything for 24/7 will get on your nerves after a month!
so yeah... in conclusion, i guess im back with the asian bunch. not the english speaking chinese bunch, but the chinese speaking bunch, and some english speaking koreans! (well.. there are also some chinese ppl there. but we're the minority. 2nd gen asians!) =)
PS. more rants to come. housemate rants.
dun dun dun!
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