I woke up early yesterday but I still had to rush out of the house, dropping my plan to make my own breakfast. I got there just on time and was actually quite proud of myself when I arrived at Causeway Bay with much time to spare.But then I bumped into 2 old women carrying 2 bags and i just followed them and helped them to carry the stuff up the stairs.
Interning has been really boring and almost everybody at Visible Record were sick the past week. I am glad that I am getting this week off. It is also a very unhealthy location with all the air pollution from the traffic.
Met up with people over this week and the past week. Met up with Pui Ho, Sally, Sherry, Annie and King Kong. It was fun. I like hanging out with them better, just simpler lot then some of the others. It was just more relaxing. I guess we are like a bit outside of the in circle. There is caste in my fellowship actually and it's based on income, education, background and relationship (who do you know). It's crap. I am not sure if it's on purpose but it just happen that way. This crowd is the working class, mostly not uni-educated and earn less but gosh, does it really matter? Should it matter? What is our real value?
I guess it's very normal but the people in the other income bracket actually do hang out a lot more together. There are couple tiers.
Anyway, we had a lot of fun. We ate and played games at one of those cafe up in the buildings. I enjoyed it a lot and afterward we all went down to buy clothes for Ms Chan who is leaving us thanks to some morons. She's a big lost to us.
Saturday, I met up with some Australian church people and then I did my preparation for leading Bible study. I had been preparing on and off for about 3 weeks. I later went back to church to finish my preparation but it wasn't that great. there was a lot of space it's a bit distracting and I knew it too because just being at church made me think about a lot of stuff.
There I found out that one member, a BB leader will be going hiking... My heart just dropped. I am not sure if she saw my expression, i was trying to hide it. I am a little sick of it actually, these schedule conflict with BB. Whenever there is a BB meeting or event, it seems to be always during small group. We have a couple who's leading BB and they said the would come to Sat small group instead of Friday's because of work but then...there's BB on Sat. I think they come about once a month, which is not enough.
Small group is struggling because we don't have enough members coming regularly and it discouraging to other group members when people don't show up regularly. It discourages the small group leader too. KK is pretty drained.
I was actually quite nervous about leading BIble study because I had not led one for 6 months and Isaiah is not easy, and it was 4 chapters too.
Then I went to meet up with Pastor Yap at Prince Edward MTR. I forgot my phone so I had to be there on time and i was a little late actually. It always good to see Pastor Yap and it was a bit counseling and it was good how we can talk about life and talk honestly. Sometimes, the world seems like a pathetic place. "To change the world and then to not let the world change you." Thanks for dinner~
Then we went to the bookstore to get a gift, then I had to say goodbye and run off back to church for fellowship.
SOmething changed. We had the general announcement down stair but i didn't know that, we used to do that upstair so I was waiting for like 10 minutes and then i went downstairs to check and they were all there.
I always felt that I did not prepare enough when I lead Bible study and because of my nervousness, I sometimes get lost. But this time actually went pretty good. I prayed a bit before hand. I was very nervous, i could feel my heart rate. Only 3 small members showed up. Cow, KK and Terence. We had a visitor, Gary, from Group 3 and then our seminary student intern, who's our mentor. It's actually okay but we were missing most of our regular small group members which is a little discouraging. But it went well. They were so quiet. Gary was really quiet. I would ask for response and Gary in particular would have nothing. I am not quite sure why. I think he's quite opinionated and I know he's has pretty strong character, but I find him to be rather quiet around me. But it's better than before I went to Aus. Ricky told me he has to go somewhere. Ricky. If there's something fun to do or some tasty food as part of our activity, will be there. Bible study...well, probably depends on who's here. He would be here if a pretty girl was here I think haha.
There were different views on the scripture, but I guess since I had been reading a commentary and been looking at it for 3 weeks, i saw a lot more in it. And I do find that, yes, it's the person leading the Bible study who get the most benefit or am blessed by the words despite the hard work. Isaiah 36-39 is very rich. I wasn't able to talk about all that I saw in it and all my points but I was able to cover most and the seminary student, Connie, said I led very well, which is nice. Only heard that once before. But better learn from Hezeiah to not be prideful.
Connie was the most active participant actually. It was her last day studying Bible with us and we had a drink, well i did, everybody else had noodles afterward.
She's from Logos I think and she was telling us how there are so many assignments, just non stop. WE both agreed that it's not the best way to learn. I am actually concerned about seminary training in HK. I think one of the reasons being that half of the pastors at our church are not very well developed. On paper, they look good, both had BA degree (in math and science) and also MA at seminary, but a mature Christian would know that their theology is a bit shaky. Actually there's a lot of postmodernism thinking in their sermons and thinking. There is not a very strong backbone. It's a bit shocking because one of them went to the arguably best seminary in Hong Kong and they read a lot of stuff and did a lot of training (writing papers and school work) but what I find is a eagerness for the newest theology research or academic theory but not so much Biblical teachings.
There are a lot of character frauds in characters too. Most people don't know but I find out when working with them and just being the PK. They are quite worldly. Often preaching one thing and doing another. Very nice to important church goers but not so to someone like me. It's like a dumb popular contest. Earning love from church goers, preaching what is popular instead of what they are suppose to. There is a lot of covering up. It's just really discouraging. Just a lot of manipulation, sneaky maneuvers going on. Lots of talk but no action. I hope this is not the general case with younger pastors these days. I wonder if this is a Hong Kong issue? I wonder if this is the fault of seminaries nowadays in Hong Kong or just the people in general in Hong Kong?
I hope I am wrong.