Rich Church Poor Church

In Poor Church, I watched a Christmas skit on their makeshift stage. A church goer next to me commented that it will be nice to have a real backstage where the actors can prepare themselves and emerge into each scene more seamlessly. I replied that it wouldn't really matter as this is a church and not a professional concert hall. Besides, the message conveyed through the skit was entertaining and clear - that we should celebrate Christmas with God in our hearts and not be overwhelmed by the frills of Christmas shopping and parties. Before the service, there was a simple buffet dinner. After that, we had a nice dessert buffet for everyone to get know each other better.

In Rich Church, we watched a Christmas musical on a collosal stage with props of an outlandish and stately American home complete with a winter fireplace; a huge back-up choir and live orchestra in the backstage, their silhouette focused by  cleverly positioned and synchronised lights and colours, visible through a translucent screen. The auditorium seats 3,000 odd of us with a professionally lit stage, pristine sound system and two large video screens magnifying the performance delivered by two camera cranes. It was an entertaining performance. The singing and entertainment were cleverly orchestrated with preachings in between and eventually culminating in a hard sell to convert non-believers. It was cleverly done by asking everyone to close their eyes and raise their hands if they so wish to be converted, to overcome their shyness. There was also peer pressure to ask believers to look at non-believers and say, "I will accompany you if you would step out to accept Jesus".

I am never a fan of hard sell of any product, religion included. Sadly, religion is a product and all religions are man-made without exceptions.

As the hard sell made its assault, I couldn't help but imagine how Jesus would have felt if he sees all these bright lights and sizzle displayed before him in the name of converting non-believers into believers. Couldn't it be done the same way as he did under the canopy of a tree in an open ground without any frills? Can we truly enlighten people about their spirituality inside by exploiting the crass materialism outside? Can we solve the problems of this material world that tempts us to stray away from God, with the same mind that had created them?

Big churches need big funds and these come from church goers. But should these funds be channeled to the teachings of Jesus and the Bible, or to commercial outlets and glitzy auditoriums?

May be among the thousands recruited in Rich Church, some will see the Light and experience salvation. However I suspect that many will be led into many blind alleys and meanders. Poor Church is materially poor, but I find its congregation warmer and its size of a more human scale. It also does not hard sell, or sell at all. It treats its congregations and guests as seekers of the Christian faith.

Of course, being spiritual does not mean that one has to be poor. We need material to survive in this human journey. However, if we are overwhelmed by material and lose ourselves in the insanity of the material world, then we will be led further and further away from our heart and God. That is my discomfort with Rich Church. This is my opinion. I am not imposing this on anyone. Rich Church goers will continue to do what Rich Church goers do. Ultimately, whatever we do, whether we are conscious of them or not, they are on our journey towards self realisation and salvation.

Have a Merry Christmas everyone!

Christmas 2009

I attended Christmas Service at the church where my sister sings in the choir and goes to regularly. In the chapel, there was a verse projected on the front wall, "But the Lord is in His Temple: Let all the Earth keep silence before him." (Habbakuk 20:20). I find that moving, as it is only in this silence that we can communicate with god.

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While reading the verse on the wall, I noticed that there is no cross there. I happen to speak to the pastor after the service and he said that it is so that the congregation will focus on the worship of Jesus Christ, rather the symbolism of the cross. Personally, I would go one step further to focus on the teachings of Jesus. That is, not to confuse the singer with the song.

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The sermon mentioned about the historical context of Jesus and Pilate, and how Jesus died for all so that we can have eternal life. The message ultimately was for Christians to live a surrendered life and make Jesus the king of their life.

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"But, how many people, Christians or otherwise, dare live a surrendered life?" I thought. Do we truly dare to follow our hearts? Follow the path that we believe is spoken from the holy spirit. Or would rationality and materialism takes precedence?

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Fears and fatigue abound in life in a city state. It is normal. In urban life, we no longer spend our waking and sleeping hours according to the sun. The rhythm of urban life violates the natural cycles of daylight and tires us. Besides, in Singapore, we don't grow our own food and the only way to survive is to work on a business or job to make money to buy food.

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Before the church service, whilst at the local coffee shop for breakfast, I chanced upon an old lady, probably in her 80s, who was perturbed about a Buddhist monk who had converted to Christianity.

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"I asked him if the church provide his meals, but he didn't get my sarcasm," she said meaning to wake the ex-monk into material reality.

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Did she really mean it to say that if the church does take care of the ex-monk's meals that it would have been worthwhile converting to Christianity? Sadly, even at her advanced age, she suffers the myopia of not being able to see beyond the physical, creature comforts of material survival.

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So contemplating a 'surrendered life' is a tricky one. All mainstream religions preached that. It is therefore down to one's faith and belief in providence and the abundance in our eternally regenerative universe. I think for that, changing one's religion is not necessary, but changing one's thinking and resolve does.

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Here is the choir:

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Bucky Group 34 - Christmas 2008

Since it is Christmas, we have a feast this Saturday at the Salon. Everyone brought something to share.

After the usual Christmas songs, we switched to Bob Maley's "One Love" video.
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We even connected with one of our Bucky member, Rochele, her two Vietnamese friends doing PhD in Atlanta and another friend working for CNN in Atlanta to join our session. Together we danced and sang across the Internet. Perhaps this marks the start of the Bucky Group's Webcast to people elsewhere or anywhere. Isn't technology wonderful? We did this without any additional costs.
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In 2008, many of our topics pertained to "Happiness". In 2009, we will be focused on "Creativity". To start it off, we watched and listened to Ken Robinson's TED talk on "Do Schools Kill Creativity?"

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Discussion:

Our education system in the Polytechnics seem to prepare our students for fixed vocations and therefore focuses on the implementation specific technical skills rather than conceptual and fundamental skills.

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Some years ago, the government aimed to get into the IT industry in a big way, but they didn't succeed. (We are not cheaper and bigger than the Indians.) Then they tried media, which was also not successful as there were not so many employers hiring journalists in a small country like Singapore. So they went into gaming, which is also not successful. They are now aiming for technology for "Visual Effects". Bureaucrats in their present form of conditioned and constrained thinking will never catch up with the market demand in real time. If only they had focused on the fundamentals of bringing up creative minds, will they be able to adapt to changing needs of industries. Someday they will learn.

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One of my dreams is to start a Buckminster Fuller Institute/University and Cafe in the city centre as a meeting place for entrepreneurs, technologists, artists, musicians and investors. There, we will have a Bucky library, artifacts (like the geodesic dome and isocahedran), Bucky sessions and seminars. Artists can sell their wares by displaying them in the cafe and budding musicians can jam up for added exposure and to entertain. Outside the cafe in the open, we can run exercises to build some of Bucky's artifacts, like constructing the geodesic domes perhaps with bamboo sticks or to play the World Game. These sessions can be webcast via the Internet so that member cafes elsewhere can join in.

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From time to time, entrepreneurs with revolutionary and creative products can also demonstrate them at the cafe premises. Revolutionary products need good sounding boards to test their business models, and meeting other entrepreneurs and artists to debate and synergise will be invaluable.

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Such a cafe will broaden the minds of people who (sadly) have been educated in a highly industrialised, structured, narrow and specialised system; to become more comprehensive in their approaches. Bucky called this type of people, "Comprehensivists". A Comprehensivist is one who considers the Universe as one system obeying a set of generalised principles, and not many human-perceived systems obeying different principles.

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This cafe will also offer life long continuous learning to people who have missed out on education in the earlier part of their life, or are late bloomers. There isn't such a cafe in Singapore so far, so let there be one! Perhaps it is kind of a "Cafe 2.0", akin to "Web 2.0".

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Note:

The Bucky Group is one that anyone can join and there are no formal memberships nor fees to pay, but just the receptivity to life long learning and fun. The Group meets every Saturday and Sundays, and has been doing so for the last 13 years. Please send in your comments and suggestions for the Bucky Cafe above. Thanks.

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For more of what the Bucky Group does in the past meetings, click here.
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Merry Christmas

Christmas Market, Brussels - 23Dec06