50 years.....and counting?

Seeing as Vince blogged about the Killarney Park 50th Anniversary, I shall do so too (or well, at least that's what I think he wrote about XD......I will admit that I was slightly confused =P)

Just a little background info, Killarney Park is the congregation that shares our building, or more correctly speaking, we share theirs. Walking into church this morning I was surprised to see all the decorations up, with board after board of old photos from the ages past.......and i just remembered I was in a state of shock......how did it come to this?......how does a congregation of way over 200, which once had hundreds in their Sunday school, multiple services on Sunday morning just coz people couldn't fit......how did a congregation like that dwindle to a mere 20 people after 50 years?

But even more importantly, what will happen at our own 50th anniversary next year. True we might be doing better number-wise, but are we truly any better? I can't help but think it's time our congregation had a mid-life crisis.....not in the sense that we should buy ourselves a Porsche or some plot of land up in the interior.....but it's time someone pointed out how dangerously similar we are to the church of Laodicea we are - lukewarm (Revelations 3:14-22).....I just can't shake this feeling, that, as a congregation, everything is half-hearted at best......that's why I was always adamant about our 50th Anniversary....I just don't see a point......true, it would be a great cause for celebration for whoever had a hand in founding this congregation, but what about for the ones in this congregation now? That we have been great a sitting on our hands and warming the pews? Wake up, people!

It has been a while since I've heard a good sermon, but the one for the KPLC 50th year was definitely a refreshingly good one (not spectacular, but very decent)......and one line, one line just stuck......and despite this line was being directed to the church, it just repeated itself over and over again in my head......

......it's not about being famous, it's about being faithful.....

and i just can't help but think........do I truly want to run the risk that, at my own 50th anniversary, I'm going to look back at my life and regret how I've spent it?

38th Annual Summer Reading Session for Church Choir

Now this was definitely a very different experience.......having had the chance to attend a couple of different conferences (both for church and for academia), I was very much caught off guard by this one......being a fish out of water doesn't quite encompass the inadequateness of my talents for an even such as this.......

I was thinking this would just be similar to any of the other conferences I've attended. There'd be lecturers and powerpoint presentations as they go over the finer details of leading a church choir and singing with the right voices.....and so i didnt think much of the fact that while most of the people at the event were choir directors, I was given the noble title of "selector of a fun Christmas tune"......until I was handed the package of 60+ choral pieces at the registration desk


I sat down and sifted through all the sheet music, finding only an order form attached.....interesting, i thought......no program? no topics of focus?......it was then that i realized we were sitting in front of curtained stage.....maybe, i thought, there would be a choir that would sing all of this for us, and so that's why i am here to pick one that i like

It was not until the "clinician", as they called him, stepped up that I realized how wrong I was.....the reason of why this was a "reading" session finally dawned on me.......as we flipped open the first piece of our stack and he signaled the piano to begin, I realized that WE were the ones to sing through all of this

This arrangement posed several problems. First of all, given that my professional piano career ended more than three years ago, my sight reading abilities were virtually nonexistent. Even then, I have never learnt to read voice. I would follow along the melody and completely miss all the words, or follow the words and have no clue what to sing it to. Secondly, singing aws definitely not my strength, especially not SATB. The accompanist would play the intro, and everyone would automatically know what to sing and what pitch to sing in, and i'm just left standing there wondering how in the world do they do that and frantically trying to pick up the right pitch. The of course, as if to make matters worse, my voice falls between the tenor and the bass. The tenor had notes that were too high for me to reach (I have trouble singing higher than a D4), and the bass was at times too low for me to accurately hear what I was singing.

In short, the only thing that I could sing were segments that were in slow quarter notes without huge leaps or odd accidentals. So the majority of the time was spent following along and listening to other, more accomplished vocalists do the work =P True, there were some trickier pieces that we slaughtered (especially the couple following lunch), but generally it was very well done. And I do admire them for being able to sing well on the spot like that, wish I could have done the same.......

But hey, I'm not complaining. At least it's a very different break from the regularities of work =P (and imagine if an scientific conference was like this XD "Ok everyone, this is my experiment, let's do it all together!")

PS: Saw Ms MacCulloch there, but then she never taught me and I doubt she knows me, so I didn't bother to say hi

The Happier Times of Days Gone By

you know.......I feel so old.........not in the sense that I've put on another year of my life and my joints are starting to protest, but just that I feel like I have all these weights on my back that I never realized was there before

Today was probably the first day during the entire week when I had some time to wind down (hence me reappearing after the last post)......but so much seemed to have changed since then...it doesnt seem like it's about being a rebel anymore, but it seemed to have stirred a deeper question - where do I really belong?

I always thought that Vancouver had been my home, and that church had been more a family to me than anything.......but something seems to have changed this week. Maybe it's a mood thing, maybe it's not, I don't know

Having been traumatized with a few half-way-across-the-world moves as a kid, I have been quick to attach myself to this church. True it's no secret that our church is plagued with problems, and it still is, but over the years something seems to have changed. In our effort to move forward and improve we seemed to have lost something along the way. The spontaneity, the genuine care and support. Everything seems to institutionalized and sterile now. This felt especially so after the Sunday school meeting today

Despite the current system being "better" than what it was, there is a great part of me wishing it would somehow just go back to the way things were. I don't even remember how I became involved with Sunday school. But it just happened one summer. For some reason it was just me and henny teaching. There were the Saturday nights pouring through websites frantically trying to think of what to do with the kids the next morning, because there was no cirriculum. There was the blue sky over our heads and the green grass under our feet, becuase it was summer and we spent much of the morning outside, seeing as no one really cared about how we did things, so long as the kids were taken care of. I suppose that was where I found the childhood that I had lost. But now it all fades into distant memory.......

I must say, the new Sunday school arrangement is our finest yet. It's a great program and I'm surprised myself that it was this elegant. But it is just a program, no matter how perfect or how elegant it is......We seemed to have travelled down a road that is now completely irreversible. In our ambition to become as successful as other churches we've traded spending time with the kids because we want to be with them for a teacher rotation. We've traded the fun and games and let God work His magic along the way for curriculum that seems to be geared to all the other kids in the world but ours. We've given up the random trips to all over the place for consent-formed activities, and we've let legalities and parental consents cloud over our hearts to care for and help the kids.

What have we done?! What have we done...........

Lutheranism - Old, Male, and Lifeless

OK, I'm prepared to be offending a lot of folks with this (I mean, just look at the title, it's not the most politically correct), but hey, i guess it takes some overarching generalizations to get the point across and maybe draw some attention.

I was graced with the pleasure of staying all day at UBC yesterday. After the busiest day at work yet (I filled out 7 whole pages of my lab notebook, the most yet in a day), I somewhat reluctantly stuck around for the opening service for the LCC ABC District Convention (Lutheran Church of Canada, Alberta-British Columbia). And I must say, it was quite the experience that got me thinking....


Moo was saying how there was a certain air that defined us Lutherans.....white-haired, slightly hunched, with general lack of momentum......and i must say, this is true......it's not only the general lack of youthfulness, which Flo later pointed out, that seem to define the denomination, but more of a stubborn unwillingness to change.

True, we are the oldest Protestant denomination, and no doubt we are the closest to Catholicism you will get without throwing the Pope and all the saints. But I'm beginning to wonder, has our adherence to tradition gone a bit overboard. It's not news that different congregations adapt and omit different bits and pieces of the liturgy (basically preset dialogs you speak or chant as the worship service progresses) because of complaints that service would drag on for too long without anything really meaningful. But the problems don't end there........

I'll admit here that me and pastor are not on the best terms. There just seem to be some uneasiness between us that we mask with superficial friendliness and goodwill. I suppose the reason being that I've always challenged our church traditions. I have no problem with the theological views we hold, but it's the unspoken traditions that make no sense to me.

There seems to be a general snobbery, especially amongst the older generation, that you are not truly Christian unless you are a Lutheran. Despite this thought being less verbally expressed, there is still a ridiculous amount of hostility toward other denominations. More than once have I experienced this first-hand as I tried to push for more collaborative events. Concerts, city-wide youth rallies, joint fellowship with other churches.....and time and time again the response I received was that we were allowed to go as individuals, because the church has no control of our actions, but we were not allowed to go as a fellowship or as a church, because the events were not Lutheran and we were not to have any dealings as a church with other denominations. There was some brief mention of differing theological views and conflict avoidance. But this was made most clear during a pastor's meeting last summer where all the pastors from metro vancouver met up. There was an overwhelming tone of resignation and defeat in the announcement that there was to be no Lutheran evangelical effort for the 2010 Olympics. We had to join up with the collaborative More than Gold effort put on by the rest of the churches in Vancouver. Is it truly such an appalling thought?

And then there just seems to be a general disregard for the youths in the denomination, as very evident by the lack of them last night (I can almost claim that I had the most singular hairstyle in that room of 500-ish people). It's not that they are not concerned about us, but we seem to have very little say in the direction of the church and even less so in the direction of the district. Even the government has a Youth Parliament, but as obvious in the delgates present in that opening service, the people chosen to attend the convention is doniminantly older, Caucasian male. Ask anyone if youths are important and I'm sure they will more than agree we are the future of the church, yet all they really seem to care about our growth and maturation is that we follow their example. Anything new, anything different, begone, devil! This was evident when a student at a Lutheran seminary became so frustrated with his professor because he basically demonized the whole contempory Christian music movemnt. It was evident when I attempted to convince the church to purchase a drum set. It was evident when pastor introduced me to a seminary professor yesterday, saying, in an apologetic and he's-weird-that-way-please-don't-mind-him tone, that "He like the modern praise songs."

Sigh.......increasingly i feel like I'm a problem that the larger church is trying to fix......that I'm a rebel that needs correction becuase I'm unwilling to conform to the way things have been done since the 1500s......and the sad thing is that whenever there is an idea brought up by our fellowhsip, there is always a general verbal agreement that it's something that should be done. But the support ends there, and any deeper conversation with any of the older members would only have them point to some higher person in-charge that would oppose the idea. And so despite them verbally giving support, they are in reality against the change in thought and in deed. They just very cleverly disguise it as an opposition from someone else.

We Lutherans, however, do have one redeeming quailty. We sure can sing. The overwhelming operatic male voice we sung the hymns in cannot be described in words. It simply has to be experienced. (If only our congregation can sing like that.....)

Full-blown Summer (or not) and the Shampoo Problem

Yesterday was definitely a day reminiscent of full-blown summer, although that thought was quickly drenched today.

The fact that we were all sweating in our choir robes, plus the lunchtime quest with the Sunny school kids to Shell for a slurpee, along with the dinner gathering at the Tsui's (despite it being a hotpot dinner and not barbecue), and the post-dinner adventure to the playground for grounders definitely signals the advent of another round of summer =P.....But I must say, eight months of isolation from the playground has definitely taken its toll on this rusty body of mine. I'm no longer tha agile self with it comes to outmanouvering the kids (or i suppose some of them has secretly crept up the age ladder and became teens over the years)......

Amongst the many trophies of the night I have stumbled across many a sore muscle, a banged up knee, and a completely scraped forearm. The muscle pains were inherited from months of disuse (honestly, how often would i find myself climbing up bars and hanging off of railings in the sterile lab environment). The banged up knee came while attempting to leap up while completely forgetting about the wooden ledges that were suppose to facillitate that increase in elevation, resulting in me completely smashing my knee against on of the corners. The scraped arm was definitely the most seredipitous discovery of all. One moment it was fine and then it was stinging the next, and so upon inspection I found enough blood for Tammy to use it to draw a smiley face on my other arm......but the funniest part was how the parents made a big deal out of it......it really was just a scrape (although admittedly it was somewhat unsightly), but they were all fussing about how i should be putting a bandaid over it (despite it being way too big for conventional bandaids).....so yes, i had to spend some time reassuring them that it was OK. There is definitely a cause for concern if it was knife wound that size, because i would have fainted already, but the fact that i was alive and well and very good-natured about it means that, despite its somewhat disturbing size, it was nothing serious (and i think the fact that I'm not dead now becuase of it means I was right =P)

But today was a lot duller than yesterday. I think I've come to the conclusion that one day of bumming around at home not doing anything is enough to drive me crazy.......I woke up at 10 (tho technically i woke up at 830. Without an alarm too, it's sad....), and by 5 i was bored out of my mind.......

However, there was one thing that completely stumped me today. It was the Shampoo Problem, one which i think is worthy to be included in the chronicles of Sherlock Holmes. But the story starts out that our household was out of shampoo, and so I was dispatched to search for an appropriate replacement. I started at the mysterious aisle of hair products at the local London Drugs, and as I scanned through the labels I realized I was faced with quite the challenge. There was shampoo with conditioner. There was shampoo for coloured hair, as was there for dandruff, and dry and damaged hair, and for increasing hair volume, and for hair fortification.......There seems to be shampoo for absolutely every possibly convuluted condition EXCEPT normal regular generic everyday shampoo!!!!!! Honestly!!! I might having more luck looking for shampoo for warm weather, shampoo for washing your car, and shampoo for cutting in the grocery line!!!

Following Other Blogs

There is one thing i really like about Bloggers, and it's the ability for me to follow on the Dashboard other blogs that are not explicitly from Bloggers. All I need to do is just to type in the blog URL and the posts just show up.....I think it's very magical =P......I can now keep an eye on the blogs that I would like to follow without having to actually go to the sites to check all of them on a regular basis (i suppose you can argue that the RSS function was there since ages ago, but i never bothered to put it into use XD......but this blogger thing is just conveniently there =P)

In other news, UBC has paid me, thos i must say i was disappointed.......I wouldnt mind having the two days at the conference not paid for, and I kinda expected them to deduct taxes from my pay (tho I explicitly put a tick in the box saying i was making less than my tax allowance, so they really shouldnt be deducting them).....but then thing that I was the most surprised about was that they are not paying me the full 8 hours a day.....DESPITE the fact that I'm there from 8:30 to 5 every day......feel kinda ripped off now, coz i thought i was going to be paid the full 8 hours so i figured i better be working for 8 hours.......I guess i should find out how many hours per day they are actually paying me for.....it better be 7.5, because if it is 7 then there's no way i'm showing up that early anymore!! >__<"

But there is one thing that is getting me very excited =P.....we are finally starting the Truth Project this Thursday night =P......there really isn't another less generic word.....I am genuinely excited =P