T13 - Sunday and Travelling

Well this morning was church. Slightly different to last week, in that instead of the main choir singing, the ladies fellowship choir sang - it seems each week a different choir sing.

I had a good conversation with Hsinte afterwards about his sermon. He preached, for the standard 40 mins on family values, and in particular parenting. Education (and subsequently, life) for children in Taipei can be really tough and competitive. A child’s day usually begins at 7 with the trip to state school (which the family pays a nominal fee for). School finishes around 4, and then its a quick trek across town, grabbing something to eat before heading to a private school for more classes. Children (and this counts for kids as young as five) get home sometimes at 11. The road next to the church has about 20 evening schools for kids aged 5 and upwards. And all of this is driven by parents wanting their children to be the best in the class and move through the states-style ‘grades’. Hsinte’s sermon then used several passages from Proverbs to indicate a more balanced life for kids and family, finding time for God, and achieving well at school. We had an interesting debate about how situations talk to scripture and scripture talks to situations; particularly, because during Hsonte’s 40 mins he didn’t refer to scripture much. He told me that ‘biblical authority’ was a Western ideology and theology, but I’m not sure, some of the other denominations in Taiwan may think otherwise.

After another choir practice, lunch and an elders meeting, there was a little time to get my things together and head for the station for my trip to Taichung. The High Speed Rail makes the journey in 49 minutes, and the nice, multi-lingual display at the front of the carriage told me were travelling at one point at 300 km/hr. Nice.

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Another minister, Rev. Chuang met me at the station in Taichung, and we drove into the countryside toward the sea for about 40 mins, before we arrived at the Agape church. The church premises include a school, a guest house, a chapel and the manse. I was shown to my room, was told prayers were at 6am, but I could miss them the first morning. phew.

This entry was posted on 28/09/2009 at 04:27 pm and is filed under Paul's diary. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.