T27 - Another busy Sunday

12/10/2009 by paul.

Well this morning was an opportunity to catch up with some of the members of the church in Taipei. The day began with prayers and then choir practice. I managed to avoid the gown yet again - a sharp ‘No’ seems to be understood anywhere in the world! The reading for the service was Ephesians 1:1-15, and Hsinte said that he split the reading into three stanzas each finishing with the line ‘to the praise of his glory’. This meant that the reading covered doctrine of God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit. He went onto talk about making ourslves holy in today’s world by being distinct in our actions, and then finally about unity. The church in the bustling city of Ephesus probably included Jewish and Gentile Christians, and so, this opening paragraph, whilst heavy in theology and doctrine (and suprisingly in the greek, all one sentence!) also speaks of the things that should unite all christians, not separate them.

This was particularly interesting as we then moved into communion and baptism. A mother and her baby boy were baptised together. Those who know me and my theology will know that this is hard for me, especially when neither, or particularly, mum, were invited to respond to promises or give testimony. I openly talked to Hsinte about my theology of adult/child baptism, and it seems that the arguements can exist in any part of the world. Communion had a strange, high anglican feel to it. Again it is hard to be sure of the doctrine as I couldn’t understand what was being said. However that meant I paid more attention to what I could see. Hsinte put white gloves on before moving to the table, and on uncovering the elements revealed gold trays stacked on top of each other. The servers then came forward (also wearing white gloves) and hand round wafers and the berry juice. This experience was quite different from the one I had last week in Tek-Tung, which seemed much more ‘normal’ to me. I guess I’, realising the breadth of churches in the PCT may be just as wide as the breadth of church in the URC or the Anglican church.

After church we headed for more choir practice, a bring and share lunch. And then I was summoned for more singing. The church have decided to start a men’s choir, and I was promptly given a couple of solo’s to sing. hmmm, the notes are fine, the words on the other hand….. Just when I thought I was finished, we all came back upstairs for the first handbell lesson. I didn’t realise that the big black boxes in my room weren’t guitar amps, but actually cases of hand bells. This was interesting. There were around 20 of us, each having two bells - I had E4 and F4, which are the notes E and F in the bottom octave. Anyone who has played in a band (particularly contest pieces in brass bands!) knows that one of the most difficult thing is to play one melody across several instruments with each taking a different note. Well multiply that by 20 and across all the harmonies and you have hand bells. I’m please to say E4 and F4 were in time, apart from the moment when G4 and A4 rushed and C4 and D4 slowed down - at this point my brain could no longer compute - just like playing front row cornet really!

We got back to our flat about 4.30, had a few hours rest and then headed out for tea, and a walk to the night market. My camera and the lights around Taipei made for my best artistic attempts to date, as did the hustle and bustle of the night market…

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