T31 - made it!

16/10/2009 by paul.

Well today was a little more relaxing, which meant that we had a long conversation over breakfast. We talked about worship and music. After the experience of communion and my reflections on the music I suggested that somethings in this church reflected the worship style of some Anglican churches back in the UK - certainly the robed choir, the gold and glove wearing needed for communion, the wafer bread and the focus on practicing music. Hsinte said that this church was quite traditional, and it is very different from my experiences in Tek-Tung. He has only been in the church a few months, so I can imagine that not everything in the church may be to his liking yet. However he did talk about the order of service for each Sunday. Whilst he chooses the readings and the hymns, from what I gather the form of the service has been established by the elders or members, and any deviation away from this would cause some problems. This is not just about what happens after the first hymn, but when to stand and sit, what to play/sing as the collection is brought forward etc etc. This explains to me the emphasis on music and its precision. I would say that in general the musicianship in Taiwanese churches is higher than back in the UK. But because of the culture (well, really Chinese education system and their controlling of culture in the past) anyone who plays an instrument is classically trained. A very nice Yamaha grand piano is used to lead worship, and the hymns are interspersed with short excerpts from the great classical composers and ellaborate piano arrangements. Whilst this can be a wonderful experience, there is more to church music (from my experience in Tek-Tung I can say there is more available in Taiwan too) than simply piano recitals and getting a C sharp major scale into Be thou my vision! Church music is there to lead people in worship, not to sound nice and good (although that helps), certainly not to show off the musicians abilities (although having some ability is useful!). If all that happens is that a piece of music is nice and played well in church then it has failed in its primary task to stir the people to worship in reverence, awe, wonder, amazement, fear, joy, fun. God wants us - all the people in church to worship him as we are, not a performance. My moaning about church music and what we make it stretches across the UK and Taiwan.

All of this, orders of service and music, should be addressed by asking where is the space for God (Father, Son and Holy Spirit) to be able to move in and amongst the people during a time of worship, and where is the space for the person leading that service to respond and lead the people? That could mean repeating a hymn, an uplifting key change, scrapping a hymn because the sermon moved somewhere different than planned, adding another reading, prayer etc. To paraphrase one of my tutors at college, if all we do as church leaders is perform a rehearsed, pre-scripted service and/or sermon, we might as well just give people a copy on Saturday night and tell them not to bother. Moan over.

So after breakfast and our interesting conversation, we prepared the evening Bible Study together. Today it’s Nehemiah 9 - a great prayer in which the Israelites recognise what God has done for them, how their ancestors have sinned in the past, how they have sinned, and how they long to come back to God. Interestingly there were very few difference in our interpretation of the passage.

In the afternoon I decided to get some fresh air, and I once again set off for the Taipei 101 building. A bus and two metro trains got me there in about 20mins. It is truly huge - imagine a posher canary wharf. There is a full-on shopping mall there, including top designer shops. Even the mobile phone store only sold phones made from silver, gold or platinum. The tell tale sign of the absence of price tags was over-bearing, and so I left to treat myself to a Starbuck’s - my first since I arrived. Bliss.

Afterwards I walked to the memorial hall before heading back to the metro…

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