Worship at Chung Chi

John was invited to lead a Taize-style worship service at a weekly assembly at Chung Chi. More than 20 LTS students joined it. It had to be a new experience to quite a number of Chung Chi students. To me, there was also something new. The venue was different; we sat on chairs with shoes on instead of sitting barefeet on the floor; and there were much more participants. We brought with us the liturgy books, Taize song books, two icons, candles and even eight dried flowers. In other words, we brought with us almost everything we needed for the service except the bread and wine.

I was a bit too conscious that we were having the service with students of another seminary. It was as if I was showing something instead of having our worship service as usual.

There were also some observations on my part: when we prayed, it was usually a prayer with explanation and what we wanted God to do; maybe we felt we needed to explain the whole story. And in the Q and A session, the questions were not unexpected. There was one on the meaning of the eight flowers. The three incense were another subject matter. They're too close to traditional Chinese religion to make one comfortable.

All in all, an interesting evening.

Books, CDs and icons on sale.


Upon leaving Chung Chi.