yesterday on sunday i was down in usj petaling jaya to preach in ekklesia methodist church on the book of Proverbs (part of a 3 sermon series i had agreed to do with them, the next two sermons coming in june). i had been to the church once some years ago and faintly remembered the directions to get there. the church was in a shoplot in jalan usj 1/33. so, i made my way there from seremban in the morning and as i came round the corner into usj 1/33, my eye glanced the signboard of the church 'ekklesia'. i parked my car near the church, took my stuff and went inside. the ambience seemed different from the last time, the worship team very good (too good for a chinese methodist church) but the people strangely unfamiliar. the pastor who invited me wasn't there. anyway, as i always do, i looked for the person in charge of the lcd projector and computer and gave him my thumbdrive with the instructions that my ppt for the sermon was in there.
the ushers gave me a visitor's form to fill which i did but they asked questions like 'who invited me?' and 'where did i come from?' after a while, things didn't seem 'right'. the ushers and lcd guy came back again and asked if i was with the speaker, a pastor louis manuel! something inside me clicked!!! this is not right, reb! so, i asked for the church bulletin and looked at it. the speaker for the morning was a pastor louis manuel, not the reb! arg-ahhh! so, i asked, 'isn't this the ekklesia church?' 'yes' was the reply. but things still don't looked right. so i asked again, 'is this ekklesia methodist church?' the answer that came back was a surprise. 'no, this is ekklesia sdn. bhd. ekklesia methodist church is a further 10 shops down the road!'
man, how was i to know that there were two churches named ekklesia on the same road? i mean, what are the chances of finding two churches with the same name ekklesia along the same road? (and note, it is both ekklesia, not one called ekklesia and the other ecclesia). this one was brand new, having sprung up about 3 months ago. but the independent church decided to take as its name 'ekklesia' knowing very well there was already one more established church down the road with the same name! i was going to give a piece of the reb's OT prophet's rhetoric but was too embarassed to admit that i had walked into the wrong church that morning. so i took my stuff and sheepishly walked down the shops and could see the people from the right ekklesia church waiting anxiously outside their shoplot for the speaker who was now obviously late. when i arrived and met pastor yu hoo, an alumnus of stm, and told him and the ushers what had happened, they all laughed. they echoed, 'it has happened before to other unsuspecting visitors to their church.' some consolation!
when my turn came to share the sermon, i told the congregation about why i was late and how i ended up worshipping in another church down the road. they all had a good laugh. the ironic thing was i was going to share that morning about wisdom from the wisdom literature, especially from the book of proverbs, and whatever wisdom i had was already long gone!!! well, that was a good conversational piece to get the sermon started. so, it looked like it was not really going to be the reb's day but the day ended very well. in 45 minutes (with interpretation into mandarin), i was able to give a good bird's eyeview of the whole book of proverbs and the response from the members at the end of the church showed it was a task accomplished.
p.s. after that episode, i went to berjaya times square in kl where my son markus was taking part in the malaysian youth scrabble competition held over 2 days. after a gruelling 11 games, he won 9 games out of 11 and got 5th place out of 137 participants. the 5th placing gets him to represent malaysia in the world youth scrabble competition at the end of the year in december 7-9th in penang! now, that is what i call wisdom!!! my son, you made your old man proud indeed, and here was he that morning trying to tell the ekklesia church 'my son, listen to your father's teaching!"
Comments
I enjoyed that story. Thanks for sharing and
on another note, my daughter also 'bested' her dad. she just received a psd scholarship for a one year afp at intec college and a 4 year scholarship to do biotech in US. my children are better examples of wisdom!
BTW, great story....it also happened to me once when I almost got my preaching schedule wrong!
btw, you got to tell your story too on your blog!
Life's like a box of chocolate..nver know wut you'll get.
And way to go for the Reb-kids.
That means, you are coming to Penang this Dec?
Steven Sim
as for december, if i am still around, i will be in penang. if not, my wife will be bringing up my children. i am having my pre-viva around that time in england.