Week 4 - ARPC

Whoops this is real late..

23rd Jan marked the first Sunday I was joined by Rachel on this church hopping experience. We ended up going to ARPC instead of our earlier planned City Church, because Ps Daniel Chua was not going to be speaking at City. Well it turns out that we didn't manage to listen to the Senior Pastor of Adam Road Presbyterian Church either; so much for that.

ARPC sits on Adam Road (duh), a short walk from the famous Adam Road Hawker Center (Nasi Lemak! Prawn Mee!), Serene Center, and Coronation Plaza. The surrounding roads are ever busy, and on another note, I found out the hard way that ATMs are few and far between in this area. That said, it felt very "old Singapore"; I doubt many of the buildings in a 1km radius were younger than 10 years old, save maybe ARPC.

The church sits on a mini "Bible belt", its the last stop after Trinity Christian Center, Singapore Bible College, and one other church I can't remember. Parking, as you can guess, is a nightmare.

In my mind, I always thought getting to ARPC would take me a long time, and so I got up early, gave myself plenty of buffer time, and caught 165 a good 50 minutes before service was to start.

I reached in 20 minutes. My jaw literally dropped. Its as close to home as GMC! Or at least the travel time is.

After 20 minutes more of walking around and exploring the area, I met up with Rachel and we proceeded into the church, acting as if we were long time visitors. Heh. It is a pity her mentor wasn't there that day.

We found ourselves seats, and pretty soon the service was underway. It was quite an experience... the songs we sang were very different from the ones I was familiar with, but sing we gusto we did (or tried to) all the same.

What was very different, however, was the the format of the service. It basically goes something like this. Sing songs, prayer, sing songs, welcome, fellowship time (talk and get to know the people around you), sing songs, pray for one another, sing songs, read a passage, sing songs, announcements, sing songs, sermon, sing songs, end.

Ok I exaggerate. But it really felt like that. I think I added in 1x sing songs for effect.

I found the "fellowship time" and "pray for one another" times interesting. You could really get to know more people, and really spend some quality time interceding for one another as a united body of Christ, if you took the courage and step forward to. I met two girls there, but one got engaged in conversation with her friend, and the other sort of lost interest in us, or perhaps just ran out of words for strangers, and so we were glad for that segment to end. Prayer was way better, as I got to pray for and be prayed for by Rachel.

The sermon was given by Pastor Adrin Munoz. I'm not sure what his position is in ARPC, but I'm guessing he's what you would call an "Up and coming" pastor? Guess la huh. I was initially disappointed since I have been hoping to catch the Senior Pastor of each church, but I was soon to be pleasantly surprised.

Here's two excerpts of my notes on his sermon, "A Word and Spirit Community - Acts 2"

"The Holy Spirit's coming was marked by the sound of wind and holy fire. He empowered the disciples to speak in foreign tongues, and gave Peter the unction to speak to the crowd who witnessed the phenomenon. This power from the Holy Spirit gave Peter the words, the authority, and the wisdom to speak and proclaim Jesus Christ the Messiah. And this message cut to the heart of those who listened. It was a three minute sermon that saw three thousand repenting and turning to Christ."

Very Bible exposition kinda sermon so far, detailed as Ps Adrin read through the passage. As expected, for ARPC is known for its strong study into the Word.

"... this was a community of devotion to the Word, and submission to the Holy Spirit. It is risky to only be amazed by the Supernatural Wonders that happens, and not by the Supernatural Living as evidenced by the Early Church. The Holy Spirit works in both these ways, and these two ways are both important. A change of heart and mind, and not just actions, is required.

What is the evidence of the Holy Spirit in your life? Are you living a Supernatural life?"

Here then, was the impressive and well placed challenge. He spoke much I did not write down, but it was pretty much a "Ok, we know so much, but are we living in the Spirit and not just learning great sums of knowledge?" kind of wake up call to his church. I'm not sure if I'm getting this across right, but this was a rather direct challenge to a church who prides itself on its strong Word foundation and study, and who often... question... the more charismatic churches on various issues. I must say I was quite surprised to hear it!