Boston Chinese Evangelical Church is one of the biggest churches (in terms of members) in Chinatown. They rent out buildings to hold services, it's not just the building you see.
I have friends who attended the Church at one point or another. And it would be good for someone from the Church to post something about their experience (hint hint)
But I'm just going to post about the time I went to their Christmas Pageant.
For some background, we had an altar to my dad and some statues of Guan Yin and Faht Siu at home. It wasn't a real traditional Chinese altar in terms of rules or whatever. But it had fruit and incense.
But Christmas was always spent with my white family. So for me Christmas and Christianity was always seen from that perspective. Catholic, and old and traditional. People were Christian because their ancestors were and not because there was a question of "if" you believed. It was just something you did. The way lion dance is done.
I went to the little church and saw the play. Chinese Children dressed up as Mary and Joseph and the three wise men. It just seemed so odd to me.
Then they told everyone to close their eyes and said, "Now without opening your eyes, raise your hand if deep in your heart, you believe in Jesus Christ " maybe they said as your lord and savior too. Actually at the time I did not consider myself a Christian. But I raised my hand. and here's why. I did believe in Jesus, in a television special kind of way. They had this thing on TV with a child Jesus making clay birds into real birds.
Yeah sure I believed in that. I still do. Why? Because I believe that ANY child can make clay into real birds. They make all sorts of things come to life all the time, everyday. So that's how I believe in all that, poetically, mythically, and sure, in an alternate reality sense, literally... but not scientifically
So I raised my hand.
"Now everyone that raised your hand line up here and everyone that didn't line up over here."
So they started splitting people up into groups. I heard later the "Non- believer" group made crafts. So I had raised my hand... but I actually went with the nonbeliever group. Why would I do that? Because I knew that I believed something but that was for myself and I knew I believed it in my own way. I also knew that it was not quite the way they believed it. In other words.... Jesus was the son of god, and was a special child, and that every child is a son of god and a special child (including me.) So I knew in terms of church and all that, even though I had raised my hand, I identified with the non believer group.
But I didn't make crafts because my mother pulled me out of there so fast and we never went back. In fact she was pissed that they had made distinctions like that.
Everyone I met who was from that Church later on was always really nice.
But even when I got interested in going to a Church in Chinatown, for some reason I couldn't get past that memory.
I have friends who attended the Church at one point or another. And it would be good for someone from the Church to post something about their experience (hint hint)
But I'm just going to post about the time I went to their Christmas Pageant.
For some background, we had an altar to my dad and some statues of Guan Yin and Faht Siu at home. It wasn't a real traditional Chinese altar in terms of rules or whatever. But it had fruit and incense.
But Christmas was always spent with my white family. So for me Christmas and Christianity was always seen from that perspective. Catholic, and old and traditional. People were Christian because their ancestors were and not because there was a question of "if" you believed. It was just something you did. The way lion dance is done.
I went to the little church and saw the play. Chinese Children dressed up as Mary and Joseph and the three wise men. It just seemed so odd to me.
Then they told everyone to close their eyes and said, "Now without opening your eyes, raise your hand if deep in your heart, you believe in Jesus Christ " maybe they said as your lord and savior too. Actually at the time I did not consider myself a Christian. But I raised my hand. and here's why. I did believe in Jesus, in a television special kind of way. They had this thing on TV with a child Jesus making clay birds into real birds.
Yeah sure I believed in that. I still do. Why? Because I believe that ANY child can make clay into real birds. They make all sorts of things come to life all the time, everyday. So that's how I believe in all that, poetically, mythically, and sure, in an alternate reality sense, literally... but not scientifically
So I raised my hand.
"Now everyone that raised your hand line up here and everyone that didn't line up over here."
So they started splitting people up into groups. I heard later the "Non- believer" group made crafts. So I had raised my hand... but I actually went with the nonbeliever group. Why would I do that? Because I knew that I believed something but that was for myself and I knew I believed it in my own way. I also knew that it was not quite the way they believed it. In other words.... Jesus was the son of god, and was a special child, and that every child is a son of god and a special child (including me.) So I knew in terms of church and all that, even though I had raised my hand, I identified with the non believer group.
But I didn't make crafts because my mother pulled me out of there so fast and we never went back. In fact she was pissed that they had made distinctions like that.
Everyone I met who was from that Church later on was always really nice.
But even when I got interested in going to a Church in Chinatown, for some reason I couldn't get past that memory.
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