We went today to watch the GF’s former colleague preach at his evangelical church. Previously, the only church services we had attended together were his father’s funeral and the clown service in Hackney, so I suppose we are yet to experience, together, something that is not out of the ordinary.
The church belongs to the Alpha wing of the Anglican church, and is a slick, modern, fast-paced affair, with a vicar in jeans and lots of Christian rock (I was delighted to find). We arrived at the venue, on the topmost floor of the Lot 10 Mall, to find it absolutely buzzing. In the tiny lift with us were an Arab Christian dealmaker talking about weapons sales, and an elderly Chinese couple staying at the Ritz who reminded me acutely of the Singaporean churchgoers in Crazy Rich Asians. The Arab was clearly on the make, for he talked to them at length trying to arrange a meeting and later attached himself to the vicar.
On the topmost floor was a roof garden and what used to be KL’s hottest club, now its hottest church, the HTBB (Holy Trinity Bukit Bintang). There were hundreds of people milling around: about half Chinese, a few Indians, a lot of white people and a few black families. We met our contact, the preacher, who introduced us to the vicar, a young Englishman from the Brompton Road church in London where it all began, named Miles, whom I kept thinking was named Nigel because that is what he looked like. Then we entered the church hall proper, past a man in a bear costume, and took our seats. Most of the non-Malaysians disappeared at this point: I don’t know if they were leaving the previous service, or if they just brought their children to Sunday School, or something else altogether.
The air conditioning was acute, as befits the usual evangelical disregard for the environment. The vicar took the stage alongside his determinedly cheerful English wife and the Christian band (two guitarists, a drummer in a glass box, and two women singers) and the service began with a short slick film about the church. This was followed by a children’s worship: a few children went up on stage and sang cheerful songs about love and Jesus etc. The words were projected on the screen above and related on TVs pointing in every direction (the screen was never turned off) so no one had any excuse not to join in. After a few songs the children filed away. After a joint prayer (including a prayer for peace with North Korea came a few songs for adults, slickly delivered but with lyrics like ‘I believe in God our Father/ I believe in Christ the Son/ I believe in the Holy Spirit/ Our God is three in one’. Accurate and easy to sing, but hardly a Psalm of David.
The vicar gave some church news, most of which related to a leadership conference featuring such talks as 10 Leaderships Lessons from Nehemiah. Then the preacher came up to deliver his sermon. It was on leadership again (what is it with leadership? The prosperity gospel of our age), this time lessons on leadership from the time when David didn’t murder Saul. It didn’t really hang together and I forget now what the takeaway was, but it really felt like the point was not that, it was to engage, tell a good story, touch on Christ and blend in with the entertainment. Which it certainly did: the preacher was extremely able and the sermond was never boring. Then a couple more songs which ended with a line of pray-ers at the front who offered private prayer for anyone who needed it. This was rather touching: several people went up and prayed with them, and many came back in tears. By the last song, I saw people hugging each other.
And so it ended, 90 minutes after it began, with never a moment’s pause.
A funny thing, all in all. Despite my considerable interest in religions and religious people, I don’t have an ounce of spirituality. This was was meant to retain attention, but not to give information really; it was to tug at the heart, not the mind; to create a wave of emotion and shared community, and rise to a crescendo before crashing into catharsis. It was by no means ecstatic, but you could imagine it going there given the right circumstances, and there were certainly people singing with their arms raised.
I’m very glad I went, and glad also that it was by invitation from someone at the church.