Reverence (2)

Irreverence increases with attending Sunday services.

It is natural. When it wasn’t possible to worship at church, we turned to the internet. Just do FB Live or YouTube video, or even tape the entire service and broadcast later on.
All we needed was to make sure the transmission was not interrupted.
It just isn’t that simple.

If I feel that someone is just putting on an act, I lose trust.
If that someone is doing that in a service, I lose more than trust—reverence.

Normally in a church setting, I sit afar from the pulpit. I can’t be quite sure if the pastors speaking are looking at me or at his cheat-sheet.

But then when the service is put on internet, I see his eyeballs, close up!
I see he is glancing down on his notes—every few seconds and nervously— which are very elegantly composed. Once it got so annoying that I just decided to close my eyes. Alas! The result was a much improved experience! I could pretend that he was actually talking to me, sincerely from the heart, and he knew his sermon so well that he needed not glance at it so often!

I started to close my eyes when another pastor read off the announcements, because he was doing the same thing like the preaching pastor. It all seemed to me that the church must have merely trained her staff to reading scripts, and not converse with heart!

Then gradually I closed my eyes when someone was singing too.

I realized something was not right: I wasn’t blind.
I might as well be listening to the radio, and not watching FB live!
And, I simply grew irreverent.

Would that HK churches consider that it just isn’t enough to put the show on electrons and forget about relating to the congregation!
I wish HK churches could ask the question: would it be better to see the worship on screen or just listen to it?