This is the church that I went to since the first Sunday I came (except for the weekend when I went to St. Louis). Well I got to find out about it through a few ways actually. Shuang Ning emailed me the contact of a friend in University of North Carolina who attends this church, cos the pastor is a Singaporean. And at the information fair during orientation I met this Chinese girl (at the Bridges International Ministry booth) who attends RCCC as well and has been giving me and Andrea rides to church every week. It's in Cary, another city, a 20-30 min drive from my place. I've also attended the welcome dinner organised by this church for the Chinese students the first Sat I arrived.
It's really like Kum Yan, there's English, Chinese and Cantonese service. Chinese service, Cantonese service and English sunday school are concurrent, at 9.30 am. Then English service is concurrent with Chinese and Cantonese sunday school at 11.15 am. It's pretty much a family church. Most are Chinese who come from China, Taiwan or Hong Kong. The English service has mainly the young people who grew up in America (ABCs) while the Chinese service has mainly the middle-age folks and some students from China. The first 2 weeks I attended both Chinese and English service. The English pastor is from Singapore who has been in the US for 18 years, but he still speaks like a Singaporean, without the American accent. So it's really like listening to a sermon in Singapore! Last Sunday I attended Chinese service and Chinese sunday school. There are 4 sunday school classes to choose from, I went for the book study on Genesis and thought it's really good!
There's lunch every week after service/sunday school at 12.45pm so I get to eat Chinese food at least once a week :)
Now for the fellowship groups of RCCC...
Alpha-Omega Fellowship
This is the college fellowship group of RCCC, with students from NC State and University of North Carolina. They meet on Fri nights for their large groups, at UNC in Chapel Hill, which is another city, about a 30 - 40 min drive from NC State. They have Bible study groups too, the NC State people have one altogether on Tues night and the UNC split into guys and girls for Bible study. The Bible study just started this week and the NC State people are studying the book of James. So far all the Bible study groups I've attended here do book studies, which is something I haven't done for a long time in groups in Singapore since doing Romans in cell during JC days.
I went twice, the 1st and 3rd Fri. 1st Fri was their welcome party/dinner. It's like SMU CCC Vision Tea. There were about 60 people I estimated. On the 3rd Fri I went cos there was a sharing by one of the brothers who spent a year in China teaching English in a university. And he's angmoh! Most of the people in this group are ABCs, or more generally, Asians who grew up in America. Most are from China and Taiwan. But there are a handful of angmohs too.
I really enjoy the fellowship, and the fact that they are Asians too makes it easier for me to gel in, as compared to say CCC here. But on the other hand it can be a bit intimidating cos they speak with the American accent which somehow I don't know how to describe but it's just quite weird that they look like Asians but speak so good English. And some speak good Chinese too, better than mine!
It's really a lot like Crusade and youth cell back home and it feels like family. About the size of JUMP and youth cell too, or maybe slightly larger. On the 3rd Fri I stayed back after that to hang out with them and fellowship. We played games like table tennis, pool, mexican dominos at the dorm games room. I actually got to know some of them better through that time. Every week someone will send out email to coordinate the car pool and everyone gets sent back home.
NCSU Student Fellowship
This is the Chinese student fellowship group of RCCC. It's more like a ministry than a fellowship. They meet on Fri nights too, at another church near school, about 5-10 min drive from my place. There's dinner (Chinese food!), cooked by the church members. Then there's worship time and after that break up into small groups. Small groups are
1) Seekers Group in English: For those who are interested in Christianity and also wish to practice English.
2) Seeker's Group (Mandarin): For those who wish to learn about Christianity and are comfortable in Mandarin.
3)Christian Bible Study: Bible study for Christians. Doing the book of Philippians.
4)Discipleship Training: For new believers.
As this is for Chinese students, almost all of them are graduate students who are doing their Masters and PhDs. Quite a number of the students serving in the ministry have come to know the Lord through this ministry. And every year they have new freshmen coming in who join the seekers group.
I went on the 2nd Fri with the intention just to check it out, and I joined the Bible study which I enjoyed a lot and wanted to go there again every week but went AO on 3rd night cos of the China sharing, and then found myself enjoying that fellowship a lot as well.
Well the thing is both are on Friday nights so I can only choose to go for one. I've kinda decided to go for AO but attend the Chinese service and sunday school at RCCC and join other activities by the Chinese NCSU Fellowship like the up-coming Mid-Autumn Festival event this Saturday at Lake Jordan. So I chose not to go for the Crusade fall retreat which is this weekend too. Anyway there's a AO fall retreat coming up soon at the end of Sept :)
More on other fellowship/Bible study groups in the next post!
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