Church Building

Every now and then someone asks us what CERC's church building looks like.  I meant to post a blog about this long ago but never did, so here, finally, are some pictures of the place where we worship every Sunday.  We meet on the fourth floor of an industrial building.

The building we meet in

The neighborhood and more of Singapore, as seen from the roof of the building

Where we park our cars--wherever you can find a spot on any side of the building

To get to the fourth floor, we either walk up four flights of steps (on the right) or take an elevator, which is through the narrow doorway at the back of the picture.

There are two sets of doors through which you can enter the church meeting area.  These doors go into the lunchroom.  You can see that we are on an open balcony with the city behind it.

(This picture is from the welcome program given by the youth when we moved here.)

A very nice area with a kitchen to the left, bathrooms at the back of the room, and room for the meals between services, as well as many other church functions

Usually when we get to church on Sundays we go in through the other entrance, and this is what we see looking in.  Down the hall are the pastor's study, a church office with copy machine, etc., and three classrooms.

CERC has a Christian Literature Ministry, which reprints many of the PRC pamphlets and other materials.  Some of these are displayed here, and this is where we pick up our weekly bulletin also.

A very nice library

If you turn left after passing the bulletin and pamphlet counter, this is what you see.  The sanctuary is on the right, the lunchroom is on the left, and at the end is a bigger room, used for overflow during church services and for Bible studies and other meetings.

Three small rooms are side-by-side behind the sanctuary.  The far room is where the audio controls are; the middle room is used for translation of the services for those who do not speak English, as well as for the smallest kids' Sunday School; and this closest room is used for Sunday School activities, and right now for those who take care of Jason during the services.

The sanctuary

That is the church building.  Now for a little quiz to see how much you know of Singapore. What would you expect to find right outside the building?

... If you guessed "an idol," you would be correct!  We pass this right before we turn into the church parking lot.  This is a shrine to Ganesha, the Hindu elephant god.  Yesterday when we got to church, someone was bowing and burning joss sticks in worship.

A closer view

Although we worship in an industrial building, the church members put a LOT of work into making our floor a very beautiful and functional place to worship and fellowship.  We are thankful that God has provided this for us, in a land where it is very difficult to get any space for a church.