Brief Experience of Being In A Christian Fellowship Club

  I typed religion .gifs and I ended up with this. Found it hilarious for some reason.

Thanks Google. 

Well hello there. Yes, I'm back again living the dream of being an unpaid blogger working for Google because I love writing although I'm secretly desperate for Google to just load my blog with shameless stacks of advertisements all over my page because I want and NEED the money. But, alas this blog is pretty much a worse investment than a house in North Korea.

So yeah, I'm not rich from Google money and my exams are coming thick and fast so overall 2016 hasn't begun how I envisioned it would have. Now what? Oh. You people reading this so far came for something eh? What about a story?

As you can see, the title of this post is pretty much self explanatory. I was thinking about it for quite some time but had been putting it off due to sheer laziness and with me being an advocate of procastination-ism and all. I don't get too many interesting life experiences that people would find an interest in reading but maybe this will pique someone's liking.

Way back in the old days where the older generation only had the Iphone 6 to play with, I joined INTI Subang Jaya college. And a few months in, there was a big clubs fair that was held where the various clubs try to entice the new batch of young and sadly innocent hopefuls to join their sorry ass clubs and pay the admission fee worth a day of lunch money. I was one of those idiots. I joined a few, paying up to the popular clubs such as STACT, Chinese Cultural Club and the lesser known ones such as English and a Technopreneur club. I barely participated in most of the clubs I paid for except English but I'll save that for another blog posting.

It was that day I found out there was a Christian Fellowship ( CF ) in INTI. I didn't join it of course. It just seemed too uninteresting to even fathom about joining it. It was there and that's that . I paid next to zero attention to it.

Then, one day I stumbled onto a group of people playing Captainball in our hazardous and stupidly designed futsal court . I saw people I knew and so I joined in. Obviously. I love most sports so I couldn't say no. It was fun . And it was also a trap.

Had to do it.

The people I was playing with were from CF and this was apparently a usual thing for them. My eyes widened in a tingle of joy as I realized this could be the club I was looking for. A club that I can fill my reasonably empty Wednesdays by playing fun sports. They invited me in and I said yes. It was free after all so I literally had nothing to lose. Well, that's what I thought.

To be fair, it wasn't just the sports that attracted me but the idea of learning and understanding another religion that is not my very own. I'm Buddhist by the way but I barely know a single thing about it. Islam is a religion that I know a lot due to History classes and for the most part it was interesting. I'm a sucker for knowledge as long as it isn't for a fucking exam. Maybe I can impress some Christian ladies while I'm at it, eh? Eh? Ehhhhh???  Yeap. Thought so.

Day 1 was rather interesting. We started off with some ice-breaking games which was pretty interesting for most parts. Then, I was handed a piece of paper with passages from the Bible on it. I was lucky enough to be grouped with John, the president of CF and an overall cool guy. He told me to read it and to ask him if there was anything Bible related element that I didn't know. Basically sat down and the group talked about how we inteprete the passage from the Bible. It was cool hearing the opinions of other people and I enjoyed it. Made some good friends and all.

I'll give John some credit for the patience he put up with me. I was slow considering I knew fuck all about the Bible and I made a lot of jokes about the Bible when I was there. Nothing offensive to Christians type of joke but more like the average non-Christian reading the Bible for the first time type of joke. I was a bit of the comic relief in the group and I kind of enjoyed that role.

After that though, it all started to slowly change. Not a sudden change but a long slow one . It was inevitable and something that I would have seen coming. Give or take a month from my debut in CF, the ice-breaking games begin to slowly disappear into oblivion. It was all Bible reading from then on. Which was okay I guess. I mean it was the whole point of the club at the end of the day. Getting people to understand about Christianity.

But then, I started receiving a booklet of passages from the Bible which I was supposed to read with a whole group of fully fledged since birth Christians . I was reading these passages and thinking to myself, this is over the top crazy stuff right there. Jesus doing superhuman feats because, well because he was freaking God, or the son of God or something like that and he can do what the hell he wants, when he wants. The booklet too says that people who wants to go to heaven cannot be rich. Or something like that. We need to give up everything for Jesus. I mean maybe I'm alone in this but I felt like debating John over this weird statement. I had a lot of other things to disagree with the man himself, Jesus but I guess it's only natural. I only knew so little about him so maybe that's why. But it was the beginning of the end of my participation.

Absorb this image. And accept it. It's awesome.

I started to slowly wean myself from these weekly routines of reading Bible passages which I rarely agree on by giving reasons of some sorts. I wouldn't go into details but I found myself trying to keep up with the reasons I gave to John as I somehow kept meeting him every second. It was very bizarre. And on the rare days I came, I was actually asked to give a prayer before starting to read the Bible. It was very weird. I think John was trying to include me but I was feeling none of it. Of course, I excused myself from giving a prayer, knowing I'll probably fumble my words.

The only reason I made the odd visit to CF was because of one pretty looking girl in the club. Yes, I can see your guys and girls rolling your eyes but it was true. I was weak, okay? I barely get to see any girls never mind hot girls in my A-Level classes so it was something of an impasse from my usual sights . Of course, she seemed to have read my mind ( hey, maybe we had a connection of some sort ) and must have realized like yours truly did, that it was better to leave the club as soon as possible. She left after a few months and with it, my last shred of motivation.

I remember the last day of my CF pretty clearly. I took a long time off and said, '' Fuck it, let me give it one more try.'' It was not a really smart idea. So I arrived and I found out we have moved on to another chapter or something. Something new. Something even more downright weird. I sat and read my copy to see a new person in my group. It was someone who screamed Christian conservative straight from the bat. Obviously, I couldn't make head or tail of what was given to me so I jokingly asked the new guy about it. Maybe it was my tone, but he brushed me off with eyes that if it was daggers, would have stabbed me until I bled like Julius Caesar in 44 BC.  It was not pretty. I asked John and he did not give me much help either. I was pretty uncomfortable and my tongue dried up. For some god damn reason, I decided to make a light-hearted joke. I don't know why. It didn't go too well. He stared at me even more angrily. Oh shit.

Oh shit.

I spent my last hours of CF ( I made that decision in that very room itself ) swiping through my phone to see if anyone needed me. Or wanted me to mow their lawn or something. Anything . Get me out of there. God. I glanced up from my phone to see the new guy taking control of the group like it's his and spouting out more Bible quotes that at this point, sounded like gibberish to me. I was so disinterested at that point. It was time. John looked apologetically as I slowly stood up and headed for the door. Enough was enough.  I had my fair share of fun. But I was done. The new guy smirked victoriously as  I left with an even bigger smile from room 108.

Extra : I found out much later that he was the ex-president of CF which explains his superiority in all things Christian related.

Not to say my time there was bad. It was really interesting for the most part and the people there were pretty warm to a newcomer like me . I enjoyed the company and learning new things. Sure there were some downs but I don't regret it. Like I don't regret leaving the goddamn place, of course.

Oh yeah, they actually wanted to try to evangelize me which was never going to work because I'm a free thinker . But it was kinda cute thinking that they could have changed my stone cold mindset.

I would like to emphasize that I do not denounce Christianity. It's a pretty peaceful religion from what I can tell and doesn't restrict Christians from eating a certain type of food which I'm so down for. Unfortunately, yet again, I seem to have no interest in it. It doesn't suit me, the Bible reading and it's teachings. It suits millions of people but not me. Eh, I'm pretty special. Well, maybe I'm just an amazing out of this world well polished rare and valuable gem to the glittering legacy of humankind on this little planet. Modest and sensible, I am not.

That's that then. Surprisingly the views on the blog actually went up when I was on my self-announced hiatus. I thank you, random user of the Internet. I wish you guys the best and hope you enjoyed reading this cooked up jumbled mess of nice sounding words that just seemed to be able to string itself and hold together long enough to make sense to the common human being.

See, I can be humble. But don't push it.

Ciao. Leave a comment if you're either an angry Christian who wants to kill me or a really hot girl being turned on by my delectable taste in writing. Or anyone really. I don't discriminate.

Unlike the Oscars.






-- dedicated to the mamak store that gave me food so I had the energy to write this --