Church Service in Jubilee Christian Centre

I attended an eleven o'clock church service in Jubilee Christian Centre (175 Nortech Parkway, San Jose). After the praise and worship session is over, they passed around an offering bucket where people voluntarily put money inside it. Then, the preacher went to the centre of the podium to start his sermon. In the beginning of his speech, he did not give an overview of his main points but he refreshed our memories by telling us about the previous sermon that he gave last Sunday. He didn't do anything to motivate the audience at the beginning also. His introduction was opening a bible verse from Acts 9:36. The preacher, Bishop Dick Bernal, brought several visual aids with him this time and they were: an usher, two pieces of luggage, and slides. He was also dressed in a suit, which made him look more credible.

His speech was not structured and I didn't understand him sometimes because I lost the point of what he was saying. However, the sermon was quite good because he added some humor to it to maintain the audience's attention. One of the visual aids, which was the usher was also very interesting to watch because it was amusing. He used the usher as an example to show his point that your life can overload and crash even if you have too much good stuff. He used another example to prove this point by telling us about airplane crashes that had overweight cargo. After saying this, he moves around the podium and brings out his visual aid, the luggage, into motion. Other than this, the preacher also walks a lot

After that, he told us an example of the prophet Job, how he carried his burden and how he went through it successfully. I didn't understand this example because Job was overwhelmed with problems but his wealth was multiplied than what he ever had before. That is why, I lost interest in the topic for a while and I didn't pay attention to the sermon for a couple of minutes. When the preacher brought in one of his usher as a visual aid to help him preach, my attention was grabbed again and I listened to what he said. He told us that we need to lighten our burden, but we should not give our burden to other people. We need to lift up out problems to God because only He can help us with the burdens we are facing. Furthermore, he also told us that we shouldn't carry other people's burdens such as our kids' or parents'. We can always help, but we can't go to the extent where we carry other people's burdens because according to the sermon," sin can tear you down but good works can ware you down." This means that even though good works is noble, we will be worn out and tired by doing it too much eventually.

At the end of the sermon, the bishop asks the whole audience to stand up and pray before we leave. After the prayer was finished, he repeated his point in the sermon that our lives need to be balanced. Additionally, he did an altar call for the people who need