ROLCC 30th Anniversary (fiction)
“Excuse me, can you tell me when will the ROLCC 30th anniversary ceremony start?”
I ask the first purple-vest usher that I can find.
It’s a beautiful Sunday morning in 2025 and it’s been ten years since my last visit to ROLCC. Back then, the Shekinah Glory sanctuary wasn’t even built! As the self-driving car stopped by the church main entrance, I noticed the small number of parking spots. It’s hard to imagine how the congregation coped with the lack of parking spaces all these years, before the advent of self-driving cars. As I exited the vehicle, someone else got into the car and it carefully drove out of the parking lot.
The church has grown a lot in the past ten years. The congregation has easily surpassed the 5,000-people milestone. Shekinah Glory’s building accommodates 2,000 people and late arrivals can squeeze into the overflow areas connected via video conference. Each week, a crowd of about 30K attendees join the interactive Sunday Services over the Internet.
The purple-vest usher kindly replied,
“It’s starting now! Let me find you a seat!”
He gently taps on his tablet, and a map of the sanctuary shows up on the screen. “Please choose an available seat.” I see a few green circles denoting available seats on the map, and I rush to pick one by the corridors. The front and center rows have already been taken, and the available seats were literally disappearing from the map as other guests reserved their seats from the self-serve kiosks available by the main entrance. As I head into the sanctuary, my phone buzzes to acknowledge the seat assignment.
In the lobby, I see some people wearing a special orange T-shirt that says,
“I Attended River of Life Christian Church before Shekinah Glory was built!”
— Santa Clara, CA 2017
How much I regret not buying one of these limited-edition T-shirts back in 2017!
One thing hasn’t changed over the years: the worship started on time, but the seats remained half empty initially. They started to slowly fill up when people finished chatting in the lobby and decided to join the worship. One difference is that there is no need to block the rear section of the sanctuary anymore. People sat on the seats that they chose in the lobby. The TV screens showed how many online people are currently tuned in to the worship. Surprisingly, the online congregation is larger than the physical congregation!
During the offering time, I noticed that ushers no longer pass around the offering bags. Instead, most people pull out their smart phones and tap an amount before hitting the big green “Donate” button. For those who don’t use smart phones, a touch screen is in front of their seats where they can donate by just entering their email address.
When the speaker greeted the online audience, a river of tiny emojis flew by the TV screen. I guess the 30K online audience wanted their presence to be known!
Today, on the 30th anniversary ceremony, the special speaker was the recently-retired Pastor Tong. When Pastor Tong stood at the podium, he received a thundering applause and a standing ovation from the audience! The TV screens were again filled with a river of emojis. Today was an emotional day for Pastor Tong, as he reflected on the vision for building God’s glorious church, and how God surpassed the original vision of 5,000-people church. He shared how we grew to over 500+ daughter churches across the world. South America has recently surpassed the number of daughter churches in West Africa. And China is now leading in the number of daughter churches in the world. In fact, the Great China Firewall has been lifted, and more than 30% of the online audience were connecting from China.
After the Sunday Service, my phone buzzed again as I stepped back into the lobby. “Are You Interested in Joining a Cell Group?”, reads the push notification. I curiously clicked on Yes, and the ROLCC App prompted me to enter my zip code and check from a list of cell group types that I might be interested (e.g. Singles, Young Professionals, Small Kids, etc…), and my preferred cell group gathering times.
Upon submitting the requested data, I see a bunch of people’s phones buzzing in the lobby. They are presumably cell group leaders who have received my data. They raced to review the data, and tap on the “Claim New Comer” button. Only one cell group leader won the race though, and my phone buzzed again. This time, it was the cell group leader who won the race, and he was inviting me to his cell group! Since we were both in the lobby, we quickly found each other and exchanged our contact information. Times have changed and I’m surprised how quickly I found a potential cell group to join!
I head out to the main entrance and I’m nostalgically greeted by the familiar coffee tables with Oreo cookies, which haven’t changed much over the years. Kids are still running amidst the loud chatters. I noticed some TV screens at the main entrance featuring several popular places for lunch though. Each place displays the number of open tables left, and the potential wait time. A group of people asked where they’d like to go for lunch. Another group has already decided their lunch place, so they book a lunch reservation through the ROLCC App, and discount coupons were applied automatically. Looks like the nearby restaurants coordinated with the church to satisfy the hungry lunch crowd. What a win-win idea!
Some parents head towards the RiverKids area to pick up their kids. To my surprise, they stopped using matching stickers to checkout the kids, as doing so was error prone and slows down the checkout process. Instead, parents and kids just swipe their fingerprints at the checkout gate, and the computers automatically validated their checkout. As before, kids run towards the Oreo tables and grabbed more cookies than they can eat!
As I ordered a self-driving car back to my hotel, I can’t help but ponder on the Shekinah Glory donations I’ve made in the past.
Thus the saying ‘One sows and another reaps’ is true
— John 4:37 NIV
Without the sacrifices and donations made in the past, there wouldn’t be such a glorious church I’m attending today.
