I went to a Buddhist service today

First off, I live in the US, California, if that makes a difference.

It wasn't what I was expecting. The temple looked more like a church, with pews lines up on the floors and hymn/sutra books in the back of them. Instead of Christian iconography, there was a Japanese style room where an altar or pulpit would be, with a whole bunch of golden decorative stuff everywhere. This place even had a kind of Sunday School for kids, it was basically mimicing a Christian church as much as it can. I wonder if other religions do this? I assume that this was done ages ago to whitewash themselves after the Japanese internment in WWII, but I haven't cofirmed this.

The service started with a gong ringing several times, and a VERY short meditation while sitting in the pews. We then read the Three Sacred Vows aloud in an old form of Japanese that I don't understand despite speaking modern Japanese at an intermediate level.

We then sang a hymn, which sounded like a Christian hymn, but the lyrics were about Buddhism. There was even someone playing an electronic organ!

The Rinban/Reverend then gave a talk about the recent fires, the shootings at Tree of Life, and Thousand Oaks. He then brought up some Japanese Buddhist historical figures I'm not familiar with, and the troubles they faced. He then tied it together basically saying that, hardships are nothing new to humanity.

We then sang another hymn and performed Oshaku. I think I might have done it incorrectly.

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