ha, the funny thing happen the other day when my friend asked me outta blue what's been happening in my life. i was like "??" He said he don't see so much of my blog entries in his e-mail anymore. I was taken aback. :D people actually ready my stuff?
anyway, been busy with conferences and training. More importantly, busy with my new toy. Thus, less motivated to write blog for now. Ah well, not saying having a lack of materials. More like too lazy... 
Woot! Got permission from Dr. Jennie to post these materials. well, actually got the permission a while back, but too lazy to post it up :P
Dr. Jennie was saying it might not make sense to most people, since it's mostly in point form that aren't so self-explanatory. Suffice to say I found her stories to be very moving (even for an obtuse guy like me) :p Well, let the Holy Spirit be your guide in this :D
| Rating: | ★★★★ |
| Category: | Movies |
| Genre: | Action & Adventure |
| Rating: | ★★★ |
| Category: | Movies |
| Genre: | Drama |
| Rating: | ★★★ |
| Category: | Restaurants |
| Cuisine: | Japanese / Sushi |
| Location: | Raffles City Shopping Centre, #B1-44E. |
Integrity in a CAN (Creative Access Nation)
Presenter: Dr Ian.
Main Challenges to tensions to living with integrity in the field
- Honesty in a corrupt world
- Secrecy versus Transparency
- Professional role vs. “missionary” goals/activity
Integrity:” Shining like stars (Phil 1:27a, Phil 2:14-16a)
In Old Testament, David, Hanani, Job
- first and foremost about our walk before the Lord
How much does integrity equals to transparency?
Use of Deceit and Guile in the Bible (cunning as a serpent yet innocent as sheep)
1 Sam. 16:1-13 Samuel and his holy cow
The Lord gave Samuel
Samuel’s cover - was credible; was genuine; calmed the host communities fears
- helped his mission
- Protected him and also protected his community
Integrity in your work – honoring the contract – Visa
- Giving your best to God
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The second half of the morning session before lunch. Dr. Ian had most of the time here, as he wasn't available to speak in the afternoon. Interesting to hear about the different conflicts that missionaries and tent-makers faced on the ground, with moral and ethical issues, as we had a few other missionaries sharing their struggles in this session.
okay, I attended this workshop titled "Tentmaking in a Globalised World". The only workshop that really caught my eye. It was a terrific session, as the speakers spoke humbly, boldly and truthfully about their experiences and sharing. Here's sharing it with you all my gleanings:
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Title: Tentmaking In A Globalised World
Facilitator:
Rev Dr Ian Prescott , International Director for Evangelisation, OMF International
Speakers:
Rev Dr Patrick Fung, General Director, OMF International
Dr Jennie Fung, Medical Advisor, OMF
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Introduction by Dr Ian
Re-thinking Tent-making in the 21st century
Who is a tent-maker? Traditional definitions and present difficulties
Tent-maker opportunities
Teachers, Lecturers, Business people, Tourists, Retirees, Students
Professional with a Purpose - To go bless others with the skills that God has blest you with, as well as the Gospel, which God has entrusted to all who love Him, and to be discipling others to follow God
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Biblical Reflections by Dr. Patrick
Matt 28:16-20
Then the eleven disciples went to
1. All Authority - The Lord's Authority - over all nations (2 Cor. 2:11, 2 Cor 3:5)
- over our lives : Not location but our lives
2. All nations - Not only Chinese, not only Asians but all nations - Story of Hudson Taylor
3. All things (everything) - Making disciples - Word, Deed & Character – Importance of Incarnational Ministry, not just “hit and run”
4. All the time (always)
Examples of professionals with a Kingdom purpose
1. Nehemiah - starts with prayer, broken before God
- Identification with the pe0ple
- Mobilisation of the people
2. Daniel - Language learning
- Working in hostile environment – Tactfulness
- Life is Integrity
- Devotion to the Lord
- Life Long service
3. Dr. Luke - Concern for the church (Col. 4:14)
- Vision for church movement (Acts 16)
- Writing Ministry (Luke 1)
- Supporting others (2 Tim 4)
4.
- House church model
- Points people to the truth
- sensitivity to others’ need
Holy Ambition (
It has always been my ambition to preach the gospel where Christ was not known, so that I would not be building on someone else's foundation.
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Futher thinking points by Dr. Ian
Definitions – Creative Access Countries vs. Restricted Access Countries
Presently in Asia, Communist East Asia and Islamic
“Mao probably did the most significant pre-evangelistic work in
Who does the government welcome?
Bring something the government and people want
Help, Expertise, Business & Money
Who does the community want?
Friends, Real people, Help
What are they afraid of?
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| Rating: | ★★★★ |
| Category: | Movies |
| Genre: | Action & Adventure |
Need to buy a digital camera to use for my brother's convocation as well as my upcoming HK trip. Initially wanted to get the Fuji Finepix Z10, but apparently there is a promo for the Z20 as well. (same price as the Z10). It's quite a steal for a camera that's priced below $300, at 10.2MPX (mega-pixels), can do video recording and has face detection (whatever that means). Wen down to Sim Lim Square straight after work yesterday to get it, and then travel all the way to Suntec to get my additional free 2GB card. So far, I loved the vivid colors on this camera. Plus, its shutter speed is much faster than my previous digicam.
Ergo, lets all welcome Digimaru the 2nd, aka Fuji-maru! *round of applause* Credit goes to Jared for recommending it, and Wendy/"Po" for doing the legwork i.e. running down to SLS to inquire the price.
Hmm, probably tomorrow night will go to the new church site and try out the night-shoot functions~
When you begin to follow and circumstances seems to close doors of opportunities, go back to the LORD and clarify what God said. Better yet, always try to make sure on the front end of a sense of call exactly what God is saying. He most often is not calling you to a task only, but to a relationship. Through that relationship He is going to do something through your life. If you start off in a direction and everything is stopped, go back and clarify what God has said. Do not deny what God has said, but clarify what God has said.
- Chapter 19 "God Accomplishes His Work", in Experiencing God: Knowing and Doing the Will of God - authored by Henry T. Blackaby & Claude V. King.
| Rating: | ★★★ |
| Category: | Movies |
| Genre: | Science Fiction & Fantasy |
Nope, it does not stand for Why Did Jesus Laugh. Rather, it stands for What Did Jack Learn. Had to facilitate morning devotions in office the other day, and though of sharing the lessons I learnt over the last 2 weeks. Here's what I shared:
1. Christology of David
Last Sunday wasn't feeling too well in the morning, so didn't attend service at Covenant. So in the evening, went to get my spiritual feeding at Rev. Stephen Tong's evening service at Newton Life Church. One of the things that he said pretty stuck to my mind. It's something along the effect that David was a man after God's own heart. And because of David's depth of walk with God, he knew about the coming Christ in a way which Abraham couldn't even began to imagine of. In fact, the Christology of David is among the greatest, if not the greatest understanding that man. Hmm, food for thought~
2. Judgement seat of Christ
A few of my colleagues have been sharing upon this topic. It's a topic rarely covered in churches these days*. There are two kind of judgment that will happen in the last days, the great white throne judgment (in Revelations) where God judges the lost before they are thrown into the fire; and the judgment seat (bema seat) of Christ (in Romans and 2 Corinthians), where Christ "judges" the followers and disciples. The word "judges" is in apostrophes, because it's more of an accounting of the disciples on their lives and time on this earth. If they have been found good and faithful servants, the disciples would be rewarded by Christ; if not, they would have made it as those just escaping from the fire. (cf. 1 Cor. 3:10-14)
I used to think that the whole idea of getting big mansions and treasures in heaven as very the materialistic of sorts. I mean, it sounds like God is compensating us for the losses we have on this earth. To me, it was akin to God saying" oh you poor thing, you didn't get what you want on this earth? Never mind, I'll reward you richly later."
Well, after hearing my friends' vies, now my perspective is slightly changed. First of all, it's not up to me to decide on God's methodology~ He certainly wants to reward His saints, not as compensation but as what they do really deserves. Who am I to judge God on His ways? And I suspect I'm having a bit of the Judas complex in thinking about this. Also the lines from 1 Cor. 3 is more of an exhortation to disciples to press on for the end goal. The treasures are just a bonus, and not the ends itself.
For me, personally, if I can get into heaven, and have my Heavenly Father call me good and faithful, that is enough. Honestly, if I can't have use for gems and gold on this earth, I certainly do not think I will have use of them in Heaven. :D
3. On building a healthy self-esteem
3 days back, my organisation engaged 2 counsellors to come and give us a talk on building a healthy self-esteem. It was an enlightening talk, and I took away a couple of learning points:
a. Being humble does not mean you have to have a low-self esteem.
I think a lot of Christians would have difficulty with this. Because of the teachings on the denial of self, most of us think that we must always think lowly of ourselves, to abase ourselves and have no ego at all. To not think so, is to be proud and prideful.
I used to have a big issue with this, especially in the area of receiving compliments from others. When people praise me, I would say," No la, give thanks to God" and squirm a bit on the inside of being in the limelight. Also, I would be secretly wondering if the person offering the praises was really genuine, or just patronising me. Nowadays, I have slightly lesser issue with that. Not that I have grown wiser or more prideful with age :p But rather I take them as praises from the invisible God made visible in His creation to me.
b. To think positively about things is not to be unrealistically optimistic about things.
One of the tools which the counsellors encourage us towards building a healthy self-esteem is that to think about things in a positive light. They qualify that such optimism must be realistic and grounded upon reality. For example, if there's a personal death amongst our loved ones, we should not just put on positive thinking per se and say "Oh, it's great that the person has moved on!" To do that is either great insanity, or great insensitivity, or great loss of touch with reality, or all of the above. Rather, the positive thing to do is to grief and mourn the loss for an appropriate period, and then move on from there.
c. Learning to accept the negativity is a positive and assertive thing
We did a Rosenberg self-esteem scale in one of the exercises. A few of the options in the scale is very negative, like "I certainly feel useless at times." and "All in all, I am inclined to feel that I am a failure." When I saw such options, I immediately put down as "Strongly Agree". I thought I would have a low self esteem score. On the contrary, when my final score came up, it turns out I have a pretty strong self-esteem score. The counsellors explained it as because of my assertiveness in these negative areas, it actually points to the fact I pretty confident about these. Sounds weird, but it is so. So I learnt another new thing - to know that you are scum means it's a positive thang! :D
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ok, writing too much here, as my friend says, "WALL OF TEXT!" May these gives you food for thought~
*Or could be because I didn't go, or dozed off when these portions were mentioned. :p
