Pastoral reflection

I read the many nice cards given to me since the tabernacle weekend. they are very encouraging indeed. but upon further reflection, i realised that i should be very wise in handling such affirmation and praises.
why?
they can create a false sense of spiritual accomplishments. i have come to know, after 14yrs of serving, that the person who praises you today can curse you tomorrow. thus, cards and notes are good for the moment but they are not representative of effective ministry.
what then is?
The heart of obedience.
The litmus test of an effective ministry is to see if your people truly obey the teaching you gave in the Lord. some can cleverly cover their disobedience with excuses and delay. others can be swamped by personal struggles and preferences. some simply bo-chap.
Thus, as a leader, we need to exercise obedience to the Leaders over us...we must also discern the heart of obedience in the lives of our members. if we have to make verbal demand for obedience, it will only mean that we are not there yet with them relationally and spiritually....The best outcome will be they obey you when you teach/challenge/admonish/correct/inspire in the LORD.
Thus enjoy your cards when you do receive ...especial when your friends or leaders had watched "I not stupid too". But don;t let them get into the head....discern the heart > than the cards...

Multiply us LORD!

Praise God

The Lord is my provider!
I heard about how someone decided to start giving back his tithing that he owed the Lord and how God provided twice the amount back. I was very happy for the member.
But God is a God of humor...he asked if i dare believed Him for that too. i was hesitant..yes hesitant but i trusted and gave. The Lord showed me that He is indeed my provider. within a week, someone surprised me with a gift more than 50times of what i gave. it was an answer to a prayer for family overseas trip. but what blessed me more was that the Lord prepared the person 2mths back to give! Meaning God knew there and then i would be skeptical and i would be giving still....and He would be ready to surprise me. I am very humbled and blessed to know this God...who loves me despite my human weakness and ever so ready to show me His love....do you know Him as such? Ask God for a miracle for your lives and start to give/bless Him. you will be surpised and blessed.
The righteous shall live by faith......stretch your Christian experience....move in faith.

i want to encourage all of you to stretch your faith to believe God for lives to be given to you to disciple. If you are discipling nobody yet, ask God for your 12 by Dec. If you have 2-5, ask for 12 still. But don;t evaluate your goal only at Dec 06. Set a goal by end of March....close enough for personal evaluation and mid course correction if need be.

Meanwhile, we have also establish our tribe blog at www.makeourlivesmanymiracles.blogspot.com.
Go and post your remarks or comments or photos or whatever that is edifying. my blog will be link to this as well.

SO much for now....sow in Faith....

it is February - a time to sow

So quickly we have entered Feb 06. i was blessed to be reminded that we will have a NEW beginning last week at the service.

i was also been reminded separately that God will give us a new anointing ONLY when He is giving us a new assignment. We don’t need a new anointing for an old assignment. We may need a fresh anointing to continue an old assignment. ….. BUT the rhema word is NEW…God is giving us a NEW chapter, a NEW anointing for a NEW assignment….and a NEW YOU! I pray that God will have His ways in your life and that you will be indeed NEW (relative to now) in Christ by Dec 06.

Let's continue to sow in tears before God for both personal and corporate revival. We want to see the EXTRAORDINARY POSSIBILITIES OF GOD BY DEC 2006. BUT the process must start NOW........

So…start sowing….
“Teach me to pray with groanings so that there are earth quakes in hell.
Teach me the groaning of the Spirit until angels stand in awe.
Teach me Spirit-born intercession that changes history.
Teach me the birth pangs of the Holy Spirit until hell shaking revival is born.
Lead me into travail that will hold back divine judgment from the nations for a little season.
Let me be the living sacrifice on the altar of prayer, “bleeding to bless”, until flood tides of mercy sweep the nations.
Lord break my heart in intercession until my eyes, like those of Jeremiah, are a fountain of tears weeping for the slain of an educated, but spiritually dead, people.”
- Leonard Ravenhill”

The biblical principle is that when we sow in tears we will reap with joy. We cannot expect to reap in joy without any sowing; there is no reaping if there is no sowing.

Start S.......O........W.........I.........N..........G! We want to see our tribe reach 2000 Lord!
(picture is from GCYC. a picture to remind us about the nations...about expansion for His kingdom!)

a pastoral concerns - The Da Vinci Code

I did a simple teaching about what was wrong about this book sometime last year. i was surprised by so much interest among our students at LOS. we literally packed the room. Since then, we knew about the production of the movie, more illustrated books, etc to promote this distorted fiction book to the readers.
Do we just sit and let Dan Brown has his "distorted" say about our faith?
Certainly NOT!
I am glad that Campus Crusade for Christ and Covenant Evangelical Free Church have come together with several other concerned agencies to launch the DVC project. We were invited to participate so that the Body of Christ can turn the movie into a time for TRUTH to prevail.
As a stater, i will encourage all of you who are reading this blog to go to www.davincicode.org.sg
to read more for your personal information. We in Youthnet will work out something for all of you soon. Have a Blessed Chinese New Year.

Pastors' Summit 06

Dear family,
You would have heard pieces of news here and there…I thought I will write some for your prayer direction.

Indeed this is a summit of difference….not so much solid teaching but solid call for us back to prayer.
We are reminded to return back to prayer habit of our past ie prayer walking, warfare prayer, personal prayer.

But personally, I was encouraged that the word I released about multiplication and focusing on leadership development for our 12/144 was reaffirmed many times in the summit.
Yes, we need to talk more….essentially, we need to believe that God wants us to be fruitful and that includes bearing fruits through birthing and building of our 12/144. what it means for all of you is that we need to believe God that you can be a leader of 12/144. don’t give discount and make excuses…but ask God for wisdom and His ways to see this Extraordinary Possibilities for everyone of us in SJ tribe.

Go for God’s Glory.

MOL outcome

MOL Network Salvation Assurance Re-Dedication Others TOTAL Grand Total
Men 81 7 14 13 115

Women 140 10 12 28 190

Youth 163 14 34 30 241

TOTAL 384 31 60 71 546

What does these numbers mean to you?
It means something BUT not everything. The greater issue is what are we doing with who we have build relationship. Harvesting and consolidating are both equally important agenda in our quest for discipleship. we cannot be merely absorbed in the numbers and failed to see the constant needs to service and care our prebelievers and new believers into Christlikeness.

So if you are in my tribe, praise God for what He has done...but we need to press on in what we need to do ie continue to build relationships and point people back to God. for those who happened to read this blog, go and make disciples.....for this IS God's commission for all.

Blessed New Year to all readers.

praise items for Big Move and Max Pavilion

I am glad we have moved and we are ready for the 2nd service. in this last 7 days, i have heard great reports of God's working over the weekend. From miracles of healing to breakthrough in Christian walk, from feeling of stagnation to revival again. WoW!
i am happy for the many positive reports for the 1st week.

Of course from the church end, we saw great growth in term of numbers ie from usual 9000- (in previous year) to 10 800 just for this week. More than the numbers, i am excited about the change in the climate. People are more excited about God and His business.

If you are there, and God has blessed you somehow, please drop me a mail.
REALLY! HELP me to know what God is doing can? PLEASE.....
Haha. Give glory to God la.

what is next after the 1st move

We are reminded, at staff worship, that beyond the physical move, we need the personal revival! In Neh 8, we are reminded of the need to ;
Return to the assembly of the saints; promote unity, let the faith of others spur us.

Restore the priority for the Word; one read and one interpreted. the people cried upon hearing the word. the word cleansed us.

Rediscover the feast of tabernacle; what is the feast about? 2 harvests celebrated by feast of pentecoste (former rain-spring time) and tabernacle (latter rain-) - it is about the Holy Spirit.

Thus personal revival - call to community, to the Word and to the Holy SPirit.

We need personal revival because there is a difference between going out faith and going ON faith. We cannot rest on the fact that we have gone out. we need to going ON through Prayer. There must be prayer of Agreement - in the Assembly.
There must also be prayer of Appropiation - Apply (> hear) the Word
There, finally, must also be prayer of Anointing - joy (celebration) of the Lord is our Strength; Act with the Spirit.

The season is on....we need to ENTER the season! Don't stay out! Don't just observe! Jump In!

Specific Applications for my tribe;
Come early for service; be @ Max Pavilion by 1.15pm
Gather for processing of word; after service
Do BIG (believe in God) with HS.

Activities or the Almighty? part 2

i decided to comment further on this because of my pastoral concerns. i have seen and known of many pastors, leaders and serious christians who gave their lives in service but failed to take time to reflect on God and His dealing in our lives. I cannot help but remembered the life of Martha. She was busy looking into how to make Jesus comfortable but missed out the one thing that is most important! to be with Jesus. She is in the bible not for us to feel that she was a reflection of someone else. i believe God wants to warn all of us that we are potentially a Martha. we can serve, give, work, commit and fulfil many many more Christian's challenges... and yet miss the very heart of Christian life. We are called to worship! We are made for worship! We are destined to be worshipper. Yet, we can be excited about the music and missed the Master, aborbed by the mood and missed the Maker, consumed by the lyrics and missed the Lord (for which the words decribed). Why? How so? BEcause we are caught by the activities and missed the Almighty! We are interested in the task rather than the heart. It is easier to deal with the "no brain" activities rather than to face up with the ugliness within our soul. the heart is not a nice place to be at. sometimes, we are appalled by our heart conditions. sometime, we are so sick of our sickness in our heart. sometimes, we cannot believe we are so evil in our hearts. and precisely for reason like this....we need to ask God to help!
We all need a new heart! Change my heart O Lord!

Activities or the Almighty?

I enjoyed a few conversations lately.
they were not about great accomplishments or great signs and wonders....
they were about reflection....................
reflection on our hearts intent. our motivation in service, our struggle with sins, with selfish desires, with lust......
authentic confession. real people. real struggles. real GOD that they were conversing with. WE came out of the meetings, refreshed....we knew God was there with us in our conversation, our confession.
Authentic Discipleship is about dealing with the matter of the heart. the heart of the matter is always the heart! So Take HEART my reader!

ARE YOU READY FOR EXPO

8 more days to EXPO. 8 more days to experience EXtraordinary POssibilities. 8 more days to see more of God.
EXPO is big, we are small but God is BIG!
EXPO is far, we are inconvenienced but God came from Heaven to Earth!
EXPO is new, we are unfamiliar but God's way is always new to human!

Am i ready for EXPO? are you?

Beyond the physical move, God wants to deal with our spiritual state. He does not want us/FCBC to stay the way we are! He wants to stretch our faith to believe in the Big God who came near and dwelt among us.

The option for all of us, to flow/obey with God! It will be foolish to try something else when God has specific journey for us. it will be like Jonah running in the opposite direction only to be eaten up by the whale of God.

So what are you waiting for? it is a time for change! time to flow! time to obey! time to see the BIG MOVE OF GOD!

Back from MOL

It was a good trip travelling with SP and Ps ES. Learning a lot from their lives of service to the nations. SP was stretched at all ends; from performance to FCBC matters to marketing of the show, etc. Yet, his spirit was always uplifted when servicing the King. Ps ES was back from Sri Lanka and took the next flight out to Beijing just to support SP. He was just as overwhelmed with work and all....but he went nevertheless to SERVE.
I was inspired and humbled. There were many BAD incidents in dealing with the local. They were so different from us. It was easy to judge and feel more superior. But God reminded me of service. We came to serve. We came and understood "incarnation"; God became flesh to dwell among sinful men. The Word was not read but lived in our world so that we could touch, see and understand. The world, the local included, was lost without HIM. Hence their responses and reactions were "justified" to be so. That was why we were there...to declare the Magic of His Love that could enrich and empower them to live differently.
I was inspired and humbled.....by God and His godly servants. I desired to live out as His "incarnated" word among the lost!

just returned from Beijing

i noticed that many have come to check out this blog. I hope you have enjoyed reading and pondering over the content thus far. i will be writing again sometime this week as i am trying to recover from my MOL trip.
Till then, keep looking to Jesus............................................

perspective again

Why do we see God as a performance based God?
It is more than the environment we are in....although our environment played a very significant role in reinforcing this view of God.
Essentially, it is due to the fallen nature of man and the scheme of the devil.
The fallen nature of man thrived in "doing something about it". This nature is an offshoot from sin. Sin is choosing to be (self) in control. Sin (self control) opposed the call to surrender (God's control).
Thus, fallen men like us believe that we can do something to please God, to merit His approval, etc. And we WANT to do something..... to be con't...
The scheme of the devil is essentially to distort the picture of God in our mind. When we have a distorted picture of God, it would inevitably affect our faith in God. On the extreme end, when our picture of God is faulty, we may not even be worshipping the right God!
Thus the need for us to return back to the bible and believe the God of the bible.
Let the bible "dictate" the picture of God in our mind...and not our feelings or experiences.
When the image of God in your mind is BIG, the size of your problem will be SMALL!

Perspective

From the cup illustration, many have left comments for me to think and/or laugh over other versions or perspective.
i am happy that my thoughts have triggered some reflections from you.
This week, i was reminded again about our perspective of God or rather our wrong perspective of God. Many times i found myself reducing God to a very performance based God; whose blessings are dependent on my works. Also i tended to reduce His blessings to what i would "give if i am God" - much less than Who He really would.
I was challenged to re-focus my view of Him. And i suspect i am not the only one in this journey.....

what a response!

I was very surprised by the way my blog went public. 130+ post in less than a week. need to guard my heart lest that becomes my mean of significance in the cyberworld.
i was also amused by many comments that came with my last post. i would certainly like to know what were in some of your minds when you read my post. i am reflecting on some of your comments and would be most glad to share my view in due course.

my thoughts

Often i heard people said that "the cup is half filled vs half empty".
I know that the emphasis is on Potential vs Problem. But i thought about it recently and i felt the question should be "Why is the cup there?" The issue of PURPOSE. We need to ask what is God's purpose in our lives before we could effectively view the potential within us. We exist NOT to fulfil our potential. We exist to worship God with our potential.

My first post

I have entered the cyberworld!
I want to use this to reach out to my friends and spiritual children out there with this tool.