The reflecting theologian

It seems like it all came back to one big circle. Several months ago, in the beginning of last semester, there was this New Believers' Party, celebrating the incoming of the new believers to the whole NUS sub-d. There was me, Swee Leong, Calyn, Kaili and Hongdao. We had a good time then in E1A, that time I shared my testimony, we had a surprise performance for the whole sub-d. I didn't stay till the DNA ceremony but I was able to enjoy the whole event. The skit put up by others was great, especially the way they portrayed the way we came to HOPE. Several months later, there came the Alpha. Several months later, in a bungalow at Jalan Tetila near Kovan, we were celebrating the incoming of new believers again. It was another New Believers' Party. This several months saw several of us from the previous party grew to become follow uppers and taking up other roles in the whole sub-d. We all had grown stronger in Christ and it was quite evident. And this several months later we s...

Perhaps one thing that often eludes me currently is how often I turn to God for help and how often I prayed to Him, asking for basically anything I want under the sun. Perhaps as one grows more closer with Him, while it seems more obvious that he will ask Him for more and turn more often to Him for help, this simple fact sort of becomes quite faded away from our mind. Perhaps it also marks the start of taking Him for granted, thinking since He will grant us what we need for oue best, there is no real need to pray continually. However, perhaps it started back during the FOP, when God was trying to impress upon me that I should turn to Him always, cos He's always there. The decreasing dependence on Him somehow obscured me since the end of the examination. It doesn't mean I was turning away from Him, but it just means I was getting a bit.. .dun know, maybe less dependent on Him and wanting to depend on my human strength... Maybe it's a thought that maybe He will be quite sian ...

Are you tired of chasing pretty rainbows? Are you tired of spinning round and round? Wrap up all those shattered dreams of your life And at the feet of Jesus, lay them down. Give them all, give them all, give them all to Jesus Shattered dreams, wounded hearts, and broken toys. Give them all, give them all, give them all to Jesus And He will turn your sorrows into joy. He never said you only see sunshine, He never said there would be no rain. He only promised a heart full of singing About the very thing that once brought pain. - Give Them all to Jesus I was just recently practising this song with the guitar, all thanks to Weizhu and KC who had kindly taught me how to play the way it should be. Sort of fit into my very own breakthrough campaign for God. Excellent and extremely fun to play on the guitar. Today we had a tertiary usher team 1 outing. First time going out with this team of incredible God loving people, certainly a great time to know all of them all better, especially Shunro...

Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. - Philippians 4:6-7 My son, if you accept my words and store up my commands within you, turning your ear to wisdom and applying your heart to understanding, and if you call out for insight and cry aloud for understanding, and if you look for it as for silver and search for it as for hidden treasure, then you will understand the fear of the LORD and find the knowledge of God. - Proverbs 2:1-5 There are so many things which I want to say but I can hardly type out my thoughts in this little blog of mine. I want breakthroughs. In a whole lot of things. In spiritual growth, in leadership, in outreaching, in studies, in almost any other thing I am doing under the sun. And I know God has been providing me with opportuni...

• pour a bucket of blood to inspire a drop • its not what you expect, its what you inspect • always give the benefit of the doubt • economize to evangelize • the window model • the sandwich model • never do something that other can do; do something that no one else can do such that together, we will do more for the Kingdom • Kingdom Mentality • willingness is key • availability over ability • character is key when choosing leader • we believe God so much that’s why we work so hard • we emphasize everything according to the weight-age of the bible • we can have quantity without quality but when we have quality, we will have quantity. • serve God as if no one else is doing it • Jesus #1, Others #2, I #3 • it's normal to grow • love God, love people • do all that is humanly possible leaving the impossible to God • 99% of the people will not do anything until they are being challenged to • major on the major and minor on the minor • accounting versus informing Here is a list of HOPE va...

Yesterday saw the 15th anniversary of HOPE Church Singapore, since its inception in 1991, with just 5 members in the midst. Since then, the church has grown in membership and strength to a number of nearly 3000, planted numerous churches all over the world, changed tonnes of lives, one of those changed life is me. It's hard to imagine: a church that started when I was primary one, when I did not think that I would become a religious person or at least convert myself into another religion, and now I'm serving in that church. It's really hard to imagine though, think only God can see that at the time when I was running around, running my own life, running my own business, thinking that I run the world. It used to be a time of perceived fulfillments and purposes, when I thought that my purposes in life seems to be .... I dun know what. I thought it may be the things which I want to do in life, that is the purpose of my life. I looked around, looked at all the girls, thinking m...

Today had an interesting conversation in HQ regarding history. The story basically starts with YA bringing a pile of bulletin compliation to show us. It was a vintage, since it indirectly recorded the growth of the church since YA's time. Then the question then arises, the differences in how we view history. It always amuses me how people think that there are important lessons to be learnt in history and we learn history or study them so that we will not repeat them anymore. The ultimate bullshit is that people who says this dun normally study history enough to know what is happening. Indeed there are important lessons for us to learn in history but we dun study history so that we won't repeat them. The temptation is there, but the evidences suggest otherwise. Humans do repeat history no matter how much is being studied. One example, if the lesson of history is being hinded, then the European powers of 1914 will have learnt from the American Civil War that economic warfare will...

This is a poignant, yet darkly humorous story about a typical Singaporean family coming to grips with their aspirations. It weaves a layered and moving tale about a family dealing with loss, ambition and the search for what really matters in life. This is a synopsis of the movie Singapore Dreaming. An interesting local film made to depict the local lifestyle in a manner that is as real as it can get. The plot was a bit predictable, but then, it's just like a normal family plot, a normal family reflection which is so much predictable, actually a chinese family to be exact. Imagine the male child in the family being the attention of everything, a husband who is constantly under the shadow of his wife, a boyfriend who has gotten so much from his girlfriend, a girlfriend who gives everything to her boyfriend, a housewife who does what she normally does + brew herbal tea, the male breadwinner who views material wealth as important as his own son. One main theme in the show that is eithe...

I watched this movie called The Buddy Holly Story yesterday in lecture. To let the readers know what it is all about, I'll let wikipedia tell the story for you: The film focuses on Buddy Holly's beginnings as a teenager in Lubbock, Texas and his emergence into the world of rock and roll with his fictional good friends and Crickets bandmates, drummer Jesse Charles (Don Stroud) and bass player Ray Bob Simmons (Charles Martin Smith). Their first break comes when they are brought to Nashville, Tennessee to record, but Buddy soon clashes with the producers' rigid ideas of how the music should sound and they walk out. Eventually, he finds another producer, Ross Turner (Conrad Janis), who very reluctantly allows Buddy to make music the way he wants. While there, he meets future wife Maria Elena Santiago (Maria Richwine). A humorous episode results from a misunderstanding in one of their early bookings. Sol Glitter (Dick O'Neill) signs them up sight-unseen for the famous Apoll...

Let's say today I'm a JC student, in let's say PJC, with a blog and I wanna complain about my teachers. I post a complaint in my blog calling my principal and teachers stupid, and whatever sort of comments you have for a teacher, should I be held responsible by the school for my comments? I just read an outdated article about online bashing of schools by students. I was then thinking, why should the school come after me, or rather, what right does the school have to come after me if I write that my teacher is incompetent of teaching and the principal is incapable of leading the school, that the school admin is going into disarray because the people dun know what they are doing, that the teachers are doing things that they rationalised can help the students but in fact they dun know what they are doing. Schools can claim that they have their own feedback systems, but hey, if it's working, then why aren't the students using it? I think that if a student has comments a...

I was staring at my laptop screen wondering what to write for this latest post... then I decided to do my QT... minutes after that I was driven out of the comfort of my room to the living room so that I can complete my QT in peace and free of distraction. Imagine this while you are doing QT: (Phone rings) Guy (picking up the phone): Hello, dear (or darling, whatever) Person on the phone (guy/girl, you decide): Dear , what are you doing? Guy: sleeping loh... or rather I just regained consciousness Person on the phone: eeee... lazy pig Guy: No lah, where got. At least I'm not lazy with you mah (I made up this part) Person on the phone: you are so bad (I further made up this part) Guy: *muack muack* (I forgot the conversation but I guess the 'muack' will bring out the essence of the conversation) Person on the phone: (I dun what his/her reaction is like) (So on and so forth, imagine the *muack muack* in the background) Naturally, I have to evacuate from the room. The air-con ...

All I need, Your Spirit Your Word Your Truth Though I'm weak and poor, all I have is Your every single breath Dire situations lead us to rethink about our position, our stand towards other things. We can choose to have faith and depend entirely on God to show us the grace to pull all these situations, or we can simply choose to complain... and sulk. In the end, we have to question what we really need and what we really have. I have Jesus in my life, isn't that more than enough? What else then, what else then? I dun know what the other people want. It always seems that people want a lot of things - money, fame, success, grades, blah blah blah. Sure I want them too, but that's another side issue. The main issue is that whether how much focus we are placing all these things in our life? Sometimes, and even worst still, some people have no focus. In whatever ways, are we prioritising the right thing? Recently I have been thinking a lot about BGR, BBR, GGR, or whatever R you hav...

I have been seeing a lot of turtles in my msn, as compared to stars these days. From what I know, it's all because of the death of the austrialian Croc Dundee who got pierced in the heart by a stingray (I thought it was a croc). This got me wondering about something, what is it so great about this Steve Irwin that people wanna put turtles in their msn to commemorate him? I mean, he's just a Croc Dundee who appears in television playing around with dangerous animals. No doubt his shows are nice but do we need to go to such extent? So what happens if the person who lives next to you died? Are people going to put turtles there in their msn as a form of remembrance?Remembrance for what? I find it so stupid. Maybe I should try this one day, if someone around me died, I will get people to start doing that and see the effect. Most likely it will not work. Why? Because maybe that guy is not famous. There is no big news. It's not a Huang Na incident, nor a Steve Irwin. It's just...

I was looking in the night sky last night after the MAD and reading the slips of papers inside my pouch. Hmm.... Teacher's Day celebration I went back to Pioneer Junior College last Thursday to visit some of my teachers. The bulk of the teaching staffs during my time was still around, so I was able to feel much at home even when the current campus is now at Tech Whye and not opp science center. Managed to talk with Mr. A and some of my juniors including the ever so 'noisy' Ling. Somehow or rather, the visit just brought back sense of nostalgia, the never-ending debate and arguments with the gang about all sort of issues under the sun. Apparently, my recently acquired interest in religion has caused some commotions and apparently some worry from Mr. A. I would say that yeah, it surprises me, in fact it still do now. I never thought that I'll be following God during that 2 years in PJC. Learning about the Bible was only part of my academic requirement but now it's pa...

In promulgating your esoteric cogitations or articulating your superficial sentimentalities, and amicable philosophical or psychological observations, beware of platitudinous ponderosity. Let your conversational communications possess a compacted conciseness, a clarified comprehensibility, a coalescent cogency, and a concatenated consistency. Eschew obfuscation and all conglomeration of flatulent garrulity, jejune babblement, and asinine affectations. Let your extemporaneous descanting and unpremeditated expatiations have intelligibility and voracious vivacity without rodomontade or thrasonical bombast. Sedulously avoid all polysyllabic profundity, pompous prolificacy, and vain vapid verbosity. In short: "Be brief and don't use big words."