The reflecting theologian

Is there not a cost in serving God? Is there not a cost in wanting to do great things for God? Take a look at this: lliot and Fleming arrived in Ecuador on February 21, 1952, with the purpose of evangelizing Ecuador's Quichua Indians. They first stayed in Quito studying Spanish, and then moved to the jungle. They took up permanent residence at the Shandia mission station. On October 8, 1953, he married fellow Wheaton alumna and missionary Elisabeth Howard. The wedding was a simple civil ceremony held in Quito. Ed and Marilou McCully were the witnesses. The couple then took a brief honeymoon to Panama and Costa Rica, then returned to Ecuador. Their only child, Valerie, was born February 27, 1955. While working with the Quichua Indians, Elliot began preparing to reach the violent Huaorani Indian tribe which were known at the time as the Aucas. He and four other missionaries, Ed McCully, Roger Youderian, Pete Fleming, and their pilot, Nate Saint, made contact from their airplane with ...

Singapore is a multicultural society. In a tiny population of around 4 million people, we see a medley of different languages spoken, a mixture of different religions being practiced. We see people of different skin colours and different hair style, with different tastes of clothes. We observe different religious ceremonies... or do we? I was just reflecting on a particular incident in the afternoon. My grandmother asked me if I go to church. As she was speaking in hokkien and I'm not very proficient to her level, I couldn't make out what she was saying and thought she was saying something else and answered 'no'. She had asked me earlier why I never go down earlier to offer joss stick in our annual CNY ancestor worship. I honor my family's freedom to worship and so I shall not comment on that any further. But I was just wondering if I had been able to make out what she was asking me earlier, what would I answer? She was asking me about the 'church' (教堂)... a...

On a Saturday night several weeks ago, this pastor was working late at Almighty God Tabernackle, his church, and decided to call his wife before he left for home. It was about 10:00 PM, but his wife didn't answer the phone. The pastor let it ring many times. He thought it was odd that she didn't answer, but decided to wrap up a few things and try again in a few minutes. When he tried again she answered right away. He asked her why she hadn't answered before, and she said that it hadn't rung at their house. They brushed it off as a fluke and went on their merry ways. The following Monday, the pastor received a call at the church office, which was the phone that he'd used that Saturday night. The man that he spoke with wanted to know why he'd called on Saturday night. The pastor couldn't figure out what the guy was talking about. Then the guy said, "It rang and rang, but I didn't answer." The pastor remembered the mishap and apologized for distur...

I like to blog about my cg. Front row (from left to right): Hanes, myself and Shuyi. Second row: Zelanie, Lee Yang, Zhixin, Seok Min and Angelina Third row: Nick, Jansen. This is my beloved cg.

How great is our God, sing with me How great is our God, and all will sing How great, how great, is our God. Worship. What does it mean to worship as a Christ believer? Recently I heard that people have questions about certain forms of worship (eg, jumping blah blah blah). I look at how people worship. Buddhists in Singapore tend to go temples and chant scriptures, Chinese syncretists tend to go temples and offer joss sticks, some hindus would observe thaipusam and observe the ceremonies. These people worship their gods in their different ways, observing certain rites. How about Christians? Surprisingly, the one verse in the Bible that talks about worship explicitly is in Roman 12: Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and a...

I was just reading my late friend's blog late in the middle of the night. Strange as it seems, this is not a friend who is very close, and yet his death seems to affect me more than the others of my friends. I remember there are at least 3 friends of mine who passed away besides this one. The first one was my classmate who passed away just after we got back our J1 common test result. It was a shocking news cos the previous day we got the news, I was still talking with her happily. The second one came in the middle of my signal training during my NS days. This is a very good friend of mine in secondary school. I received a call in the middle of training and got to know that he passed away because of heart disease. This was a very good friend, cos I remember playing soccer and fooling around in class, getting into trouble in our math lessons, and teasing him about Liverpool (he's a Liverpool fan). The third was a senior from council. He's the valedictorian for his batch, and ...

I never thought that one day I will receive an invitation via Facebook to my friend's wake.... I got a shock when I receive the invitation, it's sent by my friend to attend his wake, apparently his family logged into his account to send out the invitation as well as inform his friends... I wonder one day if I just passed away, would my family do the same thing?

So Joshua said to the Israelites: "How long will you wait before you begin to take possession of the land that the LORD, the God of your fathers, has given you? - Jos 18:3 God gives us inheritance, as we are His children and He is our Father. This is a fact that the Bible says very clearly. But I said to you, "You will possess their land; I will give it to you as an inheritance, a land flowing with milk and honey." I am the LORD your God, who has set you apart from the nations. - Lev 20:24 "Now I commit you to God and to the word of his grace, which can build you up and give you an inheritance among all those who are sanctified. - Acts 20:32 I was just thinking about it the other day. God intends an inheritance for us. Is there something that's stopping us to claim the inheritance? Looking at the ministry and the church, I think people often stop short of realising that their inheritance is with God. They dun take possession of the land God has given them. This ...

I can't believe that I'm playing such a dumb game in the middle of the night: http://www.miniclip.com/games/doeo/en/ .... DotZ

I realise that I have not been updating myself with a lot of blog links and a lot of blogs lately. Have been surfing a lot of people's blog and updating the links. I have categorised the blog links for easy surfing... it's for my own purpose lah... If you know of anyone's missing from the list or you want your blog to be linked here, pls drop me a tag or comment. These are free...

I was ushering at the corporate prayer meet just now. Was thinking about Claramae's teaching about the rut and the lack of wonder in God. Then as I worship in the convention hall, I realise that for me, the wonder comes from having the opportunity to witness people worshiping God. Not that I'm into numbers... But you see, being an usher allows me the privilege to stand at the back where I can see the whole congregation. Right from the first day, I'm always amazed by people worshiping God. The sight of it is a testimony of how people's lives have been changed by God. The sight of thousand hands lifted up to worship in one unison voice... it's simply priceless.

My new semester is on the way going, after a bit of struggling with the bidding for the first time in my life. So what are the modules that I'm taking this sem? HY4207 - 1 point BSP1005 - 529 points MNO3303 - 984 points Total - 1414 points Well, a lot of points for my last semester. I wiped out my entire G account... as if I care.... This is also going to be the first sem where I see a 2 days week and the first sem when I'm going to end my exam before the end of the first week. In terms of workload, I'm not so concerned about MNO3303 and BSP1005. I'm going to more or less S/U MNO3303, so the workload isn't much of a concern. BSP1005 sounds heavy but then, it's microeconomics. HY4207 is the one which may have an impact in my semester as it might be a heavy one for me in terms of forum participation and readings. My Honours Thesis is picking up pace but then by God's grace, I should be able to meet my deadline. So a 2 days week with mon-wed free days ahead....

I did the DISC personality profiling (said to be 99% accurate) during the YG conference that I have attended over the weekend. According to the result, I am a pure 'D' person, and the only one (I think) in the entire conference that time. According to the personality system overview, I'm generally direct, decisive, have high ego strength, a problem solver, risk taker and self-starter. My value to team is that I'm a bottom line organiser, places high value on time, challenges the status quo and is innovative. I'm possibly going to experience weaknesses in overstepping authority, having argumentative attitude, dislike routine and attempts too much at once. So according to my pattern description, I am an establisher/visionary/one who developes. It describes here: Individuals who are establishers exhibit a powerful, individualistic approach, especially towards new challenges and opportunities; they frequently demostrate a high ego strength. Establishers want excitement...

The time has come for me to review my past year and to think about the new coming year. January Basically nothing much really happened in January other than my birthday celebration. Except for one detail - that the cg was undergoing some testings and trials and crisis, or rather it was the beginning of it. I also managed to get my first 2 lvl4000 modules, which was quite ok. February Eventful month. I got to go for field trips with Farrell to Malacca and Sarawak, although I have to miss DCLTP camp in the middle of it, which was quite regrettable. It was fun in Sarawak, saw the results of many years of missionaries in the villages and managed to cross over to the Indonesian border. Also found out that I got into the dean's list as well. CG wise, it was quite a scary month as I needed to do a lot of adjusting to the new situation in the cg. Had a bit tension here and there also. March It was a time when I had to deal with a lot of stuff. Matric. I was in the main comm for matric, whi...