Thoughts from the GC
I have been going for our Hope international conferences and this time, it had been no exception. The conference was held in Putrajaya, at PICC, and I had the privilege of attending it with 1700 other brothers and sisters from other Hope churches all over the world. I met quite a lot of old friends from Hope Malaysia, it was only a pity that none from Hope HK appears. It has been an inspiring few days. I would not blog what happened in the conference, but I will want to share some thoughts here that I have been thinking about.
The first thought from the conference is that there is no way I can settle down in God's presence. Let me explain that. It was during the first PnW when I just felt overwhelmed by God's presence. Just then, I realised that no matter what I do, this sense of being overwhelmed is always there, regardless where I am, just that I was a bit more overwhelmed in this instance. Just like David likes to dwell in His presence, I realised that I can never get too used to God. This sense of overwhelm is always there when I came before God. This is just a minor thought but I thought I want to share it.
Before I really enter into other thoughts about what I gained from the conference, I would like to digress a bit here and dwell on another minor thought. This second thought has nothing to do with the conference, other than the fact that it happened during that few days. While I am overtaking myself, attending Ps Dinah's workshop prompted me to further challenge certain assumptions and practises that we do in church. I realised that Hope Singapore people like to drag our members into the wee hours of the night to share their thoughts, learnings or reflections during this kind of conferences and camps. The assumption is that we need to share so that we can consolidate our thoughts. This is not wrong. I firmly believe that we need to share and reflect on what God spoke to us during the camp. But then I realise that we may be doing it the wrong way and therefore, not being fair to God. The word of God, being preached, is like the seed that is being planted in our heart, but it has to be heard. Dragging discussions and sharing well late into the night means people have no enough rest and therefore sleeps during teachings and preachings. This is a direct result of dragging people into the wee hours of the night and share. There is no excuse about it. This directly shortchanged the people from hearing God's word. So I was thinking, shouldn't it be better if we do it after the thing, making sure that we deliberately follow through with our people, rather than doing it during the camp/conference and making everyone so tired? I was looking at the uni group people during the few days and wonder how correct can this be...
Coming back to the teachings and preaching of the conference, I think God did not specifically plant anything new in my heart, although I did receive from Him. One thought from this experience is that God connected the dots of all the prophetic words that He spoke to me through different people. I began to gain an understanding in what I should be doing with my life. Particularly in the area of church planting and responding in wanting to be an apostolic leader to build the foundation of the church. I dun know if I will ever be called to fulfill the Great Commission overseas, but I know that I want to prepare for it, and God has indeed confirmed this during the conference. I felt a deep compassion for people all over the world who had not come to know Him yet and I felt that I want to do something to reach out to these people. So one key word here is really preparation. At the very least, He narrowed down the choices that I can consider.
I also gained some new understanding about the concept of a church, particularly church membership. Hope is a church planting movement which sought to fulfil the Great Commission by building strong and Christ centered disciples to plant vibrant and biblical churches all over the world. I wonder how many people in Hope Church really know what they are doing when they signed up for church membership. Actually I didn't really know then also, but I hope that people really know and understand what is Hope's mission before signing up for membership. At the end of the day, while we can say that someone is serving in Hope actively and things like that, signing up a Hope membership is essentially buying into our core values and vision. Yet, I have always seen people going for membership classes only to leave after that. Yet, I have seen people going for membership classes then suddenly stop serving. Yet I have seen members who dun give a shit on the church vision. Eventually, we need to commit to a local church, but commiting to Hope is much more than just commiting to a local church. I seriously think that it is commiting to a mission, a vision that strives to follow the Great Commission. It's seriously not something that we should be taking it lightly, like what a lot of people are doing in our church.
I think God also spoke to me to continually develop my leadership and discipleship making. This is congruent to the thought on church planting. And I hope to be able to do so for the next two years, hopefully going back into pastoral leadership and leading a group again. The conference opened my eyes and I saw that the church will need people to rise up and take on the vision. I was inspired by the lives of a lot of the leaders who gave their best years to God, although what best years means really depends on God (Moses' best years was after 80).
I was really heartened too by some of the brothers and sisters from Hope Malaysia. There was this brother. He wasn't one when I first knew him in Redang. But he was serving as a photographer during the conference, which really encouraged me. There was another brother, who chose to stay around with us and bring us around after the last day, although he could just go back to Penang. Also, getting to know other people from the churches around really reinforce the thought above.
I think I have typed enough here. Got work and I shall come back to share more thoughts as and when I am able to.
Akan Datang.
The first thought from the conference is that there is no way I can settle down in God's presence. Let me explain that. It was during the first PnW when I just felt overwhelmed by God's presence. Just then, I realised that no matter what I do, this sense of being overwhelmed is always there, regardless where I am, just that I was a bit more overwhelmed in this instance. Just like David likes to dwell in His presence, I realised that I can never get too used to God. This sense of overwhelm is always there when I came before God. This is just a minor thought but I thought I want to share it.
Before I really enter into other thoughts about what I gained from the conference, I would like to digress a bit here and dwell on another minor thought. This second thought has nothing to do with the conference, other than the fact that it happened during that few days. While I am overtaking myself, attending Ps Dinah's workshop prompted me to further challenge certain assumptions and practises that we do in church. I realised that Hope Singapore people like to drag our members into the wee hours of the night to share their thoughts, learnings or reflections during this kind of conferences and camps. The assumption is that we need to share so that we can consolidate our thoughts. This is not wrong. I firmly believe that we need to share and reflect on what God spoke to us during the camp. But then I realise that we may be doing it the wrong way and therefore, not being fair to God. The word of God, being preached, is like the seed that is being planted in our heart, but it has to be heard. Dragging discussions and sharing well late into the night means people have no enough rest and therefore sleeps during teachings and preachings. This is a direct result of dragging people into the wee hours of the night and share. There is no excuse about it. This directly shortchanged the people from hearing God's word. So I was thinking, shouldn't it be better if we do it after the thing, making sure that we deliberately follow through with our people, rather than doing it during the camp/conference and making everyone so tired? I was looking at the uni group people during the few days and wonder how correct can this be...
Coming back to the teachings and preaching of the conference, I think God did not specifically plant anything new in my heart, although I did receive from Him. One thought from this experience is that God connected the dots of all the prophetic words that He spoke to me through different people. I began to gain an understanding in what I should be doing with my life. Particularly in the area of church planting and responding in wanting to be an apostolic leader to build the foundation of the church. I dun know if I will ever be called to fulfill the Great Commission overseas, but I know that I want to prepare for it, and God has indeed confirmed this during the conference. I felt a deep compassion for people all over the world who had not come to know Him yet and I felt that I want to do something to reach out to these people. So one key word here is really preparation. At the very least, He narrowed down the choices that I can consider.
I also gained some new understanding about the concept of a church, particularly church membership. Hope is a church planting movement which sought to fulfil the Great Commission by building strong and Christ centered disciples to plant vibrant and biblical churches all over the world. I wonder how many people in Hope Church really know what they are doing when they signed up for church membership. Actually I didn't really know then also, but I hope that people really know and understand what is Hope's mission before signing up for membership. At the end of the day, while we can say that someone is serving in Hope actively and things like that, signing up a Hope membership is essentially buying into our core values and vision. Yet, I have always seen people going for membership classes only to leave after that. Yet, I have seen people going for membership classes then suddenly stop serving. Yet I have seen members who dun give a shit on the church vision. Eventually, we need to commit to a local church, but commiting to Hope is much more than just commiting to a local church. I seriously think that it is commiting to a mission, a vision that strives to follow the Great Commission. It's seriously not something that we should be taking it lightly, like what a lot of people are doing in our church.
I think God also spoke to me to continually develop my leadership and discipleship making. This is congruent to the thought on church planting. And I hope to be able to do so for the next two years, hopefully going back into pastoral leadership and leading a group again. The conference opened my eyes and I saw that the church will need people to rise up and take on the vision. I was inspired by the lives of a lot of the leaders who gave their best years to God, although what best years means really depends on God (Moses' best years was after 80).
I was really heartened too by some of the brothers and sisters from Hope Malaysia. There was this brother. He wasn't one when I first knew him in Redang. But he was serving as a photographer during the conference, which really encouraged me. There was another brother, who chose to stay around with us and bring us around after the last day, although he could just go back to Penang. Also, getting to know other people from the churches around really reinforce the thought above.
I think I have typed enough here. Got work and I shall come back to share more thoughts as and when I am able to.
Akan Datang.
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