The reflecting theologian

"Therefore, go and make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father, of the Son and of the Holy Spirit and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you..." A few months back, in one of the YG CL retreat in the church office, we conceptualised the idea of a camp to ignite some fire and passion among the YG people on missions and church planting. The YG people, a group of young adults who just graduated from university, are in their prime age when they can do something for God, like on church planting and going overseas to fulfill the Great Commission. That's the DNA of the whole entire Hope International Ministry. Our vision is to build Christ centered disciples to plant biblical and vibrant churches all over the world in our lifetime. We believed that the people in YG have the potential to fulfill this mission.  Over the past few days, we finally had the camp in Stansfield Residence. For one, I do feel that the camp will spark a spiritual ...

The YG Camp is drawing near, and tomorrow we will be transporting the logistics to the campsite. My team has spent 3 months planning for this camp and we are going to see the fruition of the planning this coming weekend.  We thank God that there will be about 100 participants attending the camp from YG and the uni-group. It has certainly exceeded our expectation. We are praying that God will touch the heart of the people through the experience they will be going through in this camp. They will be learning what is it like to be in a mission field. It's definitely going to be a camp that has no precedent, as far as I know.  Praying for a Pentacost moment in this camp!

So after one month of thinking and one week of retreat into Chiang Mai to hear from God, I guess I am more than ready to share my New Year Resolutions for the year. Basically, these are thoughts which I have shared here over the past few weeks. But before that, some thoughts and reflections from the Chiang Mai GC. This particular GC is the first GC in the 5 years masterplan that HIM is embarking on. CATALYSE is the buzz word for this and this includes 6 priorities and 16 initiatives. Sound pretty exciting. And we are challenged to think about our passion for God, His presence and His power. The invited preacher, Ps Bill Wilson, is someone who backs his words up with his life. Fascinating person and inspiring preacher and just in case you are thinking, he is not those type of charismatic preacher who fluff up words to inspire but he's really a down to earth preacher who preach the Word with theological underpinning and a life lived in action. Anyway, one question from this GC, wha...

Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit. - Gal 5:25  The context of this verse is Paul telling the Galatian Church about the law and life by the Spirit, that if we are led by the Spirit, we are not under the law. And this is the verse that I received from God as I was praying for 2011. He impressed upon me that this year is a year of Spirit-leadership. What do we mean by that? You see, last year, my three resolutions can be summed up in a word, 'growth' and indeed there was growth. But even in terms of serving, gaining skills and knowledge, one can do so without being led by the Spirit and walking/keeping in step with Him. I was asking myself, so what now since I managed to achieve all my resolutions in 2010? I want to continue to grow in capacity, grow in knowledge and skill, grow in character, grow in service etc. So what? And the best way is really to follow the leadership of the Holy Spirit. We can live sound-mindedly but we also need to be led ...

http://www.todayonline.com/Singapore/EDC110113-0000248/The-shifting-lines-and-the-Singapore-population There is this report in Today and the news today about the findings from the latest Census. One thing that caught my eyes is the decrease in the proportion of Buddhists and Taoists in Singapore among the Chinese population and the increase in people without religious affiliation. Buddhism remains the main religion here, but its share of followers changed the most. Buddhists accounted for 33 per cent of the resident population aged 15 years and above last year, compared to 43 per cent in 2000. Shifts in religious affiliation were felt more in the Chinese community, with 57 per cent identifying themselves as Buddhists or Taoists, down from 64 per cent in 2000. Meanwhile, the proportion of persons with no religion was 22 per cent, up from 19 per cent previously. I pondered about the shifting line of religion in that two short paras. Coming from such a background myself, it has to...

So this is the year of sound-mindedness, and I am still not as sound minded as I would hope to be. The past year, I have been accumulating a lot of knowledge, albeit theological and philosophical in nature. I dun know since when, but it seems that I have became known as an intellectual in church. Somewhere along the line, I also became adept in teasing out inconsistencies in other people's theology and learned to be more critical in the books and materials that I have been receiving, and thus as a result, I have also begun to question some of the teachings and doctrines that we have been teaching so far. All these are not to undermine but to strengthen, I hope, that we can continue to be a biblically grounded church. With more knowledge, I reckoned that there are more things to be learned and unlearned. More books that I have to finish reading and start reading. For a start, I have finished reading GK Chesterton's Orthodoxy, and I need to begin reading and complete the 5 view...

As my previous post has indicated, my resolutions are not that resolute yet. In fact, I am still thinking and praying about the resolutions that I want to set. There is this feeling that all that I have ever wanted to do as resolutions have been done since last year... nothing much left? I certainly dun want to go down that path where finding a life partner becomes my resolution. Certainly I am not planning to remain single but I am not planning to become desperate as yet. Some of my preliminary thoughts are listed in my previous post. One thing I certainly know, that I hope that this year will be a year of sound mindedness and no more doing stupid things that are out of place. I realise that I have a tendency to do stupid things (which I am not going to elaborate much) but the realisation always happen after the fact. This will be the year of sound-mindedness. It is in tune with the resolution to continue to build up more knowledge. It is in tune with the Sound-minded Church teachin...