Post Conference Thoughts

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Directly from my email to my LG after the WCWM conference:


Hi all,

the conference is over, but our mission in the city and in the world has barely begun. Will just want to share some thoughts with you all (but will share more this week over LG). 

Firstly, I just wanna thank God for Hope Church. Just as Ps Jeff was in tears earlier during the service while leading Holy Communion, I was in tears as well, because it was through Hope that I came to know Christ and found the significance and purpose in my life amidst all the material pursuits of the world. I entered this church when we were about 2K strong and when Nexus auditorium was still big enough to accommodate the uni group and the poly group. But you know, I was so blessed by what God has done in my life and in the church (actually I would end up like Ps Jeff if I share this face to face, that's why I think I will do it through email =P) Over the years, I have seen lives dedicating to Christ and lives transformed by Christ. I remember the Christmas service at Kallang theatre in 2006, it was the service when Yizhong rededicated his life back to Christ. I was in the planning committee for the matric programme which eventually connected Ming Xi, Min Er and Kuang Ting to the people in Hope, and today all three of them are serving and going strong for God. And through these people, a lot of people's lives were changed as well. These are blessings to me, as I see people who don't know or are far away from God, coming in and serve him fervently and zealously, seeking to honor Him. I thank God for this church, for the blessing that he has given to us. 

Secondly, I hope that God has spoken to us in bits and pieces and in chunks during the course of the two days, whether you are there the whole time or not. But for those who were there for the panel interview, I hope you can really capture the heartbeat of the panelists and their convictions for God. Please notice how convicted they are about living out a life worthy of Jesus' sacrifice on the cross. Their sharing reminds me that it is important to live out our convictions in real terms in our respective workplace. I was in spree of 'amen' when Denise Phua shared about her views on TPL (not politically motivated, I assure you). I was in smiles when Thio Li Ann shared her views about invasion of humanism in modern tertiary education. I was nodding my head when I heard Chow Meng sharing about loving God and not compromising. There are valuable lessons to be learned and please seek God and ask Him how you can play a part in the jigsaw puzzle in your respective marketplace. 

Thirdly, just wanna share how blessed I felt during the preaching today by Ps Simon and Ps Mark. As I shared earlier during dinner, there will come a time when we respond (if we ever respond) to missions for many a times too much that God will start asking us when we will really go. And go we should if we ever respond. I responded the first time when I first answered 'yes' to the third question for water baptism. As I shared in my blog, if you get to read that post I wrote for our day 5 devotion, the question on 'will you die for Jesus' was very serious to me, cos I know then that the only way you will die for Jesus is when you obey Him and decided to obey His will to go and make disciples of all nations. From then on, I think I have always raised up my hands during conferences and camps when challenged to go for missions and church planting. In some sense, we have an opportunity right now just 20km south of Singapore @ Batam. I am not sure what God has intend for me in terms of missions, but we see that there is a gap where we can go in and fill in Batam, in terms of ministering to uni students over there. The proximity means that there is immense opportunity for us to get involved in the mission of the Holy Trinity without being too far away from home. I feel I want to be a part of this till the day when God takes me somewhere like He took Philips to the Ethiopian. As I have shared, there would be a cost for God's cause. Everything we have for His Kingdom's cause. Just felt quite convicted over this part, as an integral part of my life currently. 

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