The reflecting theologian

Lately, there was this assertion that was posted to me over email. The person involved, when I asked the person some questions regarding the situation he is going through, he replied that he chooses not to engage with me in theory and wanted practical actions. Let's be clear about this, I think I know where he is coming from. I myself am a doer wherever I go and it makes me feel empty when I don't get to do anything, especially in church. And what use of theory is there? Why engage in theory when one can just go into 'practical' action. And my answer is this: right serving has to be preceded by right thinking. I have talked about Christian maturity in my last post and closely linked is our underlying theology and thinking behind our services to God. Perhaps just take a look at one verse for now: Romans 12:1-2 Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and pr...

Lately I have been thinking about the issue of Christian maturity. The trigger is more from recent events that happen within my own group and the church. Those are not negative events but they do cause me to think about the gauge by which we measure maturity in the church. One legacy behind the past thinking in Hope is that the more you serve, the more mature you will be. The logical fallacy is obvious. Serving more doesn't require a lot of understanding. To put it bluntly, all it takes is for one shepherd to intimidate his sheep and serving will happen. However, for very long time, I think a lot of people have come under the impression that the more we serve or the more we are seen serving, the more mature we are. If we serve at leadership, we would be the most matured and be considered 'untouchable'. Indeed, while the proposition that the more mature we are, the more we will want to serve, is true, our level of service does not necessarily reflect our maturity. It is tr...

I just saw someone writing this on facebook today, which i want to quote here : 'When bringing our experience to bear on our theology, remember that there are always two parts to our 'experiences': what actually happened and how we interpret what happened. The former is objective; the latter is not. That is why it is always wiser to allow the Scripture (assuming a proper use of it) to make sense of our experience, and not vice versa.' This is indeed sound advice. Let's break it down a little. We often impose our own emotions and feelings to the events that happen around us and to what we can see. Many Christians, often than not and it is not their fault, cannot see beyond what they experience in this physicial realm, for a very simple reason: we are physically in the world and our senses are trained to attune to the happenings of the physical world. Hence, our perception of the reality around us can very much be influenced and interpreted by our senses and emotons....

  I was running along Garden by the Bay earlier with some oF my LG members and decided to take a photo of the scenery. Indeed splendid.

My time serving as a leader in church started when I was about 6 months old into the faith. Since then, I have served two terms as a Lifegroup leader. And in these two terms, I have experienced a loss of leadership from above. Suffice to mention here that I was left without a direct leader to account to. In both ordeals, I must admit I questioned God why, more particularly for the latest one.  Loss of leadership is never a new thing, especially in Hope Church Singapore. One question perhaps I have heard people ask, along with loss of leadership, is the meaning of being a Hope member. I joined Hope at a time when God was slowly moving the church away from the old regime of thinking, along with some pruning. During the process, I saw leaders leaving the church, many past hurts exposed and even a scandal at the top of the whole entire movement. Along with this, many people left as well, thus exposing cults of personality that certain people have built along the years. This was evid...

I believe in my heart that no story has explained it better than the one which Ravi Zacharias has told to numerous people and written in his book. I take the following excerpt from his book: 'I, Issac, take thee Rebekah' (parenthesis mine): "The story dates back to the late 1960s. At that time, he (Ravi's older brother) was a system engineer with IBM. Since that time, he has gone on to do several very impressive things in the world of computer software. In other words, he is mentally all right. He doesn't have any major problem as far as his IQ is concerned. I say that because you may begin to wonder as I tell his story.    When he was in his mid-twenties, my brother came to my father and said, "You know, dad, I've always maintained even when we were in India that I'm only going to marry the girl you choose for me. I guess I am ready now. Would you please begin a search for a girl for me to marry?"   I really didn't believe he'd go ...

I posted something to remind all of us that we need to know that God is in control... Turned out that this is something i need to reminded the most

How does one lead a lifegroup of around sixteen unique pax from diverse walk of life? It is not a unique challenge. Talking to some of my friends from other churches, I understand that some churches have small groups of that size as well. I wonder how the early church discipled and led the groups? Knowing the setting, one will understand that there might not be a venue for 3000 disciples to do what Acts 2:42 described and one will tend to believe that the early churches met in smaller groups in other houses. The church in Jerusalem after Acts 2:41 was also likely to be smaller than the reported 3000 since some of them would have come from other parts of the known world then to celebrate the feast of pentacost. Just wondering... 超人也会流眼泪...

Currently in NUS now. Sitting at Block EA Good News Cafe playing with my new app: blogsy, which is a cool app which allow rich text formatting on my iPad while blogging. This makes blogging so much more fun on my idevices. I am back here at this moment to attend the convocation of some of my LG folks. Even as I travelled down to NUS earlier on, it just dawned upon me that three years have passed since I last moved on to YG and graduated from NUS. This means that all the people in my ex NUS LG have more or less graduated. Time really flies and sooner or later, I will find myself attending their weddings and baby showers.

This funny comic strip has reminded me of a chinese novel written Jin Yong (金庸). In the novel (天龙八部), one of the funny relationships that happened is that one of the main protagonists found out that all the women whom he met along the way (and fell in love with) are all his half sisters due to his dad's infidelity...only to find out towards the end of the story that he was not the real son of his dad due to an impulsive move n the part of his mum...

I was just listening to an online podcast on insecurity. The gist of the idea is that more than often or not, the people around have given some negative comments about us which we had taken in and inbuilt into our lives for many years, to the point that they became the root of our insecurity in our lives. Secular marketing often sought to address this issue through marketing of products as the solutions to our insecurity, claiming that these products can help with our self esteem. Perhaps no further than the truth, we are poised to look for something that will give us security. When I look into my own life, I do not think that I am exempted from this. In fact, people can look at what I am doing now in my own life and comment accurately that there are roots of insecurity and need to boost self esteem in these actions. Yet, where do we really look for security? The Teacher in the book Eccelsiastes already said that everything going on under the sun is all meaningless—like chasing the w...

It is a habit of mine to review my own journey with my past LGs on my blog with a series of photos and such. But I thought I want to do it differently this time round by doing a video for myself and trace back my journey with the LGs of the past and present. This is particularly a critical point in my ministry life (as if there were previously no such point...). It is critical in the sense that there were a few decision points to be made and a few changes to be anticipated in both my personal life and my ministry. Decision points include my enrollment into seminary, taking up more leadership roles in the LG, rising up new leaders etc. Changes include receiving new transfers into an already very big LG and some leadership changes within the unit itself. Yet in all these things, as I was working on the video, I just thank God for the laughters and tears He has brought me through all these years. This is a story of my spiritual family, a story of my spiritual home, a story of ...

Source:  http://www.personalitypage.com/html/ENTJ.html Everytime I do the test on  http://www.humanmetrics.com/cgi-win/jtypes2.asp , it always yield ENTJ. I think the following description does describe me.  As an ENTJ, your primary mode of living is focused externally, where you deal with things rationally and logically. Your secondary mode is internal, where you take things in primarily via your intuition. ENTJs are natural born leaders. They live in a world of possibilities where they see all sorts challenges to be surmounted, and they want to be the ones responsible for surmounting them. They have a drive for leadership, which is well-served by their quickness to grasp complexities, their ability to absorb a large amount of impersonal information, and their quick and decisive judgments. They are "take charge" people. ENTJs are very career-focused, and fit into the corporate world quite naturally. They are constantly scanning their environment for potential prob...

Just thinking about it... I have so many things that I want to do currently Finish reading all my books and buy more books to read on Christian theology, comparative religions, apologetics and philosophies.  Master all the scales and solos and strumming on my electric guitar. Sign up for seminary with AGBC. Go for more mission trips And so little time... 

I asked God to take away my pride, And God said, "No." He said it is not for Him to take away, but for me to give up. I asked God to make my handicapped child whole, And God said, "No." He said her spirit is whole, Her body is only temporary. I asked God to grant me patience, And God said, "No." He said that patience is a by-product of tribulation, it isn't granted, it's earned. I asked God to give me happiness, And God said, "No." He said He gives blessings, Happiness is up to me. I asked God to spare me pain, And God said, "No." He said, "Suffering draws you apart from worldly cares and brings you closer to Me." I asked God to make my spirit grow, And God said, "No." He said I must grow on my own, but He will prune me to make me fruitful. I asked God if He loved me, And God said, "Yes." He gave me His only Son who died for me, and I will be in Heaven someday becau...