Changes and updates in progress

Am currently in the process of finishing off a Church History assignment but keep an eye out for more changes to this blog - especially now that its holidays again and my ability to blog increases!

Am also thinking about changing over to Wordpress so not too sure if you might experience some 'technical difficulties' in the next few days!

But otherwise, quick quib for today is a great song by Moses and Miriam in Exodus that I read this morning. Its amazing how quickly Israel goes from on the one hand falling down and praising how good God is at delivering them from their enemies to almost the next chapter, grumbling and complaining that the Lord brought them out of Egypt for nothing and they would have been better off staying put because at least they had food.

These verses from Exodus 15 however, had a wonderful "Amen" to it however.......

Who among the gods is like you, O LORD ?

Who is like you—
majestic in holiness,
awesome in glory,
working wonders?

12 You stretched out your right hand
and the earth swallowed them.

13 "In your unfailing love you will lead
the people you have redeemed.
In your strength you will guide them
to your holy dwelling.

I follow a God......unlike any other! How awesome is He! There simply is no other and it makes all the other 'gods' of our society (relationships, family, power, money, wealth, possessions) look so so stoopid

A few photos to share

Following on from my email update (if you're not subscribed and want to be, pls drop me a line), here's a few photos to share with you from church and college so far this year.

My translation group. We meet for an hour each Wednesday to translate a portion of Mark's gospel. Its slow going as it takes us nearly an hour to get through 3 verses!

My prayer group made up of Dan (3rd year, far left), and Ben (2nd yr in the middle). We meet each Monday.

Some other 1st years I'm studying with

We have chapel three times a week. This particular one is more of a traditional style where we sing hymns and use a prayer book.

An excerpt from the Greek NT. Languages have so far taken up a lot of my time but also been a joy learning as I've been able to unlock more of the treasures of God's word

This is an excerpt from the Hebrew Bible. The only words from the above text I can read so far is "King of Judah"

Fellow 1st years from college (we meet each week in small groups of other 1st years to catch up, share and pray for one another). I'm really thankful for these guys - we get along really well and have some great laughs getting to know each other. As you can see we're also a very "Asian" group and have introduced yum cha and steamboat socials!

Some of the regulars from my new Bible study group at Bossley Park. As you can tell, I'm the youngest which is a different experience to my previous bible study groups!!!

Our church weekend away from back in April

watermelon out of your nostril.......

this was how childbirth was recently described to us.....

WOW.......i'm trying to picture it and its scary.........but we're still excited nonetheless. We're at the half way point!

I know I'm overdue for a post but here's one in anticipation of one coming later with photos etc.

Chapel today - heard about the EASE.....that's right EASE......in which God created this world of his in this Psalm

God is our great provider..........he provides even for the person who is right in the middle of the earthquake that hit China or the child who's helpless waiting for aid after the cyclone in Burma.

Also had some interesting discussion in our biblical theology lecture about the fact that we ought not to separate the Trinity on the cross.....the Son, Spirit and Father all suffer and are forsaken.

And also, hell is not separation from God..........its actually much worse than that. Comment and let me know your thoughts but in the meantime, you can try here for starters

Holidays approaching!

Essay is done! (well, except for the synopsis). Let me know if you want a copy to read and I'll forward it to you.

I thank God for the things he's taught me as I've wrestled with what 1 Peter does (AND DOESN'T) say about suffering. I pray that God will enable me to draw upon this learning for future ministry and believe it or not, look forward to writing the next essay! These things provoke thought about things of eternal significance, unlike the essay I did on how to appropriately reward your staff back at uni.


As a result of procrastination during my essay, I happened to find another thought-provoking piece about 'preacher/teacher idolatry' as I'm going to call it now.

Food for thought......especially in light of Facebook groups, availability of sermons to download onto the ipod, quoting people etc etc. Maybe this just the Gen Y way of doing what used to be done by our forefathers with books that were published?

(On another note, I also have an email distribution list which I tried to invite people to at the beginning of the year. If you'd like to subscribe just let me know by sending me an email and I'll add you. You'll know if you're on it if you received an update from me around Easter and just after)

random thoughts

Tonight on the way out to dinner over at a college friend's house, the car ride conversation spiced up as we took an alternate route instead of King Street (which was surprisingly busy!)

1. what comes to mind when you think of the word "vulcan"

Reason for discussing this was because the question on ABC 702's quiz was "Dr Spock from Star Trek is half man, half what....?

The answer turned out to be half vulcan.

To which i mentioned to tree, 'Isn't a vulcan a type of bird too?' Enter tangent in conversation number 1.

(Apparently, it turns out that Google brings up no references to vulcan being a bird, although one of our hosts shared the same inkling as me, whilst the other said it was this)


2. Outside Enmore Theatre, there were three stormtroopers outside the front entrance! People were posing for photos and had Tree and I had our camera we would have done likewise!!! D'oh!!! They looked awesome


Anyway, its back to the essay for now........funny how my blogging becomes more regular during lecture free weeks!!!

I've set my self a deadline for the end of the week. This weekend, we've got our church weekend away (READ: NOT HOUSEPARTY. I'm trying to eliminate this term from the vocabulary. Who's with me?)

Should be great. Looking forward to it was we explore "the body" in 1 Cor 12-14. Please pray that it'd be an awesome time of rejoicing in God's goodness.

Speaking of God's goodness, dinner conversation was varied but two things I took away were:

1. do we tend to often take people through a 'negative' stage (ie. pointing out how sinful, how rebellious, how lost we are) before presenting the positive (basically presenting the But, the awesome change that's on offer through Jesus) in our preaching and teaching? Is there a place to just focus on the positive?

Preliminary thoughts: Yes - a place for both. You could argue that by going through the negative, it helps us appreciate and value the positive even more. (It adds weight to the 'but' even moreso). Yet, i think we often tack the positive on to the end.

2. why is our singing in church so often unemotional?

Funnily enough, this month's Briefing deals with that topic and I've found it tremendously helpful so far. As someone who has only recently seen and experienced first hand the value and place of music personally for my own soul and feelings towards God, I really appreciated the discussion of our singing as 'a second sermon'.

Finally, a random thought to go out on.....

Stumbled across this post on Justin's blog which i though was slightly relevant (just better articulated) to my post on Engage

As someone who used to be a fanatical American sports card collector, I completely get the metaphor!!


(Sorry - another random thought that just came to mind as I was about to hit "Publish". I've decided to post up a "Theological college buzzword in my mind which gets mentioned a lot but I don't really understand in its entirety or would be confident using in a sentence". Last week's winner: "nuance or nuancing". This week's winner: "presupposition")

Which brings me to the point of essay writing which Adele helpfully pointed out tonight........there's no point trying to use big sentences to try and make me sound scholarly or learned. My aim is to be a clear communicator and to use simple sentences that convey the message for all to hear (even in a cross cultural setting). I wouldn't speak like that in general conversation, so why write like that?

On that note, its back to 1 Peter......

Lecture free weeks!

Its lecture free weeks!!! (oops....I meant holidays!)

Hoping to make the most of these weeks to catch up on all the things that got neglected because we were so busy living life since the start of the year......Greek, Hebrew, readings.....

Plus, I'm trying to finish my New Testament essay. The essay question I've chosen to tackle is:

"How does 1 Peter's teaching about God relate to its treatment of Christian suffering?"

Sounds like a juicy question and I've enjoyed the exercise of getting into the text of 1 Peter and trying to understand more and more about this letter and some of the issues and answers it puts forward

But its not gonna be all work and no play........planning to go away for a few days up to Forster over the Anzac Day weekend to get some R&R.

But in the meantime, its back to the books!

Engage.....(d)

Wow! Engage Conference went on sale last week and it sold out in 15 minutes. Wow! That's like the concerts that you can never get tickets to on Ticketek even though you've got the fastest internet connection and you were logged in at 8:50am for a 9am sale.

Deep down, I hope that this conference attracts who its targeted for - ie. workers not just Driscoll (and perhaps a lesser extent Carson) fans. I hope that those who are genuinely workers and seeking to wrestle with the issues that workers face (evangelism, serving God, balancing everything) were able to get tickets.

Whilst I'm just as keen to hear and see Driscoll in the flesh as the next person, I can't help but think that I've so often put the preacher up on a pedestal - almost to the extent that it becomes idol worship. And so we sign up for Engage, just to hear Driscoll. We have massive expectations coz he's gonna blow our minds and help us understand the Bible in ways we've never been able to understand. Or he's gonna make us laugh, and make insightful comments about our culture.

(Now don't get me wrong, Driscoll is a man who's extremely gifted and has been used by God to bring many people into his kingdom in extraordinary ways! But by the same token, we can understand the Scriptures. We have the ability to understand God's word. We, if we put our minds to it and seek God, we can see how the Scriptures affect our life. How it shapes our attitudes to work, life, rest. We need to be prepared to do the hard work and not just consume the hard work of others)


So why am I going? Especially now that I'm not working in a secular job anymore and don't really fall into the 'target market' for this conference. Its so tempting as an ministry apprentice or a theological student just to head along for my own edification and to hear two fantastic speakers

What's my reason for heading along to Engage? Well, I'm hoping to bring some people who otherwise wouldn't normally go away to a Christian event, but who are workers..... and that by coming away, they see the answers the Bible provides to their lives as workers. Hopefully, the weekend away itself will provide opportunities to discuss these issues more at length, to get real and to respond to God in obedience.




Oh - and sheer coincidence.....but yesterday my brother got engaged too!!! Woo hoo! Congratulations Derek and Aimee!!!

Moore College mission

I've been meaning to post a weekly update of my reflections/learnings from MTC but as you can tell, that hasn't happened!

With such a busy run up to Easter - househunting, pregnancy, writing houseparty talks, adjusting to 110 new faces at college, settling in to a new church at Barneys, I think blogging was one of those 'would have been nice to's'

So, instead, let me share with you one reflection now that its Moore College mission week which hopefully encapsulates a variety of thoughts that've been going on in my head. Point form to make it easier for you.......

• our Houseparty talks were on the topic of 'mission' or to the ends of the earth. We had the privilege of speaking to the high schoolers on this very important topic. And whilst they certainly appreciated the input (eg. challenging about whether they were on God's mission or their own mission, how big their own view of God is coz how we view mission starts with how we view God, being megaphones about Jesus to all people around us, seeing God's plan and purposes from beginning to end, being mission minded individuals who pray, care, give and go etc etc), probably people who benefited most were tree and I!!
• at lot of the things were were speaking to the teens were really just extensions of what God had been doing in our own hearts. In preparing these talks, it was awesome to see God's mission. To see where its all heading and the picture in Rev 7
• our own desires, yearnings, burdens and passion for God's global mission in sending the gospel to the ends of the earth were 'refreshed'. I think personally, I became more and more convinced in leaning towards being involved in some form of cross cultural ministry post college (and possibly out of Sydney too)

• on a separate train of thought, one of the other things i've noticed since starting college is the fact that i haven't got any substantial non-Christian relationships apart from my family. Its kinda become a bit of a Christian circle of friends that i've acquired as i've been a Christian for longer and longer (and i suspect i'm not the only one in this boat. Am I?)
• what a shame that is. We who have received the gospel, also need to be proclaimers and senders of this gospel so that it goes out and affects the lives of others just as it done to us. (One of my friends at college keeps on helping asking 'where's evangelism in this? where's proclamation in all this' as we reflect together on what's happening around us and in gospel ministry)

• That finally brings me to Gladesville - the suburb I've been in this week as part of MTC mission. Its been a great week, seeing another model of ministry (esp in terms of church planting), seeing perhaps the best children's minister in Sydney in action, bonding with other guys in my college chaplaincy group
• But perhaps the biggest highlight believe it or not has been doorknocking. Each afternoon for an hour or two, we've been hitting the streets of Gladesville knocking on doors and trying to find out people's opinions about Jesus. We've had mostly Catholic people, but we've also had the Church of England people who no longer go to church, the Greek Orthodox, the Buddhist, the 'my grandfather used to be a minister but now I believe in science', the agnostic, atheist, apathetic, the 'I used to believe' and today had a homosexual as well.
  
• The reason why this has been a highlight - even though its been one of the most daunting experiences - is for the following reasons:

1. its been refreshing to engage with people who don't have the same belief and viewpoints as me. Nearly everyone we've spoken to has no assurance, no certainty, no guarantee of future salvation, or where everything's heading. (This is something i experienced as we were travelling around with a group in Turkey last yr)
2. the gospel divides - although none have yet to repent just yet, i now know what it feels like to have the door slammed in your face literally (twice). In fact one of those doorslammers (who after we questioned her about whether she was certain God would let her into heaven) was so upset as she slammed the door on us that she then rang up the church office and complained about what we were telling her.
   
3. its a reminder of God's gospel to keep going out to the ends of the earth and that God's mission is still very much happening as he seeks to bring every living CREATURE to confess that Jesus is Lord!

Who's mission are you on - yours or God's?

How are your non-Christian relationships going? Do you have more of one over the other? How is your time being spent? Are you using your money to win more for the kingdom?

Commentary on the below post

Despite best intentions, its taken me this long to post an entry since the last quarter of last year.

Most of you would have probably seen my newsletter which fills in the gaps of my reflections from PCT.....

......so that brings us to life since Feb '08!

Well, as you can see from the post below, we're expecting!!!!

We're SO SO SO thankful to our great God for blessing us with a baby who is growing inside Tree! We basically found out that we were expecting literally the very first day of my college life! 4th February at about 2:30 in the DBK Morning Tea area whilst I was crawling my way through reading Mark 1 in Greek!

Baby Lee (or other names its been given so far include God-Lee, Hole-Lee, Precise-Lee, Exact-Lee, Beautiful-Lee....i think you get the drift) is due to enter the world on 5 October this year.

So far, Tree has been feeling very tired and often nauseous although with the first trimester drawing to a close, those days should be over. She hopes to be ready by April 10 when we're scheduled to have a family buffet!

(And no - we won't find out if its gonna be a boy or a girl till later)

alien life form....

Eeek!