Some of our photos
Mission Trip to Laoag City
Next month Candy, Tessa and I will be going to Laoag City in the Philippines for a mission trip. We’d like to share what we’ll be doing and ask you to remember us in your prayers.
Partnering the churches in Northern Philippines
When our team leader Sharon was at the Lausanne conference in Cape Town last year, she met Pastor Ojie from the Philippines, who invited her to consider sending a team to help in his city, Laoag. So when we set a team goal to minister on an overseas project, Laoag city was in our prayers. This June we’ll be partnering Pastor Ojie and his network of pastors in that city.
In this PDF newsletter you’ll learn more about why we are going on this project. Please read it: it’s brief, informative and rather attractive :)
Learning to develop an evangelistic music program
A key ministry tool we’re using is our music band Forerunner, which will perform the culture’s pop songs interwoven with our personal stories. Through this we’ll bring forth God’s story of his unconditional love and our need for Jesus’ work. My responsibility on this trip, besides being keyboardist and vocalist, is to develop the concert programs to minister to the various target audiences.
Prayer pointers
- Focus, discipline and enlarged capacity as we intensify music rehearsals, work on personal stories and tighten our evangelistic program in the remaining 18 days till we fly
- It’s Tessa’s first overseas trip – we’re excited she is going with us, but we’re nervous about how she and Asher (another team baby) will cope with the warm climate and different environment. Please pray also that they will take well to the several hours journey by plane and transit.
- God will provide the funds needed 1.
- Details in our team newsletter here ↩
Preaching the Gospel to Ourselves
A personal lesson on the gospel and our heart
As my teammate Liling and I work on program development for our upcoming mission trip, we struggled with this question: how much of the gospel are we experiencing personally? As one pastor writes: ”The more deeply we understand and experience law and gospel, the more capable we become in communicating and applying it … . A good teacher or evangelist is first a good preacher to himself.” 1
In the past three months, our team has been working through Tim Keller’s group bible study — “Gospel in Life“, and learning what it means to live out the implications of the gospel. I came to see how easily I tend to believe that God “owes me” because of my obedience. Like the elder brother in the famous parable of the lost son, we often forget the grace of God when we live as if our obedience is the basis of our right standing with him. Conversely there is a lack of boldness when I feel I haven’t been living up to standards if my salvation is not based entirely on trust in Jesus.
How freeing and humbling when we remember the gospel: I am so wicked that he had to die for me, yet I am loved and worth so much to him that he gladly died for me.
- Joe Thorn,Note to Self: The Discipline of Preaching to Yourself. It’s a really helpful book. Read a solid review and view a free excerpt here. ↩
Reflections on the Gospel and the Polls
A week ago when the election date was announced and rallies started, I came across a friend’s Facebook post. I liked what he wrote so much that I’ve asked his permission to re-post it here, since I can’t publicly link to his Facebook note.
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Reflections on the Gospel and the Polls
by Tan Huai Tze
I’ve been reflecting about how we as believers in the good news of Jesus Christ, and committed to living out it’s implications in all of life, should be thinking and acting during this time of elections, as we seek to remain faithful to Scripture.
Let me state upfront that who and which party you vote for, and how actively involved (or uninvolved) you are, is a matter that the Bible leaves to the conscience of the individual – it does not dictate one party, or one candidate over another.
I do however think that there are some broad guidelines that the Bible gives us to consider the issues at hand, and how we should respond. Hence, I’m planning to do a couple of post (God willing), looking at the storyline of the Bible, and how that may influence how we think about voting and participating (in other ways) in the coming elections.The broad storyline of the Bible moves from Creation, to Fall, to Redemption and Restoration.
Here’s a quick summary first:
Creation
God Created the world good and perfect, and humanity in His image to rule and steward the created order according to His character and purpose (Genesis 1-2) – we are supposed to responsibly govern the created order, His perfect Kingdom in accordance with the perfect wisdom, truth, goodness, love, holiness, righteousness, justice, mercy, and beauty of God.
Fall
Unfortunately, humans chose to use that privilege to usurp God’s authority, and rebel, plunging humanity and the created order into a state of alienation, distance and enmity with God (Genesis 3) – all the pain, suffering, injustice, selfishness, and inequality in this world has its roots in this fall. The very best of us are terribly flawed, and yet still terribly beautiful and with great potential because the image of God remains in us, though marred. That applies to the parties, the candidates, and us the voters, equally.
Redemption
While God would have been perfectly just in leaving humanity and the created order in this self-chosen rebellious state, and one that he would have to ultimately judge and condemn in accordance with his character of perfect justice, his perfect mercy meant that he did not do that but chose instead to put in place a plan to redeem humanity and the created order (Genesis 4 – Revelation 20). This plan culminated in the sending of Jesus Christ, his only son to bear the penalty of this rebellion on humanities behalf. He then rose again, proving that he had conquered this rebellion, and re-established God’s rightful rule. He then ascended to heaven and promised that he would come again. In this ‘intermediate’ period between Christ ascending to heaven and his coming again, we live in a tension of the ‘now and the not yet’, where God’s rule is partially here, yet not completely (re) established. Here and now is the time for the people of God to live out the implications of God’s redemptive work. It is a time of sober hopefulness. In some ways, God’s kingdom has been re-established, hence Jesus can say, “The kingdom of heaven is at hand”. But, the presence of sin remains, and so we await the full fulfillment of that Kingdom, and we still pray, “Let your kingdom come”. So, as much as possible, we seek to function and live, reflecting the perfect character and care of God in this time.
Restoration
When Christ comes again, he will judge the living and the dead, and his perfect justice and mercy will be seen. Justice for those who continue to rebel, and mercy for those who have repented and trusted in Him. This is the time that all injustice, pain, suffering in this world will be set right, once and for all. The created order will be restored to its former beauty. This is what we place our ultimate hope in, this is where we keep our eyes on. However, as we live in the ‘here’, the ‘there’ gives us the vision and perspective for how to live and behave ‘here’. Again, as much as possible, we seek to live and behave (and vote!) in a way that is consistent with the perfection that is to come. As much as possible, where it is within our power, should we not seek to see in our lives, and the structures of our societies and the created order, the perfection that is to come?
[Note: These views are purely my own, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the organizations that I am a part of]
What happened the night Tessa was born
On the ninth of July, our firstborn child, a girl, was born to us. When we took the taxi to Gleneagles to check-in at 9pm, we were preparing for a typical normal labour process. Little did we expect that with tremendous drama (like we were on the set for ER) our doctor rushed into the labour ward at 11pm saying “The baseline rate of baby’s heartbeat is a little too high. I’m going to burst your water bag”. With that, she forced a plastic implement into the uterus and began the process.
Thank God she did.
Because what she saw coming out sparked an emergency caesar — our little unborn infant had passed meconium (her inaugural poop) in the womb, and could have inhaled some of it to her serious damage.
All thanks to Dr Lisa Chin, right there and then, before 45 minutes had passed, baby Tessa was delivered safe and sound. The pediatrician and staff monitored her closely for several hours, while Candy tried to recover from the shock and painful operation during that time.
All this while, I had been praying and trying to contain all the anxiety and excitement. I hadn’t felt so helpless in a long long time. In my helplessness I could only pray, and ask for more prayers. We are so grateful that Tessa ended up fine. That she went through that danger so early in her life, and came out unscathed, we can only keep lifting up our thanksgiving and praise to the God who hears and answers prayers.
She’s smiling so much more now (updated with more pics)
Today Tessa woke up with a lot of loud passing of wind. But she didn’t cry. When I proceeded to massage her tummy, she gave that very still, pinched-mouth look. Candy says that’s her ‘bangsai’ face (special face for when she has bowel movements, for the uninitiated).
But the highlight was when I started singing Edelweiss to her, and she suddenly beamed into a wide smile! She was clearly responding to my singing. Because when I stopped and then started singing again, her smile got bigger! I had never seen her look so happy before.
I looked at my lovely little daughter smiling back at me, and imagined the years we would have enjoying each other, and my heart leaped in joy and happiness. Thank God for designing us for loving relationship!
Probably my favorite photo of Tessa so far (13 Sept 2010)
Session 4 of IDMC: The Rhetoric of Symbols and Structures
My notes from the sessions at IDMC continue. This is session 4:
The Rhetoric of Symbols and Structures
Seeing with New Eyes
The prime symbol in the OT: The ark of the covenant
- a symbol of the Presence of God with his people.
In Joshua 3:16, why did God cause the water to rise up at the city of Adam, beside Zarethan, very far away? So that what happened was, even when the priests obeyed and stepped into the river Jordan, the waters did not part immediately and dramatically like they apparently did at the Red Sea? Why did God do it this way?
In the NT: The Cross
The Cross – a symbol representing a cruel execution device to the world, has become a symbol of the new creation, a symbol of the newness of life, for the Christian. What a contrast!
Galatians 1-2 Justification by faith affirmed
Galatians 3-4 Justification by faith argued
Galatians 5-6 Justification by faith applied
Why did Jesus choose the miracle of turning water to wine at the wedding at Cana?
He was pointing to the grand and glorious wedding feast that he is looking forward to, that would represent the glorious consummation of his greatest joy, but it had to be understood in light of the cross.
Why did Jesus have to die the way he did? Why not let him die in his sleep? Why not have a fall and bleed to death? Why the cross? Why this cruel torture? Why the brokenness?
To contrast the cruelness of humanity with the kindness of the Prince of Peace come to reconcile underserving mankind to God the Father.
The Rhetoric of Enacted Parables
The Passover (Exo 12:)
- Jesus is the Passover Lamb. The lamb has to be slaughtered cruelly.
The Jubilee (Lev 25:23)
- theologically it reveals God as the real owner of the land.
- we are no longer stewards the moment we think we’re the owner.
-when we understand truly that the money is not ours, that God is the owner, there will be a liberality in giving! Have I not forgotten that I’m not the owner of the things I get to enjoy today!
- why do so many of us make this earth our home? Because we can’t see! Lord help us to see! Open the eyes of my heart.
The chariots of fire (Joshua 11:6)
- the burning the chariots was a parable enacted to symbolize their dependence on God alone
- why perform the enacted parable? When God calls us to give up something, we obey so that we can tell the story of the faithfulness of God who provides!
You cannot experience the “ah-hah” moments merely by intellectual exercises or emotional experiences, but by the actual working out of our wills in the Mt. Moriah moments.
Seeing with Wide-Angle Lens
1. Thematic Structure: for us to see the Thematic Development
Example of the thematic development of Revelation
2. Contextual Structure: notice the Literary Context
Example: What is the GOAL of Philippians 3:13-14?
The prize is the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. The goal is not the prize though. Paul kept saying he’s reaching for the goal but it’s not explicitly stated!
The reason: the goal is given implicitly in the contextual structure of the paragraph: in the ‘so that’s.
That I may gain Christ (in him)
In view of the surpassing glory (though Paul had so much in terms of superiority)
Two things we need to live a significant life:
Our sense of identity and our sense of security.
Identity – what have I accomplished
Security – what am I really worth
My true significance is that I am redeemed in Christ.
That I may know him
That I may attain the resurrection from the dead.
- not talking about the eschatological resurrection (because it’s not something we attain)
- but talking about the total change of newness of life.
Not spiritual change on our terms (gradual improvements to our character, our effectiveness etc)
But the total change of the new birth, where our very identity and significance is totally changed to being In Christ.
Don’t be merely satisfied in reaching the ah-hah moments in studying God’s Word
He wants us not to merely be enlightened, to understand better, to have better knowledge.
He wants us to see him, to be WOWed by himself.
