Seeing the PROCESS....The *C* TRINITY in the MACHINE...

MCBCSL 2008 All-star-game: Who is that MACHINE at 3rd?

Used to be captained by the Husband of someone who was timid to pay 3rd and sent him out to centre field... WAY BACK centre field LOL...

V _ _ E *S _ _* : "R _ _ _ _ _ _ _ is NOT God's will for your marriage..."

S _ _ _ _ : "You are NOT Rick Warren..."

V _ _ _ _ : "He's just being friendly..."

M: "V is such a BI..."

B _ _ _ _ : "Things have to be measured... are you SURE it's God's will for you to serve in ministry? You were wrong about some THINGS before...such as *RES*..."

S _ _ _ _ : "Have a nice life..."


M: "How do you know S _ _ _ _"?

K: "I worked with her..."

V _ _ _ _ : "Have a nice life..."

***1***

The K. of God is "Not an accident..." Urbana 2009! Sign up now!!!

It's the turn of the decade, this one might be PACKED!!!

Satan: "Any more RICK WARRENS I should KNOW (in the Adam knew Eve sense) about?"

Jesus: "OH YOU have NO IDEA..."

Let's join hands this year and knock Satan off his feet... TKD!

"***3*** - Basic principles of Love.... there are none...."

Ya that movie, so when you think about it... all your Christians, fellow church go-ers&seminary students etc...

In fact it is not unsual for us seminary students to see like the most crazy people on Earth at times... but we SEEM "crazy because of ***3***..."

***1*** The right thing at the wrong time...

***2*** Pondering WRONGly about the right thing (either context/timing is off)...

***3*** The right thing at the right time is elementary...

As for ***3***, if that were the case, why are there even seminaries to begin with... it's like a bunch of rock climbers trying to LEARN about God or get to the top of an inscalable mountain....seems like the odds are ***astronomical*** at times...

Reminds me of my Urbana 2006 experience when I thought I saw someone going to the washroom from the lower level crowd of over 60,000 people briefly from WAY UP in the bleeder seats during the opening sessions... "I thought I saw that MISSy..."

Apparently, I DID I DID see that MISSy and I want to shout it from the mountain top, but still a little tweety bird right now, so until God makes me into the Eagle, we are patiently awaiting OUR TURN...

The miracle weddings... Rick&MISS Warren 2006.... how about for The Next Generation? 2009? :) A seemingly DRASTIC movement like the birth of Christ, but perhaps it's simply put "an imperfect solution to a 50% divorce rate world..." (keep in mind it's a global rate so there is some geographic extremes... Such as...

"Could it be that to drink from the cup of western theology is to drink from a poisoned chalice?"

As to my seminary friend NK who told me to be RATIONAL about my visionS from God... (like that line from X-men, Magneto) "I THOUGHT this facility was a seminary..." LOL...

I really MiS you...':)

"an imperfect solution to a 50% divorce rate world..."

STAY TUNED FOR MY SPIRITUAL INTEPRETATION OF WATCHMEN!!!!

(sorry to disappoint there won't be anything romance related in that post as why SETTLE for the text, when a LIVE show we will show "the World... so that we will show the World...")

***3***

***3***

<3? THREE? FREE? Hmmm... very confused indeed... prayer time!

FIVE letter word, FIVE-A-M...SORRY bro! Richard Nixon has got nothing on me!!!

"I made a mistake five years ago, not only to go after the WRONG girl, but I told someone else in K&JC's Kingdom **if he broke her heart, I'll break his neck,** even though I told him explicitly it was a joke from The Fast and the Furious...He closed the blog down ENTIRELY... to cover it up perhaps... for the EDIFICATION of God perhaps, because he knew I one day may be God's servant and it's so scandalous regardless...Well there's an even BIGGER scandal now, so that seems like a PEBBLE compared to what will happen next...even though it's NOT THE SIZE that matters, but how you...The FRUIT has been dropped...so now The Dark Knight for Christ, must give up his image in the popularity of the masses to deal with his BABY SISTER...Before he gives his 'BABY' away...Let the world come after me with answering to the morales of that... not because it's my responsibility, but because I can take it...The world would lose hope in Christianity if even someone who's just a regular congregant is bashed like this publicly...I've come back to repent, seminary or no seminary education, I've LEARNED my lesson!!!"

K-log... better than PREPto-bismo...

"The Knight is buffiest right before the swan..." hehe :) Confused? Welcome to the K-Scandal!

Analogies first, either cause I'm lazy or I like to infringe copyright in MUCH MORE LEGAL ways and NOT the legal ones... :P

This is it... all eyes on on you... ....you

Hello darkness, my old friend,
Ive come to talk with you again,
Because a vision softly creeping,
Left its seeds while I was sleeping,
And the vision that was planted in my brain
Still remains
Within the sound of silence.
In restless dreams I walked alone
Narrow streets of cobblestone,
neath the halo of a street lamp,
I turned my collar to the cold and damp
When my eyes were stabbed by the flash of a neon light
That split the night
And touched the sound of silence.

And in the naked light I saw
Ten thousand people, maybe more.
People talking without speaking,
People hearing without listening,
People writing songs that voices never share
And no one dare
Disturb the sound of silence.

Fools said i, you do not know
Silence like a cancer grows.
Hear my words that I might teach you,
Take my arms that I might reach you.
But my words like silent raindrops fell,
And echoed
In the wells of silence

And the people bowed and prayed
To the neon God they made.
And the sign flashed out its warning,
In the words that it was forming.
And the sign said, the words of the prophets

Are written on the subway walls
And tenement halls.
And whisperd in the sounds of silence.
http://www.lyricsfreak.com/p/paul+simon/the+sound+of+silence_20105977.html

Heavenly Father... I am home... [LuKe 15:32]

Recently, as some of you realize, I moved out of my "spiritual home" of 10 years... And some of you are wondering why... Perhaps others don't wonder because they've already figured it out... Or they have theories they don't want to own up to whether they are accurate or not... But let's look first at some of God's reasons for one to "move OUT" or from one place to another (I'll let you go through the JOY of looking up the references/location of the verses yourself :D) :



23 The man said,
"This is now bone of my bones
and flesh of my flesh;
she shall be called 'woman, [b] '
for she was taken out of man."

24 For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh.

1 The word of the LORD came to Jonah son of Amittai: 2 "Go to the great city of Nineveh and preach against it, because its wickedness has come up before me."

TRANSITIONAL VERSE...

24Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize.

25Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last; but we do it to get a crown that will last forever. 26Therefore I do not run like a man running aimlessly; I do not fight like a man beating the air. -Thanks PW! :)


MOVIE LINE:

"The older you get, the harder it is to admit (that you're not perfect) and the harder it is to apologize..."

Call me an "old fool", but like the song from that Karaoke Revolution game (Red Red Wine), I like to think of love like red wine, gets better with age as opposed to all those other horror/humor stories you maybe heard about marriage and people's love or perhaps just the outward expression of their love not being the same as it once was...So I believe also should be the case with one's relationship with God, it only gets better and better as time progresses and continues to grow stronger as you get to know Him more. As should be the case for marriage also. However, I am not going to be discussing that topic in this blog entry, but discuss a "different kind of marriage or relationship, one of which some people may not know about and yet have to experience it's joy; the one between Jesus Christ and His church:

Revelation 19:7
7Let us rejoice and be glad
and give him glory!
For the wedding of the Lamb has come,
and his bride has made herself ready.

In biblical analogy, the church is known as the body of Christ, but consequently because God also stated in the verse I quoted in Genesis that being one flesh with Christ also implies some sort of unification, a joining of two entities in an intimate relationship. That is an essential part of being a Christian to have a strong relationship with God. Futhermore God also emphasizes the unity of the body of believers, often in ways implicating that we ought to love other Christians in the same way Christ loved us as the ultimate goal to strive for...

John 13:33-35 (New International Version)
33"My children, I will be with you only a little longer. You will look for me, and just as I told the Jews, so I tell you now: Where I am going, you cannot come.

34"A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. 35By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another."

Don't get me wrong, my old church is a fine church and also too "a perfectly good church" and I had a many good years there. In fact it was also the church where I came to Christ. I also used to go there at one point with some really close friends. But a many of those friends now have also drifted away BEFORE I did for various reasons. My point here is that I always believed contrary to some people's opinion, it was never MY decision to leave my previous church, but GOD'S... I'm not saying that's necessarily always going to be the case or people should "hop" from church to chruch whenever the going gets rough like it did for me.

It's interesting, because my e-mail server just crashed and I was thinking about finishing this entry yesturday too but never got around to it yet. But God has His way in technology too, so I find myself DRIFTING here to finish this entry which I have put off for a long long time and other sibs in Christ have been asking about, so it's about time. Time to put God's needs ahead of my own once again :) Well, there are some more personal factors as why I left as well, but seeing the circumstances and setting of this blog, I am mostly going to sick with the "Spiritual" reasons why I migrated to a new church.

A wise younger sibling (in Christ) once told me once "I don't believe in coincidence, I believe in God." Well, I caution also against the danger of intepreting every situation, circumstance or series of events is FROM GOD (see 2 Samuel 11 if you don't believe me). Personally, also having learned about some darker pages (as well as the bright) of Christianity's past this semester, I know that if we had that kinda narrowmindedness still, then consequently should we be accepting that since in the past people blindly followed the counsel of others ALONE in some centuries and also killing others who had opposing viewpoints to them, sometimes other Christians (being killed by their siblings in Christ of different Christian viewpoints) then it was also FROM GOD, so why did we stop now? LOL... I would hope people don't interpret circumstances and what comes from the mouths of others without checking it as preached in the sermon last Sunday and "coincidently" I had been saying myself not too far in the past before the sermon :) "it needs to be checked carefully against what the scripture and the HOLY spirit is saying as well." Haha ya, good thing I'm not still like the Christians of yesturday, because otherwise there would be a many instances where I would be at least thinking about slitting the throat of some of my fellow Sunday School students who said some things I have proven to be biblically not very accurate LOL... It's a joke of course, praise God! Haha, ya, imagine that eh... HA...IF I was like that, I sure would like to point out that it wouldn't only been them I would be having umm "deadly BEEF" with LOL... nor is it limited to people/Christians only in my current church.

I realize my other friend is right that sometimes it helps if you saw the movie first hand to know the analogy AND furthermore remember it, but the same can be said of people asking me about why I changed churches, they were not in my shoes and experiencing what I experienced FIRSTHAND either, so that being said, here is some other quotes I am throwing into the MIX:

Dad: "I want us to be able to talk about anything, you know when mom died, I pushed boxing because I loved it so much and I loved you so much...It was a way for us to connect... I know you miss your mom because I do too, boxing was my way of expressing that. It was my dream, doesn't HAVE to be yours...I always say that boxing is 20% talent and 80% heart, but looks like your heart was somewhere else, and that's ok..."

Son: "I just want to be your champion."

Dad: "You are..."

Son: "Thanks Dad..."

Narrator: "That day Izzy (Son) made a choice, to do the stuff that makes him happy, I'm glad he did..."

The context of this scene is that his son had given up his boxing even though he was good at that too, to do something he loved more. It's from a movie called "Jump In". The reason why I bought up this verse or rather it was happening as I was typing this and I kinda side tracked to focus on this touching scene that almost brought me to tears is because I realized I too am kinda in this situation with my "church switch". As much as people may question why I am at my new church versus my old one for what I see to be "more surface" reasons, I believe I am happy there and God is happy I am there also.

While it is true that I too had many important ministry roles at my previous church and furthermore knew the people there more intimately having been with them for so long, that I hope most would agree, that I was clearly was effectively serving God there also. But the problem like the protagnist in the movie said also, is that my heart wasn't in it all of the time. And it wasn't easy when people sometimes looked down on me in certain areas of my service such as the fact that they didn't believe I would be capable of giving wise consel on the topic of courtship and marriage, EVEN THOUGH I read numerous Christian books on the matter and had NOT FEW sessions with my Pastor on the topic during my struggles in the past too.

Ok I promised not to get too much into the "more personal" details, so now I will digress a little to the other important component of a church, "The Shepard" or "Pastor". As those in my previous church are aware, my former Pastor has now been called away to Germany for missions and our new Pastor just doesn't really "jive" with me I guess you could say. Now although, I found out recently that other people in the English congregation also left the church because of this change in leadership or at the very least around the same time; Let me point out that Pastor Can is still a "perfectly good Pastor". He just doesn't "jive" or rather "suit my needs" in what I need from a church leader at the moment, personally.

What I mean is he is INDEED gifted in what he does and personally I don't know how the decision was made to hire him as opposed to some of the other candidates that might not have given me as much as an INDIRECT push to leave my church. But keep in mind everything as Romans 8:28 states works to the "good" of the people of God. So I am simply in AWE that it so happens even my previous church's leadership decision, although at the expense of being AGAINST the wishes of quite a # of people I know at that church, was likely lead by the hand of God. And being happy now at my new church, it is interesting God would work in BIG ways to sacrifice not having leadership that would inspire the #s to stay (as 'seems to be' the consequences) in order for God to MOVE me where I needed TO BE!

BUT AS I STATED EARLIER -> Well, I caution also against the danger of intepreting every situation, circumstance or series of events is FROM GOD (see 2 Samuel 11 if you don't believe me).

...Let's make one thing clear. I am NOT 100% behind my "theory" that the decision was indeed GOD driven, as in primarily God driven over the Pastoral search committee's motives, some which may not be as God driven, but as much as it is not meant to be a cliche and advocate to allow us to "sin freely"... I would say the committee and those who made the decision to hire him are "only human" as well. Although I am clearly not saying they made the wrong choice, my 'insight' as to being there when the decisions where made, although hypothetical in nature I want to use to prove an important point. There was another candidate that FAILED to pull through prior to this one because we felt he was asking for too much AFTER THE FACT after seeing how "desperate" (assuming that was his stance) we were to have him as our Pastor. Now I agree with my previous' churches decision NOT TO HIRE him and also their stance that he did not have God's priorities on the top of his list. But nonetheless, who's not to argue that maybe God made it this way so that the WRONG person also would not be hired? Furthermore we are operating as I learned in my History of Christianity class that my church's presentation of the situation is both TRUE, FACTUAL and COMPLETELY NON-BIAS which is RARELY 100% true.

Anyhow, back to my 'insight'/speculation. The majority of the other candidates we had this second time around which we DID NOT hire were not as "experienced" as Pastor Can. However, despite lacking experience, some of us rather liked the other Candidates. And to be HONEST, not just myself perhaps, but I myself also did not even remember who this candidate was until he was hired, guess either I was away from the church at the time or the fact that even after he was hired that his sermons still put me to sleep that I probably might have even slept through his initial sermon when he was still BEING CONSIDERED for candidacy.

But turns out he's not much of the extroverted type which explains the lack of speaking ability. Although very a-typical of someone in Ministry. But I feel he is a good Pastor for the church nonetheless in the fact that he is GREAT when it comes to the counsellor/discipling side. So WHILE a lot of OLDER (and I would hope STRONGER as well, in SPIRITUAL YEARS) Christians such as myself have left as a result, probably because we need more quality sermons and don't have as big a need for counselling and discipleship (what he is good at)... Plus now LOL they can't go and tell a married man he can't teach them about relationships since he is one whether he is as well versed in the subject matter as I am or not... AND maybe one day, "GOD WILLING" years down the road IF I am married also, I can use my ability of God putting the shoe in their mouths to EXPRESS... MERCY... haha, not what you expected? I am CHRISTIAN afterall, at least that is how I see myself. Like a wise classmate told me once "One of the ways we can tell if we are TRULY Christian is whether we lead our lives differently in the light of how God has extended His grace to us." AND as I pointed out in CD team AKA Sunday School last week, the Holy Spirit should be CLEARLY in us as well! ;)

But as to whether the church, in my opinion trying to "play it safe" to hire someone who is both of the SAME/SIMILIAR NATIONALITY (as opposed to the other candidates) and MORE EXPERIENCED... this time around "because of what happened the LAST time" (in the PAST) made the right decision, whether they trusted in EXPERIENCE and other things, such as being older and having more EXPERIENCE raising a family (sounds almost like the way people hire employees at times as opposed to "God looks at the heart" ) Whether my previous church made the right decision and looking back being apart from the church (which has CONS as well as PROS), I think they did nonetheless, but only God can be the judge.

That being said, I am going to be "so bold" to say I feel God is in control of my decision to migrate to a different church as well. I have always felt comfortable and connected with God there. Yes, it has had it's share of bump and bruises too of course, my life at my new church, but overall I feel "I'm home". And as the message of Urbana 2006 stated (paraphrased) "God has a work for me there..." Or should I say "here"... "I'm home" :)

There's just so many other God glorifying reasons I could state for being there, but a lot of those stories such as the majority of my ministry field (University friends and relatives) who are still 'unsaved' are uptown, etc... but I feel God is calling me to "GET BACK TO STUDYING" soon and I ought to save those stories till later after God has done his part there as well like he has in the topic of this post I believe so that His glory can be ABOUNDED all the more :)

20Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, 21to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen. [Ephesians 3:20-21]