My Name Is Pride

On the weekend, I heard of an inspiring poem fromBeth Moore's book, "Praying God's Word" called "My Name is Pride." Here it is:

My name is Pride. I am a cheater.

I cheat you of your God-given destiny…
because you demand your own way.

I cheat you of contentment…
because you “deserve better than this.”

I cheat you of knowledge…because you already know it all.

I cheat you of healing…because you are too full of you to forgive.

I cheat you of holiness…because you refuse to admit when you are wrong.

I cheat you of vision…because you’d rather look in the mirror than out a window.

I cheat you of genuine friendship… because nobody’s going to know the real you.

I cheat you of love… because real romance demands sacrifice.

I cheat you of greatness in heaven… because you refuse to wash another’s feet on earth.

I cheat you of God’s glory… because I convinced you to seek your own.

My name is Pride. I am a cheater.

You like me because you think I’m always looking out for you.
Untrue. I’m looking to make a fool of you.
God has so much for you, I admit, but don’t worry…If you stick with me you’ll never know.

I've made a decision to not let Pride cheat me....Lord please help me!

Mission & Cultural Identity

God said to Abram, 'Go!' and Abram 'went'. Without this habit of obedience to divine displacement there would have been no biblical story or international people of God.

I learned about the idea of 'displacement' through Bible College. I was reminded of that this morning. Mission begins with the 'displacement' of the Son of God. 'God so loved the world that he SENT his only Son...' (John 3:16). The history of the Christian community is full of sending, going and receiving. Much of this movement has been within cultures. Like church leaders in China travelled, often at great risk, to minister to unregistered group of believers, even in the dark days of the Cultural Revolution.

But much of this travelling, this displacement, has been between countries and cultures. I learned that at the very core of Christian identity lies an all-encompassing change of loyalty - where we are (in our own culture and comfort zone) to a new culture where we are called (in a different culture or sub-culture and out of our comfort zone). I've been experiencing this displacement recently, and God has opened doors for me to be out of my comfort zone.

What about you? Are you willing to go out of your comfort zone to where God has called you to - within cultures, a different culture or sub-culture?

Make Poverty History

No To Poverty

I'm committed to make a difference in "Making Poverty History" - whatever that takes. Lord, please help me!

Meeting Blogger Friends

Three weeks ago on a beautiful Thursday afternoon, I had the great pleasure of meeting two of my fellow blogger friends Rodney , Thomas and their families in Southgate Foodcourt. What a wonderful thing to put names into faces! I was really busy that week preparing for the World Team Panel & Pancakes Focus Mission Night, but was sooo glad that I was able to 'squeeze' a little time out that afternnoon to catch up with these two great guys and their lovely families. The meeting was quite short, but it was wonderful nevertheless.

Rodney and Thomas, it was very nice to meet you and your families. I hope to see you all again.

Global Warming - An Inconvenient Truth?

I went to see the movie "An Inconvenient Truth" last week, and found it quite stimulating and challenging. Al Gore's film about Global Warming talks about how the climate is having crisis, and the environment is being destroyed. All the things that go into our air from our cars & machines cause CO2 emmissions. Therefore record highs, record droughts, record floods, storms, and melting polarice caps result.

According to Gore, the USA is presently ruled by people who would rather serve monied interests than the people. He said that we have entered a period of consequences, if we don't do something about it, the environment of our next generations will be totally destroyed.

What do you think about this issue?

Make Your Own Opportunities

I received the following from an email, which I found quite insightful:

YOU MUST MAKE YOUR OWN OPPORTUNITIES

Your destiny isn't a matter of chance,it's a matter of the choices you make.
Success isn't something you wait for,it's something you must pursue.
Don't wait for extraordinary opportunities to be successful.
Seize common occasions and turn them into great ones.
Opportunities sometimes come disguised in the form of misfortune,or temporary defeat.
Start where you are.You are, at this moment,standing right in the middle of opportunity.
If you act on your dreams you can live them.

What do you think?

Genesis Lounge

In Genesis Lounge

During the Black Stump Festival, I was serving in the Genesis Lounge, which is a wonderfully creative and peaceful space for stumpers to relax and enjoy God's Presence in a quiet tent. Basically if offered worship in the mayhem.

In GL, there was creative worship space, stumpology (where people can write their poems on a lovely poem book), clay sculpting, prayers in a net, sandtray confessions and remembrance stones, foot plastering, painting, with poetry and painting workshop.

More photos can be seen here.

Panel & Pancakes

World Team has organised a 'Panel & Pancakes' Focus Mission Night last Friday. We had a good time of fun, food and fellowship.

My friend Ross has written an entry about the mission night. Thanks for your support Ross!

Crisis in the Western Christian World – Fire in the backyard?

Rev 2:5 “Remember the height from which you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first. If you do not repent, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place.”

It has been nearly five hundred years since Martin Luther, who began the Reformation (1517) that changed the whole world.

It has been more than two hundred years since William Carey’s Modern Mission (1792).

The revival of Wesley, Fletcher, Finnay and Moody etc has been gone for over two centuries now.

In this day and age, the Western Christian world is like ‘an old person without fuel’, who has gradually lost their first love, enthusiasm, faith and heart of redemption. Some still have a bit of fire, in the hope to retain the disappearing sunset; some are struggling in their faith, tradition and morality; some are like a kite without string, follow the wind of the world, sin and unbelief! In the midst of this huge storm of “unbelief” and “anti-God” mentality, most churches have lost the courage to ‘fight against this battle’. Most cannot go against the current, let alone being the pillar of witness.

In the 19th and 20th century, J. Gresham Machen, A.W. Tozer, Francis Schaeffer, and Carl Henry were the leaders who tried to fix these serious problems. In the 21st century, the ‘heroes’ in the church have gradually been disappearing. The church has lost its influence. It follows and is led by the world.

Since the beginning of the church, in relation to the vision of global mission, Satan has been using politics, culture, racial differences and indigenous religions etc to destroy and stop the frontier mission work, so as to stop the spreading of the gospel.

Recently, Satan has used a second strategy, and that is to attack the ‘backyard’ of global mission, and to attack the Western Christian countries. For hundreds of years, Western Christian countries are the starting point of global mission and the gospel. Satan attacked them by destroying faith, morality, family and misleading the youth.

This is a powerful strategy. Western Christian countries have been falling one by one. Countries in Western Europe (eg: the Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark, Spain, The UK, Sweden, Norway etc.) have legalized homosexual marriage. The United States is following suit (May God protect them). If the society of a country has become “Sodom and Gomorrah”, can they still engage in overseas mission?

Because of the ‘break down of the backbone’, there are churches in the Western countries where global mission is disappearing without reasons (in fact disappearing with reasons), mission has become the past!

We would like to appeal and warn the churches (no matter Eastern or Western), our spiritual warfare is two-folded:

Frontier – continue to be involved in global mission, preach the gospel, plant churches and train workers.
Backbone – protect the Christian faith, morality and culture. Be alert in these areas!

May God revive this generation, starting from our churches!

The Stump Experience

Stump Crowd

It was an awesome weekend to say the least. It was surely the best 4 days of Australia's best Christian Music, Arts and Teaching I've ever experienced. The Music, the various artistic shows, the Bible Studies and Workshop Electives are all fantastic. I will share about the various insights and photos in the coming days.