Turtles All The Way Down

I have not been keeping up with Gordan Atkinson at RLP for a while and have forgotten how much I enjoyed his writings. He is one preacher who is different from most preachers I know. For one, he doesn’t throw Christian jargons at you and tries to explain everything with a Bible verse. In fact, it might be accurate to say he is a skeptic first and a believer second but he is definitely a serious and gifted writer. He is someone who has struggled with depression and some serious doubts. For a period of time, his writings felt depressing and overly cynical and I almost felt apologetic for being a Christian. His Foy Davies stories are my personal favorite. I wish someone would compile and publish them someday.

I just found out that his second book, Turtles All The Way Down, is due in November. I think I might just give myself a treat this Christmas by placing an advance order. His first book, a collection of short essays, was simple and honest, yet profound. Spiritual but not religious. Loved it. I have not done any serious, contemplative reading for a long time so I am looking forward to this one.

rk

When We Sing with One Heart and One Voice

I miss worship songs. Have not been listening to them for a while, except in church on Sundays. I grew up with Hillsongs as a young Christian. After a while I found some of their praise songs too noisy and loud for me. However, I love their worship songs, which are beautifully written and never fail to usher us into God’s presence. Worship songs are especially mesmerizing when sang together in a congregation. I have this vision that one day I will sing together with multitudes from all over the world, every tongue and tribe. What a marvelous time that would be. What we have now is but a glimpse of the future. Already it is enough to burst our hearts open. Imagine what it would be like when the fullness of the time comes.

Hillsong United, the youth music ministry of Hillsong Church in Australia will be here this Saturday at The Zone Youth Conference @ Max Pavilion.

This is one of their newer worship song. I love the drum beats in the background (not very audible in the video) and the violins and cello. It’s hauntingly beautiful.

Check out also this praise song called Desert Song. But just before that, a word from the lead singers. May we find strength and hope in the desert times of our life.

rk

Dangerous Freedom

Do not use liberty as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. —Galatians 5:13

Freedom is dangerous in the hands of those who don’t know how to use it. That’s why criminals are confined in prisons with barbed wire, steel bars, and concrete barriers. Or consider a campfire that is allowed to spread in a dry forest. It quickly becomes a blazing inferno. Unchecked freedom can create chaos.

Nowhere is this more evident than in the Christian life. Believers are free from the law’s curse, its penalty, and its guilt-producing power. Fear, anxiety, and guilt are replaced by peace, forgiveness, and liberty. Who could be more free than one who is free in the depths of his soul? But here is where we often fail. We use freedom’s luxury to live selfishly, or we claim ownership of what God has merely entrusted to us. We slip into patterns of self-indulgent living, especially in affluent societies.

The proper use of freedom is “faith working through love” to serve one another (Gal. 5:6,13). When we rely on the Spirit and expend our energies on loving God and helping others, the destructive works of the flesh will be restrained by God (vv.16-21). So let’s always use our liberty to build up, not to tear down.

Like a raging fire, freedom without limits is dangerous. But when controlled, it is a blessing to all.  — Dennis J. De Haan

Freedom doesn’t give us the right to do what we please, but to do what pleases God.

I do not usually share from my daily devotional. But today’s reading spoke to me and I would like to take some time to chew on it.

Coming from a grace-based church, I have the privilege of knowing what it is like to be free. I say that because not all Christians know, much less live in that liberty. There are many still bound by the chains that Christ has redeemed them from. There is a verse in the Bible that says, my people are destroyed from the lack of knowledge. Pastor once told us a story. There was an elderly man who lived alone in a humble shack. He had lived most of his life in lack. One day a distant friend visited him. As he was sipping tea on the shabby couch in the living room, he noticed something framed up on the wall. Curious, he asked the elderly man what it was. The man replied that it was something his grand aunt had left him before she passed away. He had it framed up to remember her by. His friend got up and walked over to have a closer look. To his amazement he saw that it was a will. Excited, he called the old man over and asked him what is the will doing in a wooden frame on the wall? The elderly man was speechless. He said he didn’t know it was a will as he is illiterate. The next day, they called in a lawyer to have the will authenticated. It turns out that his grandaunt had left him some shares of stocks which is estimated to be worth several million dollars in today’s market. If only the man had known of his inheritance! Likewise, believers who do not know their inheritance in Christ (and what an inheritance we have!) will not be able to enjoy it.

Freedom from the curse of the law, its penalty and its guilt-producing power is part of our inheritance.

How we use our new found freedom reflects how much we understand and appreciate this gift. The danger and temptation that comes with unlimited freedom is real, the same way blessing can be a curse if we abuse it. Paul must have seen this when he wrote to the church in Galatia. There will be some who will abuse it and some who do not understand it but the majority really want to use it properly. This is the life purpose of every believer – first, to know and enjoy the love of God and then to use our liberty to honor Him.

rk

Wait Till You Hear This….!

Let’s be honest. Every one of us has gossiped one time or another in our life. For some it has become a habit; part of their character and that is really sad for they will find themselves very lonely one day.

Most people however, try to distinguish between communication and gossip. They draw a line so that they do not cross over to the dark side but sometimes they are confused, or their emotion gets the better of them, or they didn’t want to feel left out. Sometimes silence makes them uneasy, or they simply wanted some attention. Some do not know how to steer the conversation away from the gossip. So they listened, trying all the while not to contribute anything to it yet knowing that by tolerating it, they have already contributed. They always regret it afterwards.

If like me, you are concerned about what this destructive activity does to your soul and your sense of worth and how to know the difference between communication and gossip so that you can eliminate it from your speech and improve your relationships, may I recommend that you read this.

Wait Till You Hear This….!

Have you seen the latest episode of Gossip Girl? Read National Enquirer lately? How about People Magazine? Decrying gossip may seem quaint today, but with over one hundred magazines, TV shows and websites selling gossip, maybe we ought to remind ourselves of its dark side.

The more we value something the more specific we are in discussing it. For instance, to me, flour is just flour. However, if I’m shopping for my wife I am forced to differentiate between unbleached, bread, whole wheat and various other types.

The Bible contains many different words for ways to communicate because it places such high value on human connection. These words are not interchangeable; each has a specific meaning.

Leviticus 19:16 is commonly translated as:

Do not go about spreading slander among your people…

The Hebrew literally reads as:

Do not peddle gossip among your people…

Everyone agrees that slander is destructive and Biblical laws prohibiting it spawned similar civil laws. But gossip isn’t slander, right? Gossip is neutral and harmless, isn’t it?

Unlike any other language, Hebrew words magically intertwine with one another in a mystical dance. Every word in the Bible sends the student on a search for words that share the same roots and letters. Thus we get a clue to gossip’s essence by noting that the Hebrew for gossip, R-CH-L also means peddler. Ancient Jewish wisdom tells us that both these words also relate to R-G-L, the root word for spying.

In other words, gossiping, peddling, and spying are closely related ideas.
This helps us understand the reference to “peddle” in Leviticus 19:16. Peddlers convey goods from one person to another just as spies carry information. Similarly, gossips transmit details about one person to another. Peddlers provide economic benefit while spies can be either heroes or villains depending on your loyalties. Think Nathan Hale vs. Benedict Arnold.

What about the gossip? The prohibition in Leviticus seems to suggest it is always evil. But how do we define gossip? After all, if we never talk about other people, we might never discover someone needing our help. We could become utterly alienated from our families and communities.

What turns positive communication into negative gossip?

The Hebrew reveals the answer. While earning his living, a peddler does benefit his customer by selling him a desired product at a fair price. The patriotic spy engages in dangerous clandestine surveillance in order to help his country, but we have contempt for the amoral spy who engages in his activity for self enrichment.

So here is the foolproof monitoring system you need to install somewhere between your brain and mouth. Before speaking about another person ask yourself, “Who am I trying to benefit?” If your answer is “me,” you can be sure you are about to gossip.

Perhaps you want to fill an awkward silence, or perhaps you want to draw attention to yourself and appear important. Either way, if you breach a confidence or invade someone’s privacy, you are crossing the line from communication into gossip.

The gossiper always finds an audience but all recognize that he is not someone in whom to confide.. Gossiping reduces you in the eyes of others.

Gossip shatters relationships. The victim often discovers who spoke about him and then shuns that person forever.

Third, listening to gossip not only coats you with a slimy, subconscious sense of reduced worth but it forever changes your opinion of the person under discussion.

Decrying gossip is far from outdated. It is one of the most important self-improvement steps you can undertake. Banning gossip at your family’s dinner table and making your workplace a gossip-free-zone, will improve productivity in both arenas.

This article is taken from Thought Tools by Daniel Lapin – Vol. II Issue #26

rk

Delayed Response to the AWARE Incident

Greetings to all my beloved fans! (i like to think that I have fans)

I am sorry I have not written for a while. Not that I have not been thinking about anything but just that I didn’t feel the flow to write, if you know what I mean. I have this bag of thoughts about various issues but they were very scattered and I didn’t feel up to task stringing them all together so that they make sense. I have been slacking a great deal lately, I know. And it doesn’t help that a friend recently introduced Korean drama to me. I tell you…in the past I would never be caught dead watching Korean drama, yet here I am – guilty as charged! But then again, I was a fan of Sylvester Sim before, so expect the unexpected! “Ahhh….how could you be a fan of Sly?? It’s so unlike you!” Hehe…I know I know, don’t have to remind me. So I have been watching Boys Over Flowers and I think I am in love all over again. Ji Hoo!!!….ahhh…you’re sO cUtE!! <in typical teenager’s shriek> For some reason, I have a soft spot for guys who are musicians and has a melancholic air. Hee.. Okay I better stop before I get dizzy and bore you to death.

Now back to the reason for this post. Just like many in Singapore who were caught up with the AWARE incident last month, I have much to say. Recently someone from a blog I have been following wrote about the subject and I found that it reflected very much my own views about the issue. So I am going to cut corners (no doubt disappointing some of you who wanted to hear my own voice about this) and direct you to that blog. I assure you, it is pretty close in terms of views, as it is to mine. She said it so much more eloquently, so why not? I am good at making excuses for my laziness. It is important to remember here that we and our views about issues change as we grow in understanding and grace.

In the beginning I had refrain from commenting about the issue because I had not been following its development consistently. I didn’t feel qualified to say anything about something I did not have a complete picture on. My lack of response disappointed my lesbian friend.  I realized it gave her the impression that I was indifferent to an issue very close to her heart and that was as good as saying “I don’t really care about you”. That was certainly not the message I wanted to send, especially so when the offending party in this saga are Christians. The reason why I decided I should spend some time finding out more about the story and give an informed response was first and foremost to let my friend know that if something is that important to her, then it is important to me as well. That is of more importance to me than trying to salvage the image of Christianity from a group of loud and aggressive Christian conservatives. Christianity suffers from an image problem due to the foolishness of some of it’s adherants but the true message of Jesus Christ will survive all that.  I made peace with my friend but there was so much more left to be said and I would like to share it here (through the voice of another).

The writer is someone I respect very much for her fair and balanced take on many issues that are of particular interest to Christians. I found her blog by chance more than a year ago. I do not know her personally but I found out later that she attends the same church as mine, although it is not her own home church. Another person I would like to recommend is Korean-born, American pastor, Eugene Cho (err…he was before my infatuation with Korean drama). I am sure you all know him by now as I quote him regularly on my blog. He always leaves you something to chew on.

So here they are.

From Still Haven’t Found
5 Things about the AWARE saga: one Christian’s perspective
Speak softly, love loudly: how Christians can love gays

From Eugene Cho
We should be enraged about bullying especially to gay/lesbian students

 

rk

Choir of PS22

I caught this video on Eugene Cho’s blog and I really like it. It is such a joy to watch these kids sing. Eugene called it an even better story than Susan Boyle.  Do visit his blog for his take on children, music and arts.

rk

The One-North Controversy

I was surprised to see my church making headlines last Monday, March 10th, in the local tabloid, My Paper.

19 million in the kitty in less than 24 hours.

That was in reference to funds collected on the Sunday of 15th February for our building project at One-North. In the midst of so much bad news about the economy in recent months, that was certainly good news, or so we thought. I had wanted to write about it the week following the update by the church leadership. I thought it would be an encouragement to all, especially believers, that people can be joyful and willing givers in times of deep recession. However, I chickened out for fear that my church would be misunderstood and criticized by people who will not understand. I am usually weary of too much publicity about my church because I know of man’s tendency to criticize things that are counter-culture, especially when it comes to money and religion. And I was right. Critical, mean-spirited, judgmental response did come. Sigh……

It all started a few Sundays ago. Our church collected close to 19 million in one Sunday for its church building fund. The intention for the collection was announced to us only two weeks before. When the day came, we gladly opened our checkbooks, emptied out the ATM machines in the Suntec vicinity, and arrived in droves in response to what God had placed in our heart. We recorded our highest attendance that Sunday. Over 80% of the congregation gave. It goes to show that people came with the express purpose to give. We were in this whole-heartedly and with our eyes opened. There was no coercion or pressure from our pastor or the leadership in any way. The only thing that came close to giving this a little push was a couple of excellent, heart enlarging, soul liberating, poverty-mindedness dispelling and biblically supported sermons on God’s provision and His way of rising above a famine. (Gosh, that was a mouthful!). Pastor was addressing the current economic crisis; lifting the people’s spirit and vision to a place where the crisis cannot touch. One-North was mentioned a couple of times in those sermons but it was not the focus. If people wanted to call that coercion, pressure, or even fund-raising, so be it. As far as NCC-ers are concerned, it was a great opportunity and privilege to give. So fired up was I, and I believe many others too, that I made it my goal this year, to free up more money in order to support God’s work. I am not just talking about One -North here. I am talking about funding the work of fighting poverty, slavery, disaster relief and missions. I have started making a list of Christ-centered ministries that cater to these needs which I can support on a more regular basis. So you see, it did not produce a bunch of people who were just hyped up about a building, it produced people whose heart are into giving. If that offends people, so be it.

We were told that giving towards One-North might not be the call for everybody and we should each hear God for ourselves and give according to what God has directed in our heart. There was no guilt-inducing tone in the sermons and no threats of God’s wrath and curses if we fail to give. For heaven’s sakes, we are a church that preaches grace! Threats and guilt-trips are not our way of doing things. Pastor whole-heartedly believes that if One-North is really of God, then God himself will convince the people’s heart to give. We were not there just to support our pastor and his 280-million-dollar vision, we were there to sow into God’s kingdom through a building project that we believe not only makes practical logistic and sound financial sense but also one that will see many souls saved and lives changed. You can find some of these testimonies here.  One-North is a commercial building. It is not fair to draw judgments by comparing it to a church building. I could go on and on but I won’t. I don’t expect people outside NCC to understand our position. For those who are genuinely interested to understand the rational behind this mega-project, may I direct you to this blog instead. I have personally read it and am fully in agreement with the response to every point raised.

I heard this story while watching Charlie Wilson’s War a few days ago. It’s the story of a Zen master who observes the people of his village celebrating a young boy’s new horse as a wonderful gift. “We’ll see,” the Zen master says. When the boy falls off the horse and breaks a leg, everyone says the horse is a curse. “We’ll see,” says the master. Then war breaks out, the boy cannot be conscripted because of his injury, and everyone now says the horse was a fortunate gift. “We’ll see,” the master says again.

Is One-North really God’s directive for NCC? Maybe or maybe not. All we know is that, right now, we believe it is God’s word for us.

rk

Related post- With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility

Cook-ing Up a Storm

I heard this on my son’s mp3 the other day and I am in love with it all over again – both the song and the guy who sang it. When David Cook reinvented Mariah Carey’s “Always Be My Baby”, he became the most imaginative and daring AI talent to date. It was this performance that propelled him to a category all of it’s own. Everything about that rendition was brilliant. I love the voice, the look, the arrangement; it was the perfect fit for Cook. It was bold, sexy and vulnerable all at the same time. Love every bit of it!

 

rk

Seth Barnes on The Current Recession

Seth Barnes just wrote a piece on A Christian Perspective on the 2009 Recession. Seth is trained in economics and business but a minister by vocation, so you can expect an honest and inteligent take on the situation yet at the same time it doesn’t rob you of hope. This especially resonates with me,

A second observation is that the pain we’re going through creates an opportunity to offer to others the thing we Christians have in abundance – our hope. Not hope for a better salary or even a job necessarily, but hope that there is a God in  heaven who created you and me and made us for more than a slog through a life of nihilism.  Hope in a God who is in the business of redeeming adverse circumstances, a God who delights in showing himself personal and involved.

As a minister who is heavily involved with missions, his voice is distinctively different from many affluent preachers we hear today. Having worked with those who are really in need, he knows first hand the reality of suffering and poverty. He applauds those who are good at making money and using it to build the kingdom of God. At the same time, to those anxious to be delivered from this crisis, he made no promises of a quick fix but only a call to remember what out true hope is in Christ. In his own words, “We have a master who has given generations the serenity to face death itself with a smile.”

Click here to read the rest of the post.

rk

Jewish Humor and Wisdom

You know how I love all things Jewish.

There is this cute looking book I want to get my hands on – My Jesus Year by Benyamin Cohen. The son of an orthodox rabbi wanders the Bible belt (52 churches no less!) in search of his own faith and had a taste of what it is like to be a Christian. I’ve read some excerpts from the book on it’s own website and it sure sounds like one hilarious journey!

“Thank you Jesus, for making me less of a cynic. Thank you for teaching me that prayers can be recited in many ways and in many languages and that God listens anyway. Thank you for miracles, even those of the golden dental variety. Thank you for small synagogues. For big churches. For gospel choirs. For holidays. Thank you for gratitude. For sickness and health. For repentance. For the lessons gleaned from death and loss. And, most of all, thank you for rebirth.” – My Jesus Year.

Click here for Christianity Today’s review of My Jesus Year and here for the book’s official website.

There is something about Jews that enables them to have a lighter view of life. It appears to me that humor is built into their DNA. I remember a lengthy exploration of the MiddleEast conflit I read years ago in the book – How Israel Lost by Richard Ben Cramer, also a Jew or course. Not only was it entertaining but some parts were downright funny I had to laugh out loud! And if any of you can remember the Italian film, Life Is Beautiful (1997) starring Roberto Benigni, of how Guido (Benigni) in an attempt to keep up his son, Joshua’s spirit in the concentration camp, convinces him that the camp is just a game. He maintains this story right till the end even as he is taken away to be shot dead by a Nazi guard. He made his son laugh one last time by imitating the Nazi guard as if the two of them are marching around the camp together. That scene made me smile and cry at the same time. The ability to be child like in the face of evil is almost too much to bear. 

That is Jewish spirit for you. Is it any wonder how they survived so many persecutions.

Next on my list, once I am able to afford it, would be Rabbi Daniel Lapin’s Complete Library set. It includes all 11 products from his library, one of them which is the book I recently finished, Thou Shall Prosper. There is so much wisdom we can draw from the Jewish culture, language and faith. The Hebrew language for example is so rich. Understanding their usage helps us understand the Bible and ourselves even better. For example, according to Lapin, the Hebrew language, being the Lord’s language, is considered the most complete of all languages. If a word does not exist in Hebrew, it indicates that the concept that the word represents does not exist in reality. A good example he gave was the word “coincidence”. That was an Aha! moment for me even though as Christians, we believe the same. If you have the time, do check out Lapin’s Ask The Rabbi  and Thought Tools page in his website – Modern Problems, Ancient Solutions. Lots to learn from there and you will find that you don’t have to be a believer to benefit from them.

Shalom.

rk