Homelife

I am officially home ;)

I have not mentioned it, but I am currently in the process of transferring to tyndale for next semester. Southern was a great experience, but it's done and done. Time for ministry in T.O. and for new experiences back home.

New start, re-integration, the whole sh-bang!

I am moving to a new blog as well:

shubox.wordpress.com

Oh Lord, guide me, humble me, silence me... and take me ;)
All for Jesus,
Shu

Desiring God

If you got anything to do with Emerging, Emergent, Pomo, etc like I do, you gotta check out "Desiring God's" promo video. A crazy lineup featuring Piper, Driscoll, Keller, Baucham, Carson... I honestly hope they help christians engage the postmodern generation of people...

Desiring God Promo Video

Quick Plug

Browsed my brother's blog and noticed he was plugging an event called Annex.

It seems ETCBC is getting on the ball with social justice needs of Toronto. I will gladly plug this effort as well.

This event will feature displays and presentations from several community organizations, giving churches, fellowships and interested individuals an opportunity to explore different ways they can be involved in the community. We will involve organizations with a broad range of services, including women’s shelters, youth at risk, unemployment and immigrant services, literacy programs, and more! Coming to this event will be a great way to get more information about how your church can plan programs and ministries that involve the community. It will also give individuals an idea of the volunteer opportunities available in the GTA. The program will also include a time of praise and worship and a keynote speaker.
We encourage you to mark May 12, 2006 off on your calendar, and hope that you will consider coming, as well as bring your fellowships and other groups from your church.

Synergyministries.ca

I hope this will be a good step in the right direction for the local church in Toronto (I'm guessing mostly targeted at the chinese church).

As a brief complementary sidenote: I have been delving deeply into church history this past term at Southern Sem, and it has given me some interesting perspectives on historical Christian practices. I know that, in the U.S., currently more and more conservative churches are finally taking the step to become more missional to their community, engaging social justic issues and taking a step forward from "fundamentalist sit-back-and-enjoy-salvation" stereotype. The fear has always been that with sole concentration on "the love of God" we would be following in the footsteps of Liberal Christianity and forget about teaching sound doctrine and the gospel message to the world. Sort of just giving people fish, but not teaching them how to fish...

Synergyministries has this point in their vision statement:
In our unique place in the Christian community, we aim to equip the individual, unite the Church body, and mobilize the Church to meet the material and spiritual needs of the community. Synergy Ministries aims to create long-term and systemic change in the community in which we live. We seek to inform Christians about the realities that marginalized populations face daily. We understand that before systemic change can begin, individuals must be actively involved in their communities.

I pray that their mission to mobilize the local church will reflect not only the love of Christ represented in His followers, but to "synergistically" truly meet the spiritual needs of the oppressed, broken and poor. My hope is that the transformational love of Christ exemplified in His people are joined with the transformational sharing of the Gospel message. Yeah, I know it sounds like the same thing, but to be honest... people don't really do both well...

I also pray that this ministry is empowered by the direct outflow and response to the grace and mercy of God in our own lives. This is the kind of synergy I have YET to see in the Chinese Church BUT my hope is God will work mightily in this ministry...

I will officially be returning to Toronto that night, I hope to perhaps drop by and join my brothers and sisters in this common goal.

Peace.

MSN (recovering) addict

So I'm here at my computer... waiting in purgatory for these next two weeks of mad work to make itself go away (yes, you heard me, MAKE ITSELF go away!) and I realize... I'm such an MSN addict.

I sit at my computer sometimes waiting to talk to someone...

oh don't give me that :p almost ALL of you have felt the same way with some kind of instant messaging device...

We wait for someone to talk with us or we look for someone's name that seems like they are bored or need to talk... and I've been doing this subconsciously for the past... uh... 9-10 years? (if you include ICQ).

Anyways, this blog is just a verbal diarrhea of thoughts that have come up. I've been living on my own for close to a year now and I've realized it's super hard to keep in touch with people I used to keep in touch with before. I check their blogs hoping for a tidbit of new revelation of their lives and I hope to keep up appearances of a relationship. I try to look at so many of their lengthy msn names and I try to decipher their amusing remarks. I've realized the friendships I've developed, the community that I have developed has been slowly slipping away and all I can rely on is just a different kind of drug...

MSN (or instant messaging, take your pick of the many out there).

So just hear me out! I don't wanna HASH out on msn, but I just want to say what's on my mind I guess. MSN is great for "keeping in touch" but it can't replace the "touch" of reality. We started to distance ourselves with phones, then e-mail, and now instant messaging. Don't you see the evolution of communication becoming less and less personal and more and more convenient?

As a sidenote, I have grown in my short 23 years to understand that friendships come and go, lives change, people move on... I completely understand that. But I also have never ever EVER forgotten the truth of the bible:

"23Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful. 24And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds. 25Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching."

- Hebrews 10:23-25

Alas, I have two options, stop communicating so much with msn... the long-d, impersonal form of communication... start fresh and move on...

or

return home...




















































See y'all soon ;)

Remember ol' Josh Harris? ;)

I'm sure a lot of you have read "I Kissed Dating Goodbye", "Not Even A Hint" and "Stop Dating the Church" from PASTOR Joshua Harris (yes he is! at a charasmatic church no doubt! haha). But I'm sure some of you have only heard of his biblical prowess on dating and relationships... me on the other hand, I conversely read "I Gave Dating a Chance" in rebuttal to his conservative slant on biblical dating (haha)... but alas, in the end, his writing did make the most sense and helped me a great deal in terms of my view on relationships before marriage. I guess I just wanted to point out that I came across his blog recently and read this GREAT quote on redemption and change (even though he got it from another guy!).

"Diagnosis precedes cure, but we humankind have a hard time with self-knowledge. [Our] pride spins webs of self-delusion. We usually put the best spin on ourselves. My opinions, my perspective, and my way of doing things seem intuitively plausible—if not the sum of all righteousness! Even when we get down on ourselves, we reserve the right of judgment. Have you ever noticed how a person with ‘low self-esteem’ reacts when someone else does the criticizing? Have you noticed how self-hatred so often correlates to failure to measure up to pride-generated standards for oneself? Self-pity is then a most delicious narcotic: It feels so good to feel so bad, because it’s all about me. Self-absorption erects an in impenetrable barrier to self-knowledge. To know myself as I truly am, I must come to know myself through the eyes of someone outside of myself—the God who searches and weighs every heart.”

-David Prowlison

This is such a wonderfully worded quote that I cannot add to... but I will! Isn't it so SO true that our failings come more from "pride-generated standards for onself"? Ok, I admit sometimes, other people are just JERKS for criticizing others, which ADD to the low self-esteem in ones self... but I think great discernment is needed to see that, almost all the time, when we are "down" and feel unable to change... it's because we are so busy striving for a cure before we even diagnosis the problem?

I have met MANY people in my life who have struggled with their failings... I, myself included... first thing that happens a lot is we try to deflect it to something someone else did to us. That's legit... but I have always pointed out to people...

TAKE A GOOD LOOK AT YOURSELF FIRST!

It's not like people around you are so sinful and you are "all good". We have to break through the barrier that doesn't let us see self-knowledge for REAL. That means, blaming others is not first priority, and also the realization that pride isn't just reserved for the cocky, but also the ones who put down themselves to the point they forget who they are...

...who they are in God's eyes.

Covered by the blood of Christ, the salvation by grace alone, and the ONLY ONE who can truly open up our eyes to truth.

Peace out Josh ;)