Challenges In Our Generation

Presented a talk on servant leadership and challenges of our generation at the University of Nottingham, Semenyih. Again, I see signs of the Lord bringing the mission field to our doorsteps in Malaysia and thank God for the student community here who aspires to be salt and light here

Agora On Facebook!

Facebook is a social utility that connects people with friends and others who work, study and live around them... I just had my FACEBOOK profile - some of my favorite haunts are the the Agora and Campus Crusade Influencers For Christ groups led by Fiona and Mishael.

Here is the description of the IFC movement:

"In Matthew 5:13-16, Jesus challenges us to be salt and light--to influence the world. Every Christian can be an influencer for Christ-- a growing believer who lives in the power of the Holy Spirit and actively seeks to live out God's calling for his life.

Our Mission Statement:
Building movements everywhere so that everyone knows someone who truly follows Jesus.

To be salt and light of the world we need to be connected Christians. This group allows you to connect with Christians everywhere so that these relationships will provide a synergistic momentum to building a movement of like-minded Influencers for Christ.

Our focus is to build movements of people who desire to evangelize, disciple and mobilize others to engage in God's work of transforming the world."

TheAgora @ Penang

Thinking In Action: The experimental seed of Agora @ Penang has just been planted!! We'd pray for reflective action in the context of church and mission for Steven, Yew Kong and Joanne would bless many other young believers in the city.

Come join us at our inaugural meeting - this is strictly by invitation only as we are trying out the concept here in beautiful Penang and the venue has limited seatings. If you are interested to join us, do email us at "scheekeong at gmail dot com" to request for an invitation!!

Date: 12 August 2007
Time: 5pm
Venue: FES Office, Penang (map to be provided later)
Topic: The Gospel and the tasks of the Church
Facilitator: Yew Kong

The topic seems relevant to keropoklekor's questions here:

1) What is the Gospel, Salvation, Faith and Evangelism? And where does it stand in priority compared to other tenets of the evangelical faith?

2) What is the content of this "Gospel"? The 4 spiritual laws? The 10 commandments? The "Story"? The Proclamation of the Kingdom? Jesus Christ? The Trinity?

2) What is a framework of evangelism that can be practically adopted by the christian community, taking into the account the different levels of commitment towards evangelism? How do we determine whether a community of faith is doing well in evangelism? How do we measure our effectiveness? How can we improve our effectiveness?

Maybe KeropokLekor may wanna join Wesley to start an AGora Australia-NZ? :D

Let Justice Flow Like River": The Church In Social Action

The Agora Forum July:
"Let Justice Flow Like River": The Church In Social Action

Venue: CDPC
Date: 29th july
Time: 1.30 pm
Presenter: Tricia Yeoh

We are delighted to invite you to a simple sharing and dialogue on Social Justice and the church's role in social involvement by Tricia Yeoh. A senior analyst at Asian Strategy & Leadership Institute, her articles on human rights and various issues have often been published in mass media. I am also amazed by her youthful energy and heart for youth leadership development projects like youth4change. Do invite friends and get inspired!

"I believe that, with regard to the great tensions between the vertical interpretation of the gospel as essentially concerned with God’s saving action in the life of individuals, and the horizontal interpretation of it as mainly concerned with human relationships in the world, we must get out of that rather primitive oscillating movement of going from one extreme to the other, which is not worthy of a movement which by its nature seeks to embrace the truth of the gospel in its fullness. A Christianity which has lost its vertical dimension has lost its salt and is not only insipid in itself, but useless for the world. But a Christianity
which would use the vertical preoccupation as a means to escape from its responsibility for and in the common life of man is a denial of the incarnation, of God’s love for the world manifested in Christ."

- W. A. Vissert´Hooft at the Uppsala Assembly of the World Council of Churches (1968)

Losing Our Minds?

Some friends asked for the slides for the "Have we lost our mind?" sharing at Sunway-Subang Community Baptist Church last Saturday so here it is in "Old Movie" format. (Click on "See All Images" if some words are not legible).

Happy to see these exuberant youths so on fire for the Lord. Pastor Malcolm gave an inspiring reminder that our generation yearns to experience God and there is nothing wrong with that (in fact much to be encouraged) yet we need to know that we know what and why and who we believe. The Bible does not call us to be tranformed by the 'removing' of our minds! Instead it calls for the renewing of our minds. Thank you so much for prayer partners and Gary/Alexa for giving a raw speaker much needed practice and trust :)

As a curious teenager, I was disturbed by what I read in Genesis and asked a Christian science teacher,“Is the universe really 6 thousand years old or millions of years old?”

He looked at me and asked back: "Does God answer your prayers?" If it 'works', then why ask questions about whether it's true? The life of the mind is often neglected.

One reason is misunderstanding of Jesus' call to have ‘child-like faith’. It meant having the humility and guile-less dependence of a child, not a toddler's IQ as condition to enter the Kingdom. “In respect to evil be like infants, but in your thinking be mature.” (1 Cor 14)

Another reason is sometimes we confuse thinking/questioning with unbelief. It gives some people the impression that to be a Christian, we must only believe but never ask questions or think through our faith. Thinking is not the enemy of faith. In fact, getting people to think about the big questions of life is a friend of faith. Nowadays the challenge is to creatively point people to realities deeper than our investments, waistlines, holidays, retirement packages. See how Jesus answers questions with questions.

Someone once said: "Faith is not a substitute for knowledge but a response to it". It is not believing what you know ain't true. Sitting on a chair involves faith - knowing that the chair will hold my weight and active trust in committing myself to sit on it. Knowing (scientia), trusting (assensus) and committing (fiducia).

Why do we need to develop a Christian mind Or a biblical perspective on life, the world, on our work? Simply put, it is part of loving and following God.

William Temple: "To worship is to quicken the conscience by the holiness of God, to purge the imagination by the beauty of God, to feed the mind with the truth of God, to open the heart to the love of God, and to devote the will to the purpose of God."

In the age of Google and youtube, we cannot isolate people from ideas (even dangerous ones) but we can innoculate them (giving people the tools to think for themselves or introduce these viruses so their bodies can develop an immune system)

Have We Lost Our Minds?

Dear Friends, Would appreciate your prayers for wisdom and courage as I prepare for a sharing with youths at the Community Baptist church in Subang-Sunway this Saturday (30 June) from 5 pm - 7pm...