not divinely inspired..?
Yes, this is my blog, the one that Peter Ko spoke of on Friday night, the blog that he attacked as not being divinely inspired, not God breathed. My papal delusions are now gone. Thanks for the clarification.
I dont know why I'm always blogging about stuff from weeks ago; but 3 weeks ago after I came back from HK, I went to Kick On, O Day, and O Week mission. I was glad that a lot of people managed to turn up to Kick On despite the apparent high cost. Evidently, only the rich Asians had problems with the cost; the rest of us manage to turn up and pay.
O week went pretty well, I thought; although the turnout to the bible talks were quite bad (less than 5 first yrs for each of the 4 talks). This will probably be ditched next year. But the BBQ was great, conversations were taking place, and contacts were made. One disappointing thing was that people didnt manage to turn up every day. Yes, it was tiring, but by Wednesday, so many people failed to turn up that we had to ditch our carefully crafted "ministry teams" system. By Thursday, everyone was just standing around the main walkway while jobs like postering, prayer, walk up, leafletting were all being neglected to varying degrees. Next year I will be more realistic. While almost 100 registered, only some days we had less than 30. But overall the organisation was done well from what I could see.
Personally, I got a lot out of it; I got to do some walk up with an MTSer, and we spoke to this Brazilian guy who had the weirdest beliefs in things like reincarnation and "the force" kind of stuff. It took an hour before we sort through all of that and presented the gospel to him through 2wtl. But he couldnt get away from his doubting of any kind of knowledge, so we couldnt get anyway. Whenever his non sensical beliefs became obviously contradictory, he just said, well, I am not saying this is the only possible truth, etc..
I also got to have a few conversations with people at the BBQ queues. Two Jews I was talking to were in a rush, and I told them to join the queue anyway. And I said it'd only be around 5 minutes. They said, if they got food within 5 minutes, they'd become Christians. 5 minutes later, we still werent close. I said, surely, in 5 minutes, you'll get your food. They said, if you dont get our food in 5 minutes, you have to become a Jew. Sure enough, 5 minutes later, we were still 5 minutes away from getting food.
Also talked to a few Chinese guys. I didnt think I could speak mandarin; but evidently I can when I needed to.. I couldnt explain the gospel, but I could just hold a half decent conversation.
O Week mission helped me affirm my theological understanding that evangelism isnt about conversion. The end purpose of my evangelism is not to convert someone, but simply to preach the message faithfully. No one was converted by my walk up, and I'm sure I'd rejoice if someone did become a Christian through me, but I dont think I failed just because I didnt convert anyone.
There were lots of cults and false teachers at O week. The Sufi's ran a BBQ in competition to CBS, but they charged 2$ per person, so we got most of the people. Apparently the Sufi's is some mutant strand of Islam. There was a group called UNSW Christian Students that handed out a pamplet called the Purpose of Man, which was on how we were created like a glove so that God could live in us. There were the Hillsongers who decided that gambling is not a sin by running a raffle with a PS2 as the prize. Falun Gong also had a stall, and I found out someone I know is now the head of the UNSW division.
Last week I went to MKC, which was on work. It was good, except it wasnt really for students, so the things they covered is different to say Club 5, which is more useful for someone like me. The 2 lingering questions I had afterwards was:
1/ is there an intrinsic value to secular work? that is, in our secular work, is it all in vain, or are in expanding the Kingdom in some small way. Vaughan Roberts seem to suggest that from the creation picture of work, we are doing something of value in secular work (though not of as great value as "saving work"),
2/ how do I not hate my job? Over the weekend they spoke against people like me who look forward all day til the end of the working day, and til the end of the week, etc. Because we are made to work, we as humans should be working, even if we dont need the money. But if your work is totally boring and meaningless, how can I not hate my job?
And finally I get to today. Today I went to SCCCA training day, on "career". It was quite useful, and Ying helped me greatly to appreciate how our faith in Christ means that we have freedom in our work. We are free to say to our boss, no, I wont do over time so that I can spend more time with my family, because I have a bigger boss than you.
In the afternoon, I went to a seminar called "Needs in Chinese Churches in Sydney and Beyond" or something. It was quite interesting. The speaker didnt know what we expected him to say, so we just talked about general stuff. Afterwards I had a slightly better image of Chinese Churches, and a slightly worse view of ABC congregations within Anglican Churches. Not that I think they are wrong or anything, just that.. there are many things I didnt consider before, and maybe I just thought too highly of the ABCs in the Anglican system, and too little of Chinese Churches.
Also I heard about a new inititive called remote MTS, and it sounds really exciting!
I dont know why I'm always blogging about stuff from weeks ago; but 3 weeks ago after I came back from HK, I went to Kick On, O Day, and O Week mission. I was glad that a lot of people managed to turn up to Kick On despite the apparent high cost. Evidently, only the rich Asians had problems with the cost; the rest of us manage to turn up and pay.
O week went pretty well, I thought; although the turnout to the bible talks were quite bad (less than 5 first yrs for each of the 4 talks). This will probably be ditched next year. But the BBQ was great, conversations were taking place, and contacts were made. One disappointing thing was that people didnt manage to turn up every day. Yes, it was tiring, but by Wednesday, so many people failed to turn up that we had to ditch our carefully crafted "ministry teams" system. By Thursday, everyone was just standing around the main walkway while jobs like postering, prayer, walk up, leafletting were all being neglected to varying degrees. Next year I will be more realistic. While almost 100 registered, only some days we had less than 30. But overall the organisation was done well from what I could see.
Personally, I got a lot out of it; I got to do some walk up with an MTSer, and we spoke to this Brazilian guy who had the weirdest beliefs in things like reincarnation and "the force" kind of stuff. It took an hour before we sort through all of that and presented the gospel to him through 2wtl. But he couldnt get away from his doubting of any kind of knowledge, so we couldnt get anyway. Whenever his non sensical beliefs became obviously contradictory, he just said, well, I am not saying this is the only possible truth, etc..
I also got to have a few conversations with people at the BBQ queues. Two Jews I was talking to were in a rush, and I told them to join the queue anyway. And I said it'd only be around 5 minutes. They said, if they got food within 5 minutes, they'd become Christians. 5 minutes later, we still werent close. I said, surely, in 5 minutes, you'll get your food. They said, if you dont get our food in 5 minutes, you have to become a Jew. Sure enough, 5 minutes later, we were still 5 minutes away from getting food.
Also talked to a few Chinese guys. I didnt think I could speak mandarin; but evidently I can when I needed to.. I couldnt explain the gospel, but I could just hold a half decent conversation.
O Week mission helped me affirm my theological understanding that evangelism isnt about conversion. The end purpose of my evangelism is not to convert someone, but simply to preach the message faithfully. No one was converted by my walk up, and I'm sure I'd rejoice if someone did become a Christian through me, but I dont think I failed just because I didnt convert anyone.
There were lots of cults and false teachers at O week. The Sufi's ran a BBQ in competition to CBS, but they charged 2$ per person, so we got most of the people. Apparently the Sufi's is some mutant strand of Islam. There was a group called UNSW Christian Students that handed out a pamplet called the Purpose of Man, which was on how we were created like a glove so that God could live in us. There were the Hillsongers who decided that gambling is not a sin by running a raffle with a PS2 as the prize. Falun Gong also had a stall, and I found out someone I know is now the head of the UNSW division.
Last week I went to MKC, which was on work. It was good, except it wasnt really for students, so the things they covered is different to say Club 5, which is more useful for someone like me. The 2 lingering questions I had afterwards was:
1/ is there an intrinsic value to secular work? that is, in our secular work, is it all in vain, or are in expanding the Kingdom in some small way. Vaughan Roberts seem to suggest that from the creation picture of work, we are doing something of value in secular work (though not of as great value as "saving work"),
2/ how do I not hate my job? Over the weekend they spoke against people like me who look forward all day til the end of the working day, and til the end of the week, etc. Because we are made to work, we as humans should be working, even if we dont need the money. But if your work is totally boring and meaningless, how can I not hate my job?
And finally I get to today. Today I went to SCCCA training day, on "career". It was quite useful, and Ying helped me greatly to appreciate how our faith in Christ means that we have freedom in our work. We are free to say to our boss, no, I wont do over time so that I can spend more time with my family, because I have a bigger boss than you.
In the afternoon, I went to a seminar called "Needs in Chinese Churches in Sydney and Beyond" or something. It was quite interesting. The speaker didnt know what we expected him to say, so we just talked about general stuff. Afterwards I had a slightly better image of Chinese Churches, and a slightly worse view of ABC congregations within Anglican Churches. Not that I think they are wrong or anything, just that.. there are many things I didnt consider before, and maybe I just thought too highly of the ABCs in the Anglican system, and too little of Chinese Churches.
Also I heard about a new inititive called remote MTS, and it sounds really exciting!
posted by Pingu at 3/06/2005 02:19:00 am
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