Haven't blogged for some long; its just been one mid session after another. Heaps of stuff has been happening. SOCM has been going well, even though no one is coming. I reckon last semester we probably had around 50-70 people, but this year there's only 20 or so non MTS people. Hopefully it'll be better next year with the time changing.
Last 3 weeks we've been doing the pentecostal movement; its history, the prosperity gospel, and the theology of worship and music. It was really interesting.. in the prosperity gospel one, Joshua Ng showed us from passages from "You Need More Money". One particularly good excerpt from that book was where Brian Houston wrote, from Romans 12:2 that we should be transforming our minds so that we believe will we get rich. We shouldnt conform to this world which says, I cant succeed, we should go to a rich suburb, look at a big house, and imagine ourselves in there.
I think its an evil spirit that's conforming him..
And yesterday Paul Grimmond talked about the various waves of Pentecostalism, which is always seeking for ways to experience God. So up til the 70's, it was speaking in tongues, in the 80's it was signs and wonders, in the 90's there was the Toronto Blessing, and in the late 90's, singing became THE big charismatic thing. It was a bit surprising because I always thought music's always been important for them, but evidently its a recent phenomenon. So whereas in the past, charismatics thought they could experience God by laughing uncontrollably, or speaking in tongues, now we do it by singing.
My bible study group's been going pretty well, everyone is coming to MYC, so thats fantastic. A couple of weeks ago this girl said something that almost made me cry. So many fringe Christians or ex-Christians say that CBS or other Christian groups are too agressive, and send them unwanted emails and ring them up all the time. This girl said that she felt the same way at first, but later on when she became a Christian, instantly she knew where she could turn to, and she knew that CBS people really cared about her. Hearing that story makes me so much surer about what we do, and makes me more annoyed with Christians who dont want to have fellowship with us.
Last week at church we had Men's Dinner where Craig Jostling from Ecom talked to us about workaholism. It was pretty challenging, especially since recently I've been applying for all these internships. That was depressing enough, looking at my bad marks. Getting rejected is even worse. Oh well.. If I got an internship I wouldnt be able to go to NTE, so dont mind that much.
Last Thursday UNSW had international careers expo or something, and seeing all my law friends with their career prospects.. and thinking about my rejections, made me pretty depressed. I thought, those high paying jobs that law people are going into, thats the kind of thing that my dad would expect me to be doing. If my value was found in my work, and not in Christ, I would be pretty suicidal.
This semester's exam timetable's come out, and I dont know what I'm going to do during the holidays yet. I have 4 weeks of holidays, from June 25 to July 24. The last week is definitely MYC. So the first 3 weeks I have a couple of options..
1. Go to London with my mum. The ticket there is on discount if you leave late June, so its about the same price as if I just went to HK. But if I go, I might have to go for 3 weeks total.
2. Go to HK then go to Shanghai and Korea. But again, would have to go for all 3 weeks.
3. Go to a Study Camp. But that takes a full week, and I dont know if I can go to 10 days of camps.
4. Stay at home and spend some time with my girlfriend.
Worse thing is that if I choose 1 or 2, I can't do any of 4..
