Great news!

Vanessa and David announced their engagement yesterday. Congratulations!

Someone commented couple days ago that things happen fast at our church. Indeed.

For those who are yet to be in the same situation, be encouraged that God has your best interest in mind and will surprise you with the very best when you're ready. Yesterday's sermon was a good reminder for us to be patient, to put our trust in God and to strive to please Him first. And if you haven't prayed for your future mate before, it's not a bad idea to ask God to prepare the both of you and bring you together in His timing.

But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Matthew 6:33

Tweed River Outing

Are we ready for a relaxing and fun Sat on the water? There's still 2 spots left, so if you want to come or have friends who'd like to come. Let us know.

Ok, here's our plan:
Pick up boat at Murwillumbah at 12pm, drive to Tumbulgum to pick up people at 1pm, continue upstream or south towards Tweed for an hour or so, stopping at nice spots for swim, fishing or other activities, then head back to Tumbulgum before 4pm and return to Murwillumbah.

Now, meeting points:
For those who want a more leisurely ride, meet us at 12pm sharp at 161 Tweed Valley Way, Murwillumbah, located on the river side of the road, midway between Condong Sugar Mill to the north and the Murwillumbah town centre turn off to the south.

Directions: Take the exit for Murwillumbah and the Tweed Valley Way (old Pacific Highway), at the signposted Oak Avenue interchange, just south of Chinderah and the heavy vehicle inspection station. DON'T continue on the Pacific Freeway or you'll end up in Brunswick Heads! For more details, look at their website at www.tweedriverhouseboats.com.au

For those who can't make noon, meet us at 1pm opposite Tumbulgum Hotel (easy to find, ask anyone). Straight across the road is a jetty/beach which you'll be picked up.

Any questions, ask us.

What could I have done?

When I read commentaries on the profile of Seung-hui Cho, the Virginia Tech gunman, I am reminded of someone I knew back in Grade 11.

A loner, he was a person everyone picked on, especially girls. The girls had no reservations over talking or giggling about him right in front of him. I felt sorry for him and befriended him as best I could, making extra effort to be mindful of him, saying hello whenever I could. At one point I remember defending him from some of my girl friends' cruel remarks. However, there was something about him that made me feel unsettled, mostly in the way he looked at people and the way he grinned.

After high school, I went to university in a different part of the country. One day I received a letter (this was before email) from this person, asked me how I was doing. Though it did bother me that he actually tracked me down, I replied just to be nice, knowing friendliness was what he needed. His second letter came, telling me that I had a crush on him and was hitting on him back in high school... and yes, he would be my boyfriend! I replied to set him straight, and asked him not to write any more (I was scared). Then came another letter, telling me how I had hurt his feelings and how he felt rejected - that it was my fault, because I started it. Then he went on telling me about how poor he was, and how he worked hard for his family and cared for them. Finally, he told me how my rejection letter almost made him take his gun out of his drawer and kill himself - but the thought of his family stopped him from doing so.

I felt quite scared. Not that he could commit suicide because I strongly felt he was just being dramatic to make me feel guilty (and guns weren't easily available where I come from). I was scared by how his mind could so easily imagine all of these untrue and ungrounded things about me. How he blamed me for causing his pain. What he was implying was that if he did die, his blood would be on my hands. And that's something Cho actually said.

Cho was a loner, but people wanted to make friends with him. They wanted to reach out to him, but he shut himself in and pushed them away. Maybe the friendship extended to him were sometimes misinterpreted - maybe that's what happened with the girls he stalked.

What can we do with such a person? In my case, could I have done anything differently, after my friendliness was misinterpreted? Was I cold and insensitive when I said no and told him the truth? Was I not quite friendly enough? How much would have been enough? He was the one who defined what was acceptable in his relationships. It was all about him.

This is not to say what he suffered through high school wasn't real, or that people weren't cruel to him. Those things happen to many people, and they do hurt. We all could have done a lot better. However, other people could only do so much for him. In the end, it was his own responsibility to be the caretaker of his personal thoughts and feelings, choices and actions. He needed to admit his own brokenness apart from everything and everyone else. He needed to stop shifting the responsibility and blame to everyone else and to the world.

This is true of all of us. We're not perfect, and neither are our relationships. We're broken. But there is good news! Recognising our own wretchedness leads us to acknowledge our need for Jesus to forgive us, and restore our most important relationship, with God. This is the true foundation for establishing right, loving relationship with our fellow human beings.

Mental illness - science or cope out?

I was reading about the expert opinions on the mental conditions of Cho Seung-Hui. Diagnoses haven't been made yet, but the possibilities abound - bipolar depression, schizophrenia, psychotic depression, avoidant personality disorder, paranoid personality disorder, feeling of powerlessness, grandiosity...

People with avoidant personality are described to avoid social situations for fear of disapproval. I thought, that's me when I was a teenager and a non-Christian. People with paranoid personality disorder have a deep distrust of others. I thought, that's me too! Another psychologist identified acute rejection as one of the common factors in school shooting. And yes, you guessed it. I, too, suffered from acute rejection in my high school years. I was a loner like Cho was. I was dead quiet to the terrifying and that's what my friend wrote on my graduation memoir. My mother took me to the doctor when I was 2.5 fearing that I was mute because I didn't speak. I rarely smiled and withdrawn, because I found nothing to be happy about in this world. In fact, I didn't think it'd make a difference whether I live or die, nobody would care.

So, I've the traits of a killer! And I could be one too. I mean, who on earth could withstand the hurt that caused by your best friend who you went to school with everyday and suddenly one day decided that you can be replaced by new found friends and completely ignored you? Well, I can tell you how much it hurts, that acute rejection that drove me to tears every day for 6 months. It didn't help that I was away from home for the first time in a foreign land knowing no one. Up to this day, emotions still swell up within me when I recount this. But it was precisely this painful experience that led me to God.

My point is, most of what identified as mental conditions are really not all that uncommon to all of us, just the extent of it. Psychologists and psychiatrists may come up with a new mental condition every day. But are they really sickness? No doubt there are people with genuine physiological problems. But sometimes, it feels as if we're just trying to get rid of the problem by giving labels to the behaviours that we don't want to see or have no answer for. We seem to have more and more people with psychological problems and mental illness, and no solutions for it. Is counseling and drugs enough? I'm afraid not, otherwise it'd have made a difference to my friend who's being counseled for years.

The problem with psychology and psychiatry is its basis on humanistic belief that reduces all human emotions and behaviours to statistics and graphs. It believes only humans can have the power to change the world. The supernatural isn't in the equation.

That's why no amount of mental instutionalisation, counseling or profiling can solve the problem. Because the answer doesn't lie in science or rational thinking, but in the missing spiritual element of Jesus. That incident in high school has left a scar and affected my life more than you can imagine, but to let that excruciating pain of rejection drives me deeper into my own world is suicide. And I know without God, I would choose to go down that path, like drugs, slowly eats me away and eventually destroys me.

What shape our young people today?

There's a lot of attention on the mental problem of Cho Seung-hui, the Virginia Tech killer. When I watched Cho's video playing on TV couple nights ago, I didn't see a person with mental illness, I saw a young man filled with anger and frustration. What he said revealed a deep anger towards the world and the people around him. Never once has he blamed himself.

In trying to explain his behaviour away with mental conditions psychologists and psychiatrists called psychotic depression, avoidant personality disorder and schizophrenia etc., are we putting all the blame on him as he did to us? Are we as a society partly to blame for the tragedy that happened?

I remember feeling bewildered hearing a day after the video was broadcast that it was pulled out because the media was under heavy criticism, fearing that the video may inspire others to follow Cho's footsteps. I couldn't see why it should be a problem when substantially more violent video games are allowed to poison our young people's minds everyday. Not only are video games, but movies and TV programs that encourage violence as the answer to our problems.

And then there is individualism, the me culture. We are taught to think about ourselves first and encouraged to just do what we want and what feels good. Never mind whether it's right or beneficial to others. Consequences isn't in the equation. Just do it. Does it remind you of some ads?

How about victim mentality? If I'm screwed up, not getting along with people, couldn't hold down a job or get what I want, it's everyone else's fault except my own. We are too consumed and self absorbed to see past ourselves. Personal responsibility is a foreign concept, commitment is old fashion.

To make things worst, nothing is ever right or wrong. You've got your opinion and I've got mine. What's right for you doesn't necessary mean it's right for me. It's all relative. And if that's not enough, there's political correctness that we can no longer say what is right but what people want to hear. So is it any wonder why our young people are the way they are today?

If our society and media creates that environment and shape our young people to be individualistic, self absorbed and irresponsible persons who make their own rules and act on their impulse, why then are we startled when they behave as a result of the very culture that nutured them? I'm not saying Cho's behaviour is acceptable in any way, because he has a choice to choose to do right or evil and he chose the latter. But as a society, are we not in some ways reaping what we sowed?

What concerns me is to see those traits displayed in our church today. Christians, young and old are embracing the world's practices to interpret the scriptures to fit in with the way they live. There is no absolute truth anymore, God's words is subject to reinterpretation based on each person's situation.

Under the influence of our culture, young people are aspired to be cool and exclusive. They befriend people who look cool, dress trendy, speak the same language and act like them. They look out for each other in the group, but only accept those they like to include. Soon, there are little clicks appearing here and there. The church is supposed to be one body, but is as fragmented as the society of our day. The bond that unites Christians and the love that compels us have been replaced by spiritual individualism and tribalism.

I've experienced the joy of fellowship and unity in fellowships and young adult groups in various churches. It was a wonderful experience to have friends who come from different backgrounds and countries, have different interests and personality. Yet we could all share, enjoy each other, encourage, help and pray for one another and feel included because we all have one thing in common - our love for God.

That, in essence is what Ignite is all about. I long to see young people, striped of worldly influence and being grounded in the solid foundation of God's words, to express their love for God through extending their friendship to those around them and because of their love for one another, non-Christians will be attracted to the amazing God we serve. And that, is what I pray for the young adults in our church.

"By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another." John 13:35

Becoming a blogger

A few people asked about how to write post to this blog and expressed their frustration of unsuccessful attempts.

If you want to comment on a post, just click on comment at the end of the post and start writing. But if you want to contribute and be able to create new post, it's a bit more tricky. The system won't let you add yourself to the blogger list on the spot. So you have to tell us if you want to be one of the writers and we will send you an invitation by email. To accept the invitation, you'll have to create a google account first if you don't already have one. It doesn't automatically go back or remember where you came from, so after you created a google account, you have to go back to the invitation email and click on the link again to accept the invitation. After that, you can blog for your life. :-)

Remember to ask us for an invitation if you want to be one of the bloggers.

US school shooting

No doubt you'd have heard about the massacre at Virginia Tech in the US by now, with 33 dead and 15 wounded. It saddens me to see yet another brutal act and the many lives lost in a place as George Bush said, should be a place of learning and a sanctuary.

What saddens and bothers me more is looking at the history of shootings in the US to find the majority of cases in the past 20 years either initiated or aimed at young people. There are 20 school shootings in the last 10 years and 3/4 of them are by teenagers.

I can't help but wonder why a country, known to be Christian would have so much killings at such a young age. Are Christians not having the impact that they should have in their society? Or is it because of their faith that Satan gets into overdrive? Or perhaps it is something else?

There's a fundamental problem with the right to bear firearms. Where's that coming from? Some will say "self defense". Ok, but doesn't God said He'll protect us? Doesn't God ask us to live in peace with one another? And if, as they declare in their coins and around the world that it is "in God we trust", how does carrying firearms then support that belief?

This leads me to think about the issue of "rights". I remember going through my young adult years being told to fight for my rights. Rights to do and behave the way I like, rights to challenge and dispute ideas and practices not agreeing with the way I live. Basically, rights for everything. Of course, there are something that's universal to every human's existence. But as a society, are we pushing individual rights too far to the extent that it's coming back to bite us? Look at the right to bear firearms in the US and what it leads to? What about gay rights? Rights to die? Rights to be happy? And rights to vent my anger on others because they make me unhappy? Can you see a pattern there?

What are rights anyway? Is it based on God's principles? Paul took advantage of his privileges as a Roman citizen, and others also enjoy privileges that come with their work or role in the society. But privileges isn't a one way street, it comes with obligations and responsibilities. What's more, I can't honestly find anyone in the Bible exerting or claiming their rights. And I wonder why not. I guess because rights really exist to protect our own interests, it's self focused and contrary to God's principles.

If we're all created in God's image, that means we all possess values and characteristics of God and the ability to achieve godliness. And if we follow God's moral law in the Bible such as those in the 10 commandments. What needs do we have for rights? In fact, I don't see Jesus fighting for his rights. When Jesus was questioned by the high priest, he didn't object by claiming that he has a right to free speech, or the right to choose his own title. Jesus asked us to be meek, humble and turn the other cheek.

I was actually surprised to hear that the right to bear firearms is enshrined in the US Constitution. I soon find out that their bill of rights traces its origin to natural rights which is based on natural law and has its roots in Greek philosophy. It aims at human happiness and says that we all have a natural tendency to look after our own interest and seek what's best for ourselves. Therefore we have the right to follow our nature. It's not hard to know what that leads. If we are to follow our nature and our nature is fallen, then it'll inevitably lead to rebellion against God, whatever form they come.

The Virginia shooting is an example of what following our fallen human nature results in. But it also highlights the danger of mixing scriptures with worldly ideas. I also note that other factors come into play in this tragedy. Pressure to succeed, individualism, the media are just some of them which I won't comment here.

Gone Fishing

The weather is just too lovely this time of the year for us to stay inside (especially when we do that most of the time). So get your outdoors gear together, because we're going cruising and fishing! For those of you who don't fish, don't worry, there are other fun things to be done, like eating fish somebody else caught, letting our hair down in the breeze, enjoying the warmth of the sun and the fresh air and getting our feet wet and sandy! All the while, enjoy each other's company. Who knows, we might even spot a dolphin or two!

So give us a yell if you're interested in coming, because there are limited spaces. The cost is $30, which includes a BBQ lunch. Deadline for booking is this Sunday (22/04/07).

Movie night photos

How about revisiting the movie night in photos? For those who missed it, let us retell the story of the night visually, in comics. Enjoy.

Tim Hughes holding nothing back

Tim Hughes new album Holding Nothing Back is out!

You can listen to all his 11 new songs this week only at Worship Together. Just click on the new song jukebox button on the top left.

Being a Media Savvy Christian

We live in a world dominated by communication media. Whether it be movies, TV, music, books, magazines, games, internet or radio, everyday we encounter at least one of these. The scary thing is that the standards presented in the media are mostly worldly. At best they are like junk food to our souls, and poison at their very worst.

So how should we live in the age of media? These two articles have some pretty good insights.

:: It's Never 'Just a Movie'
Frequently we use media simply for a diversion. How often do you sit down in front of the tube and say, "You know, I want to find something on that is mindless and I can just veg out to"? We think it's harmless enough. Yet research shows...(read more)

:: Like to Watch
Wherever we look, technology blasts us with the world's values, attitudes, and false definitions of reality. The popular media lie to us about the nature of goodness, truth, and beauty. They offer counterfeit versions of what a family is supposed to look like, what romance is, what success is all about, and where we should spend our money...(read more)

Have you got food?

If you don't have a habit of reading God's word daily, it's time to start. God's words are food nurturing our soul. Imaging you go hungry for a few days, how would you feel?

So, here's your Daily Bread. And if you prefer, you can Encounter God and Get Closer to God (click on notes and select the day). For those who prefer King James, there's a daily devotion on Proverbs at the moment on Bible.com.

The good news is your daily bread and encounter are all free. ;-)

Great Quote

This quote is from God in the Wasteland by David Wells.

"Worldliness is what any particular culture does to make sin look normal and righteousness look strange."

Ethical Marketing

What left me thinking from the movies night was more about the way marketing works. As a marketer, the marketing techniques showed in the Merchants of Cool video isn't anything new to me. I've seen it, I've heard about it, and often struggles with it.

They are based on marketing principles that strive to identify and satisfy people's needs by communicating those needs to the inside of a company and the benefits of the end product to the market outside. To put it simply, marketing is like an interpreter/agent between companies and their product/service consumers.

Sure, I do a lot of research to find out what people want in my industry, so we can improve our product offerings to suit user needs. But I thought...hang on...we do marketing on things that we humans create and they are not perfect, that's why marketing is important. But the good news of Jesus, isn't that a perfect truth? How else can we improve it?

Of course, we need to communicate that message to the world and that's where marketing comes in. The problem is, a lot of our churches today are applying worldly marketing practices rather than the principles. We package the church with bells and whistles to make it more attractive, sometimes to the extent that the reason for being there got lost or becomes second place.

What's more, to suit people's needs, the content is altered and changed to make it more appealing, and in the process the word of God is watered down without our knowing it. Suddenly, Christianity looks like just another consumable in the market. If it suits me, I'll take it, if it doesn't suit my needs, I'll shop somewhere or something else. No wonder someone describes going to church is like going to a theme park, to be entertained.

It's not hard to find mega churches using worldly marketing methods to appeal to the senses of their audience or Christians employing marketing tactics to milk the Christian community. Think multi-billion dollar Christian music industry. Think endless variations of a Christian book.

Worldly marketing is about doing anything to get attention - big, flashy, cool, outrageous, celebrity, wow factor... MTV has demonstrated how marketing is done solely to increase the company's bottom line regardless of whether the consumers have the need or will benefit from it. In doing what the world's doing, I can't help but wonder if our churches today are attracting consumers of religion or followers of Christ. How often do we talk about success in terms of spiritual growth rather than numbers?

I looked at the scriptures and it tells me that Jesus isn't handsome, but ordinary. So he wasn't cool in his time. I looked at the apostles, they didn't use healing or food to attract people to their midst, so they weren't being attractional. I looked at Paul or Peter, they were straight forward telling their people to repent. So they weren't packaging the gospel to be more palatable.

In an effort to make Christianity more relevant today, I think we are treading on dangerous ground. Marketing is a tool when used properly has great benefits. But as Christians, we need to be careful of the context that we are using it in and to use it based on Christian principles, not the world's.

I was even thinking about this very early in my career and wanting to do marketing from a Christian perspective. I was searching on the internet on ethical marketing about 10 years ago and found nothing. I just did a search again and was glad to see that it's now a topic worthy of discussion.

Well, I've more thoughts on this, but I'll leave it to another time.