Tuesday, 26 June 2007

God's way of managing money

People must been hungry or was it the allure of Thai food that brought everyone at the door right on the dot on Sunday? It was an unusual sight to see people waiting at the door of an Ignite event. The food was a little late, but the great taste more than made up for it.

It was a great time of fellowship over lunch too and we had to squeeze to fit everyone in. Then someone suggested introducing ourselves before getting into the talk. And so we did with some interesting detour.

Our speaker Denis worked in one of the big banks for 15 years and has been in the mortgage business for the last 7 years. He showed us a video from Crown ministry stating how important it is to manage our money from God's perspective.

Do you know that there are 2,350 verses in the Bible dealing with financial matters? Well, most of us didn't know that before the seminar.

We all had a chance to think about our life purpose and jot down some goals to help achieve that. Then the 5 basic principles and a sample budget sheet to help us work towards handling money God's way. And a lively discussion followed.

We all learnt something from it and hopefully all put into practice what we've learnt. This seminar is only the introduction of what is a 10-week course. If people are keen to have Denis come back for another session, let us know and we'll organise something.

Tuesday, 19 June 2007

Connection or prejudice?

I was getting pretty frustrated at work lately because of non-responsive people. One particular project involves a big company in Europe and getting their attention at all is hopeless. The only contact that I have in this company has been non-responsive himself in helping to locate the person responsible for our case. I finally identified a new contact who could help and emailed him twice in the last 3 weeks. No response. A journalist gave me another contact in the same company that may be able to help, so I emailed him with a reference to this journalist early last week. I was hopeful for a reply. But no response. My journalist associate did mention that if email fails me, try contacting via an introduction through him on an online networking site. After 4 days, I decided to try the online networking site. My message to the contact hasn't changed. But voila, I got a reply immediately! This contact refers me to the original contact so I emailed him for the 3rd time, but this time through the network. And voila, an immediate response the next day!

It's amazing how well this channel works. But at the same time, it annoys me to the max that it should work this way. I just can't understand how the same message from the same person (me) delivered the same way (email) and for one even have the same referral (the journalist) could illicit such different reactions just because of how it came.

People say it's who you know and someone was using it as an analogy for salvation through Christ. Relating to that, I thought my case wasn't dissimiliar to Catholics who can only get through to God through their priests. I also thought unlike these contacts, Jesus doesn't treat people who approach him differently. They all have equal access to him, which is clearly not the case with my contacts.

Perhaps in business, you have to behave differently. But last week, I also emailed a VP of a big company in the UK and I got immediate response. So I concluded that it's the individual's value of others and partly the company's culture that shape the way people treat others.

I relate that to the Church and came to think that in the same way, how our church react and treat each other shows how much we value each individual. It also reflects our understanding of the scriptures and how and what the leadership of the church encourages its flock.

Jesus was interested and value each individual because everyone is made in the image of God. Whether we are at church or at work, are we treating and valuing people the way that Jesus would? Or do we relate and treat them based on the world's understanding?

Thursday, 14 June 2007

Worship Wars

This article on worship by Steve Camp (yes, the musician) is excellent. Here, he talks about what biblical worship is not in such a clear and uncompromising ways. We know that Truth is the foundation of worship because the bible tells us that we must worship God in spirit and in truth (John 4:24).

But what truth, and how does it relate to worship? What about spirit? Is it what we experience emotionally when we worship?

And what about music and worship? Contemporary Christian tunes or hymns?

You can read the article here.

:: Worship Wars
. . . seven perceptions of what biblical worship is not


Tuesday, 12 June 2007

Spend Wise, Spend Right

If someone gave you $100, how would you spend it? What's the first idea that comes to mind? If we asked around, we'd probably hear ideas like the following:

1. Go shopping for clothes, shoes, DVDs, CDs etc.
2. Spend it on petrol!
3. Buy some groceries.
4. Pay some bills.
5. Donate the money to charity.
6. Deposit it into a high-interest bank account.
7. Put it towards savings for something more expensive.
8. Go out to a restaurant, or the movies, or maybe a theme park.
9. Buy something special.
10. Put it in the church offering.

As Christians, we know that everything ultimately belongs to God, including money. So how do we use God's money wisely? Should we stop spending it on ourselves to buy clothes and CDs? Should we save it, invest it, or give it away?

Join us for our next Ignite event, Spend Wise, Spend Right. Over a yummy Thai lunch (from an authentic Thai chef!) we'll hear from some people who've studied and thought a lot about these issues. Here are the details:

Date: Sunday, June 24th
Time: 12pm
Where: GCCF church house
Cost: $8

Book your spot by Friday, June 22!