Marketplace ministers

Everyone of us are called to be ministers to minister the word of God to others. A market place is somewhere we are in most of our time. Eg. school, work & home.

I had a wake up call from God today. I was working in the office and there was this cleaner doing his job, going around clearing trash and so on. I knew him by his name David. He seems to be a cheerful person everytime we say hi to him. As I was about to leave, he started talking to me. As usual, I'll also talk to him. All of a sudden, he ask me whether I'm a christian or not and I said yes. And after that we had a good conversation about Christ. He also shared about the things he did such as going from door to door to share the gospel, handling out pamphlets and even sharing the faith with our instructors!!

Now that really caught my attention! A cleaner spreading the word of God. How amazing this is. I'm not looking down at cleaners here but trying to draw the point that its not only the pastor's job to spread the word but everyone of us. From CEO to even cleaners on the street. This person is a marketplace minister. Glory be to God.

What struck me was that he single-handedly was trying to spread the word of God to our instructors. And we have so many christians as staff in our workplace. Why are we not sharing the good news with the rest? Are we complacent? Are we waiting for someone else to do the job? Think about this. If we all put our heart together, more souls will be save. *Not saying everyone just go to that individual and just pour out the gospel and make him/her believe instantly.

There's many ways to share our testimony and our faith to others. It is just a matter of how passionate we are for God. It is hard for a start but if you don't try, you'll never know. If your heart is willing, God will take care of the rest. I assure you that. So to all who are reading this, be inspired as I am by David, start slow and small. With friends it's easier to start a conversation. Don't force your ideas across. Enjoy evangelism!!

Thank God for this learning.

God's refining power

God uses many ways to refine and mould us. I remembered my pastor mentioning it's like how gold is extracted out from its raw form. Gold in its raw form is useless and ugly. But when go through intense heat, pure gold is extracted out. Just like how each of us are until we are being refine by God and thus turn out to be useful servants of God. But it's always during the heat when people turn away from God as they don't see the end results.

Sophia and me had a quarrel on Sunday morning. I hate quarrels as it always spoils each of our mood. We were at church early to prepare the presentation slides for worship. So I was there helping her find the songs and inserting it. I wanted her to be the one doing so she can learn but she was sweeping the floor and preparing the communion. And I was hungry so it kind of made me irritated as she didn't set her priorities right by doing what she came here to do. Well they say a hungry man is an angry man. Everything was done on time and we started the service. I was reflecting on the words and the attitute I put things across to her. God was refining me in a way. We had a talk on that evening to sort things out.

Things that attribute to a misunderstanding
1) Each other's conception of priorities
2) Personal interest of other things(eg. breakfast)

Fun with Frisbee and Friends

Our youth's monthly outing/activity. This month we went to Pasir Ris park to play frisbee. The weather was nice and sunny. I decided to bring along my guitar just to sing a few songs to praise God. So we started around 10.30am with a few worship songs and prayed. We warm up a bit and started practising our catch & throws. We soon formed into 2 groups and played for 15 mins. Good workout for everyone. We took a break and I started taking out the guitar and started singing. Soon the rest joined in and this carried on till like 12pm. Haha.. Instead of a frisbee session, we ended up singing praises and chit chatting among ourselves. I felt good about it and wanted to do a picnic outing next time. So do stay tune for the next outing. So we really ended up playing only 1 game and decided to go for lunch. We went to eHub to eat some set meal lunch with free flow of drink n ice-cream. Good and cheap!!

Met up with Weihong because his contractor was coming up to do some measurements. I'm really touched to have Weihong(contractor) and Chloe(interior designer) to help us in the renovation. Firstly they are not paid helping me, Secondly they have to take their own personal time to meet and discuss things with me, Thirdly they really take time and effort in helping us. So I really really thank them from the bottom of my heart and Sophia's too!! It's good to have these kind of friends. Thank God for them.

The day ended off with a wedding of my colleague, Clayton and Jackie. It was at Earshot Cafe, Arts house. It was a really free & easy kind of dinner compared to the 10 course dinner. Prefer this kind of wedding where we can sit/stand and mingle with the bride & groom. There were sharings made, songs sang. Nice and easy. Well more weddings to come!!

Festival of Praise 31 July

The first 3 days at work was more of catching up with emails, help conduct a profiling workshop and also conduct a climbing session.

I attended a course titled "Working with youths with special needs" at NCSS on Thurs and Fri. Was a heartening course to see on-ground people working with these youths. Got to speak to a couple of them. REALLY great respect for these people! Shows how much love they have. It also reminded me to look at people's ABILITY rather than their disABILITY.

The course ended on Fri afternoon so manage to settle some of my housing matters. WE've got all the basic essentials already. We have a bedframe, wardrobe, dining table, coffee table, tv console and a sofa. Although it seems like only a few items, it has already cost us quite a lot. Will need time to get the rest.

FOP was the highlight of the day. Reached there around 6 and there was only 4 of us(ivor, ying huan, her sis and me). We went in around 6.30 booking seats for 14 people. It started aound 7.45pm with True Worshippers leading the worship. It was alright but I don't know most of their songs. Bob Fitts was next and he's the kind of musician for my parent's generation. Haha.. You know what I mean. But still he's great. Sermon by Mark Conner was wonderful. He talks about us breaking free from Worries. To have freedom from worries as stated in Matthew 6:25-34. He mentioned that majority of our worries are unnecessary(things we can control) and only 4% of our worries are real.

Stratgey to have freedom from worry(S.T.O.P)

1. Specify your worries(most of them are insignificant)

2. Take action on your worries(turn that worry into action, do something about it)

3. Offer a prayer to God(Philippians 4:6-7 Submit our thoughts to God)

4. Place trust in God(Proverbs 3:5-6 Lean on him more, put our trust in Him)

At the end of the sermon when he said "Who thinks this sermon is for you?" and to stand up if you think the word is speaking to you. I immediately stood up and thank God for the word. Cause I know I tend to worry too much, for wedding and now for house. I thank God for reminding me about this and to use the strategy which was taught. It was wonderul. I'm not a captive of my worries!!! Amen.

Heard that Planetshakers will be here for 2010. I'll be there!

FOP 2009