My Journal

Many don't listen to what they read in the Bible, they read only to memorize it. Therefore, they have to open a Bible to quote ALL THE TIME something they want to speak to others. They cannot digest the Word of God to become their own words, they cannot become effective witnesses.

The Bible also has great many golden phrases in various languages. These are also good to put them to heart in meditation as well as growth not just in literature or eloquence, but in enjoying God.

9/19/2025 Friday

AI (Mantic) has the highest score in forecast predicting platform called Metaculus. So I signed up and joined the fun.

9/18/2025 Thursday

OpenAI beat programmers with perfect scores at the International Collegiate Programming Contest (ICPC) World Finals 2025: An OpenAI system has solved every problem at the world’s most prestigious collegiate programming championship, outperforming not only human competitors but also Google's Deepmind model. When I'm free I'll check out what are these 12 tasks.

App that detects chords. There are plenty nowadays with AI (i.e. Chord AI phone app - I love this on my Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra, Chordify, etc.) But the first one I encountered was this youtube, which I thought I've entered in my journal before. I had to search for my comments (good thing Youtube provides a link to all my archived comments) on youtube for it. And in this case, the one I came across on youtube was Chordie by Matkat Music LLC:

9/16/2025 Tuesday

I can't believe Mr. You quoted Stephen Tong (well, maybe unknowingly):

真正的自由，不是你想做什麽就可以做什麽；而是你不想做什麽就可以不做什麽。

To the context of Mr. You's video: This applies to both sides obviously. To the right (my own addition), are things such as wearing masks; to the left, are things such as gender identity.

Mr. You has great points concerning his critics of Progressivism:
They are not for diversity 多元化, but quota controlled diversity 配額制多元化
They are not for equality of opportunity 機會平等, but for equality of the end 結果平等

09-14-2025 Sunday So when the pastor goes on vacation for the week, what did Nadia and I do? We took the opportunity to visit Crossroads Community Church (PCA) in Somerville. The preacher was Daniel Liu. So far so good. I told Nadia that though it seems topical, Liu's preaching was more expository; while the sermons of Pastor Chris of GCC, though expository-wannabe, are more topical in reality. And obviously, both Nadia and I noted coherence in Liu's preaching. The whole experience was like Redeemer PCA of NYC on her best day. The sermon was on the Power of the Gospel, Galatians 1:10-24. Nadia said that at least Daniel Liu gets out more (than Pastor Chris), referring to the reference to a lake Liu came across in his sermon. That's a minor note for me. I did however find myself looking up for the reference to Thomas Jefferson denial of miracles and Christ's divinity. I certainly appreciate that what seemingly to be Dan Liu's vision (though not stated directly), in his sermon, that while he recognized that not all should be preachers, but he hoped that ministers will come out of this congregation.

Overall, Crossroads certainly is many times ahead of our Grace church in most areas: Spiritual health, rationality, finance (2025 YTD budget $490,664 vs. GCC's $184,590, which is 2.6x of ours), sermons, music (though all modernized, still better than GCC's modern music), evangelism, ministries, etc. The only exception at this time, as I do not have enough time to ascertain the character of its church members and elders, I maintain my stand before that Pastor Chris' one pro, is that he held the Bible studies/Sunday Schools (an area most professional pastors would prefer to play safe and save their jobs, if not uninterested) himself and invite challenges/questions. This is a small advantage Chris has over most pastors/preachers, as his other areas (sermons, communication, etc.) would be mediocre if not weaker. People like Chris' sermons I think mainly because of the classic elocutionist oratory style speech. If so, any well trained theater actors can pull the same trick. However, I do believe there is some importance on how we proclaim the message in a pulpit, that is, the early pulpit orators tend to do better art than your typical casual TED talk style preaching today. But this is a minor art because the contents are to be weight first.

I remember Eleni once argued with me about music, that she thinks we would not like the music at Crossroads. I beg to differ now that I have seen it. I once told her that I wouldn't mind their music if they don't mind my broken English. "Quality is in the eye of the beholder" she said, without realizing that she just insulted the whole of the liberal arts department. Imagine if you tell your Literature professor, "your grading means nothing, for quality is relative/subjective". I told Nadia, the primary key to a good music in the church, is clarity.

People I've met at that church: We were greeted by Pastor Dan and elder David Mark before the service. The during greeting time (mid service) we greeted the couple (Steve & Karen) who were also sort of new (5th times or so, from a Grace Community Church in Piscataway, probably an independent church) behind us, and to my right was an "empty nester" as she considered herself, Joana, I think. After service, I was greeted by someone from India, Narendar, whose daughter is freshman at Rutgers and they all go to this church.

So, in order to know the pastor and the others better, I would like to check out their men's groups. Starting with their Pastor at the Pub on Tuesday 9/30, at 6:30pm. I would need a day off to do so. Nadia was not interested in their women's ministries, as they were doing bible study using Kathleen Nielson's material. I don't see an issue, unless one goes the Solo Scriptura route. But I leave it to her, as she is pitting GCC's Denise's Women's Bible Study against this.

This was in the Reformed Forum Spring/Summer 2025 Magazine. I had it in my hand months ago and been waiting to do a review on this until now. I have a digital copy so I will throw out the paper magazine.

Here's the summary:

Marie Valle is wife of a pastor, Angelo of Christ Reformed Church PCA in Central Pennsylvania, with 4 children.

She applies 5 senses: Sight, hearing, taste, smell, touch. In order to engage children in worship. I think this goes with adults as well. But this article is about the less disciplined ones, the children interrupt worship services because they need more sensory interaction, according to Valle.

God used the 5 senses (sort of) in the Tabernacle (Exodus 25-30) by making it tangible. Psalm 141 embodied this worship vividly: 1. Sounds of God's calling, 2. Smell of incense, 3. Feeling of raised hands, 4. Utterance of self-controlled words, 5. Gaze of fixed eyes.

Suggested help for children in worship:

1. encourage holding bulletins, hymnals and Bibles with their own hands and follow along with their eyes, as they hear.
2. Sing boldly as example of stimulating their hearing and mind with worship.
3. Place coin (stimulate hearing) offerings themselves to encourage sensation of importance.
4. Listen for specific frequent words during sermon: i.e. God, Bible, etc.
5. The Lord's Supper: all senses but taste (until they are old enough to participate).

I would say though this doesn't go against parenting in the pews, it also does not discourage a separate children's church (that is, during adult's sermon session).