My Journal

By leadership I mean the roles of a preachers, thus pastors, elders even Christians with certain authority included.

Not including those charismatic megachurch that doesn't really dwell in the pursue of God's word.

Churches have low number of congregants, low attraction, no more respect from others, why?

Because of vain sermons? No edification for their souls? All true in the most likely case.

Recently I got a response that "They should serve in the church"...what? Non-christians should serve in the church so that the church can be stable in number and be an example to the world in this way? What about a true servitude to God? What about the truth? What about the meaning of sanctification?

Cause:

Lazy to preach, not willing to face rejection.

Consequence:

Chosen the easy road instead of facing the problem.

Convinced of the righteousness of the easy road.

Therefore, no wonder they love to use the term "慕道友". Because they only want "non-christians" who are INTERESTED to be christians. This is what they called "preaching" the Gospel to the world.

So, they sit in stationary, waiting for non-christians who are "interseted" to come.

So, they want them to serve, since they are "interested" enough. Which is good for the number too - for if serving, they are more likely to stay.

So, they love to use the term volunteer, 義務， 義工. Because it is the only way to convince non-Christians they can "serve", as long as they make 事奉 = 義務.

No wonder, they cannot stand sinners who are "Not Interested" in Christianity. No wonder they cannot bring people to Christ, people whom they don't like. No wonder they have no problem letting nice non-christians to serve in the church.

And no wonder they cannot benefit even fellow christians spiritually.

They have stopped growing, they have played the part where there's only talk but no action. They have learned how to be laborious in vainity and have shown themselves to be very good at it.

Had I not read C.S. Lewis' "A Grief Observed", I might not have been reminded to beware of the vain comfort many wish to exclaim.

Last night, I've received news from Facebook that Rev. David Chen has passed, on the 23rd. of cancer.

The first thought that came to my mind was what Paul had said in 1 Corinthians 5:5. That was my grief back then, that was my prayer. I would say seeing a couple of recent photos of the seemingly much older, incredibly skinny man brought some joy to me, amidst the anguish. I no longer need to call him "fat" anymore. What's more, he was wearing an old green STEMI Rally T-shirt...ah...the reminiscent of old times, what comfort to know he had no hard feelings even after quiting the organization. But then again, could my comfort be of vain value? What assurance do I have of his repentence? For all purposes, that could have been the only cloth he could find at that time. I do not want to be fooled by myself, nevertheless. I am therefore more inclined to believe in David Chen's salvation, although I will not look to those who love to say "He is with God now". For I would rather ask them, "have you ached for his fall, his weakness? or did you just dismiss them in denial?".

My fear is that I had not prayed enough for him. I was sadden long before so many of them, therefore I should have prayed harder? How then was Paul praying for Hymenaeus and Alexander?

Granted, I have not ceased my prayer for his wife, his children, but what would that justify?

I grief, but not like them. I am no better than my Lord's servants before me. I pray of my own soul, the strength for me to push through all obstacles to my God, whether they be of "good" intentions or not, may God grant me the strength and the discernment. Amen.

Is most likely to be 173 pounds, after reading from another scale, a more reliable one, which is located in the pharmacy school which I work.

These 99 cent store products really have problem with measurements. What can I say? It only costed $10. I don't even trust the cooking cups I bought from such stores. If only I have the time to look for trusted everyday measuring tools. Perhaps ebay is the only easiest way to go.

The Man and the Lion

A MAN and a Lion traveled together through the forest. They soon
began to boast of their respective superiority to each other in
strength and prowess. As they were disputing, they passed a
statue carved in stone, which represented "a Lion strangled by a
Man." The traveler pointed to it and said: "See there! How strong
we are, and how we prevail over even the king of beasts." The
Lion replied: "This statue was made by one of you men. If we
Lions knew how to erect statues, you would see the Man placed
under the paw of the Lion."

One story is good, till another is told.

After reading this Aesop's Fable, I was immediately reminded of a time while I was in Arkadelphia, an american asked me about Kung Fu movies: "Why asians are always the losing ones in the end?", not knowing much about kung fu movies, especially "American" ones, I had replied, "I don't think so...there are some..."

Of course, some thousand year old slave already had the perfect answer to this.

I am writing a short summary of the STEMI rally in the past two days, so I don't forget.

Ticketing process was tough for the staff, very confusing because on the one hand we want to make it full house, and at the same time, Lincoln Center's Avery Fisher Hall only admit the exact number of audience according to the almost 3000 seatings. So we had to risk giving out more "pseudo" tickets than the actual availability and assume a percentage will not show up. But it would seem that this is a first for all of us (Previous one - perhaps 10 years ago, was done by 角聲), so many were scared of the number of tickets taken reaching the maximum limit that it may overflow. I didn't even dare to distribute any flyers or posters...until noticing only half of the hall was filled on Friday night. I quickly, without asking for permission from the staffs pertaining to the rally but the owners of the venues I posted, posted posters in Ah Hong restaurant entrance and the Flushing Library community board. Had some flyers in the library racks as well. And then I went out into the street next to the library and distributed about 30 flyers before I had to leave for ushering the 1-3pm "Satan's Investment" workshop by Dr. Stephen Tong.

After that, I wanted to distribute the flyers in Chinatown again, I had only about 10-20 left. I didn't want anyone to know, but as they were providing ride (Again with the ride - I made it with a combination of train and inflatable kayak in the last retreat! And only accepted ride home because if I don't I would never hear the end of it from them), I had to tell a few I will take care of myself because I may go to Chinatown for handing out flyers. The pastor heard it, she immediately disagreed and asked me to go with her, stating that it will overflow so there's no need for anymore flyer giving.

I was of course very angry inside, because I know I'm dealing with people who do not like preaching this way. Ameristians believe that "expecting rejections from others when preaching" is NOT the American way. But with her prediction, my curiosity, I calmed myself very easily, and eventually helped out the pastor in cleaning up the church before we head to Lincoln Center. I'd say, there's quite some work to do before we leave, so I'll settle for that, even though I also thought to myself, that I would see if it will overflow, and write into my journal accordingly with my afterthought.

So it didn't overflow, not on Saturday. The number increased from the previous day, but perhaps by 50% only. There we have it, thus I believe my criticizing above is justified. This, I stop here.

During the second day, the choir got to sit on the balcony during the sermon, so we don't hear all echos like we were back on the stage the previous night, which was very hard to make out anything we heard.

A few notes of Dr. Tong's quotes:

1. 1-3pm Saturday workshop at my church: Dr. Tong shared the recent response to Steven Hawkings' claim that God did not create the universe by saying, God created a man who said God did not create the universe. Everyone applauded.

2. Martin Luther: Faith is the acceptance of acceptance.

Nearing the end, Dr. Tong showed slide show of his Indonesian church, but again, the choir has gotten onto the stage getting ready to sing the last piece "Hallelujah". A guy behind me kept sighing because he missed the show (we cannot see the slide show because the projection screen was set in front of us facing the audience) as Dr. Stephen Tong explained his church's architecture: "these are twelve apostles", "the height of this structure here is 66 feet because the Bible has 66 books", etc. I tried to calm him down by telling him that this is the sacrifice of our servitude.

I'll stop here now, for I am tired now and need to wrap up the youth's Sunday School class for tomorrow.