6/21/2025 It seems like R. took my advice to do a Q&A during the Men's Fellowship instead of just only a full lecture. Turned out well even though R could only seem to ask the same question "What can you be thankful for" in the beginning and at the end. People were talking. Phil enjoyed it. The topic was on thanksgiving. I got distracted a bit and did my own deep thought contrasting real thanks and the fake thanks in Jesus' parable on the Pharisees and the Tax Collector. Then Rob reminded me of my "debate" with Ben a few days ago. It would seem that Rob was trying to defend both Ben and Bruce, by asking me, why is this important? I wasn't able to respond way at the time, as I just answered "by painting a very broad stroke, this shows that both Ben and Bruce are irresponsible." I should also add, that a narrower stroke would be, had I not mistaken what Ben & Bruce were implying, then, based on their logic: Ben would be saying that the Japanese people are basically uneducated (for not able to have an opinion about Japanese's awareness of Christianity in general), and Bruce is a fraud (for claiming to known French and yet not recognizing the existence of accents in any language). If they were too young or inexperience, then I really cannot see them as missionaries, but just some sort of assistants who couldn't pass the basics. Should I even doubt their confession? Their faith? Perhaps I should. Perhaps my questions for these from now on would be: are there any locals or converts under your "ministry" aspired to be in the ministry, to become a preacher, full/part time minister, missionary, etc.? How zealous are they? Do you have to warn them the hardship that it comes with or does it not matter?
Later that they, we paid a visit to Rob and Maria's home along with Joy and R & E, to comfort her in remembrance of her mother's passing. According to Nadia, this visit was first suggested by Joy, who was applying Romans 12:15 rightly.
Then when Nadia pointed to how I "debated" with Vincent and thus missed the Sunday service, Eleni tried to confirm with me at the table that I love debates. I think she meant well. But I wasn't prepared enough to answer her better, instead, I said "It's not really the debate, but I just wanted to get to the truth of things." What I should have said, is "Depending on the context of the debate, if it's with church members, then the goal was to initiate true and faithful fellowship before the Lord. If it's with those who think debate is immoral and proud (like Gene, I suppose), then I could use the "get to the truth" answer. I find that dealing with Eleni is beneficial with my English improvement, it's just that I often times couldn't give accurate sound bite answers at the time.
6/19/2025 Just came across these AR (Augmented Reality) smart swim goggles via Facebook ads. Holoswim.com vs. Formswim.com. Holoswim has better classic feature (peripherals and prescriptions-but only up to -7.0D) while Formswim is more expensive but has better AR technology (no need to press a button each lap, can show heart rate, etc.) per the youtube review below. I would sacrifice the prescription need and pick formswim's goggles. But since both could only link to apple/Garmin watches, I'd rather wait.
Either way, will need to monitor how I swim like before when the Holmdel LA Fitness was still around to improve myself:
Reflecting back: sermons, pastors, that I've encountered, the clip (Stephen Tong on Suffering - Hebrews 5) below reminds me of something I should have noted in my journal but may not have done so. It was about my disagreement against certain view of the so called "God's blessings" with some pastor getting a blank check by a wealthy church member for church planting, or some testimony about a $90k check given to an evangelist out of no where to kick start his ministry, some church leaders love to play the role of "introducers" connecting those who wish to serve the Lord with rich or famous people (in Christendom), etc. As if as long as it's not robbing a bank, anything with money is always God's blessings. Such is a weak understanding of Biblical suffering. Without Suffering, you cannot truly give thanks to God. Therefore, I not only look down on these ministers (despite giving them the honor they deserve of their title), I find their philanthropists even more despicable. For these are those who have too much money not knowing what to do with it, instead of those who are experiencing God's blessed work through whom they are giving to to show appreciation and as a sign of acknowledging the quality of the work done.
6/15/2025 In principle, I don't work with frauds in missionary fields. I don't generally take gospel-supporting too seriously, because simply put, they are just supporting, not Gospel-centered. Therefore, I could easily say to any church, including our Grace church, that I support your support of "missionaries". I put missionaries in quotes because I find most of them are bordering fraudulence as real missionaries. Some of their version of mission work is simply sitting at a coffee shop waiting for people to talk to. Today, we have Ben Shimomura, the second time I see him and his wife presenting their work during Sunday School hour. As expected, I wasn't impressed.
I later tried to confirm with him after service, something he said in the morning, about how foreign Japanese saw Christianity. I wasn't sure what he meant by that. As his answers seem vague sometimes to someone else's questions. It would seem that he didn't believe in judging a culture, or just being ridiculously ignorant as a missionary: "I don't work in China so I don't know what their view of Christianity is like" - not even some general clue? really? Sounds like he's influenced by the Western post-modern Christian/Charismatic "don't judge" christian culture.
So when I asked if Japanese was aware of the existence of Christianity, it seems that he thought I was asking if Japanese understood Christianity very well, and thus he said no. I tried various attempts to clarify but it seemed to hit a dead end: I asked, don't majority of Japanese do weddings in churches, his reply was, a church is just an European inanimate building, which has nothing to do with Christianity. Seemed that he was implying that I don't understand Christianity from that point on, which has nothing to do with my question.
Ben's not the worst. The worst on the list of "missionaries" here would probably be Bruce (I think that's his name), some guy who supposedly done mission work in South of France and Morocco. Said that he learned French for his work field. But when I asked if he could tell different French accents (i.e. African vs. France, etc.) he told me that French is a unique language that there cannot be accents in French. I was so shocked that I had to check with my French speaking friends on FB to confirm that he was lying, weeks later. It should be a no brainer, but I wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt that he can't be that stupid or that much of a fraud. Not questioning his own French language (not yet anyway), but his understanding of how the world works.
Perhaps they both (B & B) hold to a perverse post-modern "judge not" interpretation of Matthew 7. "You've got to do a poll before you say anything about those people", "no such thing as an opinion without doing an official poll first", "I cannot tell you about anything places I've never been", "you need experience to say anything about it", etc.
Of course, both Bruce and Ben could simply misunderstood what I said. Which would be my fault. Although, I highly doubt I could say these any more plain. So in short, one says there's no accent in the French language; and the other says the majority of people in Japan are not aware of the existence of a religion called Christianity. Apropos of that, I would for now consider the "callings" of these two questionable if not fraudulence. I would think the London one (Barry Schutter) as such from just the word "London", but he's proven to be most legit among all I've seen. Woe is a church that has money not knowing where to spend. This concludes why when Rob asked, I refused to join the mission's team. I can play ball, but I would highly question their callings. It would seem more like they couldn't find other jobs in life, and this is an easy way out, to be a "missionary".
Now, onto Pastor Chris' sermon. It's on Acts 6. I find myself having to correct a couple of his messages in my notes:
Pastor: Why do I go to church? "Because I want God"
Me: To be with the children of God. "Because I want God" is just shallow and vague. You want God, go read the Bible.
Pastor: Why do people come to church? "For discipleship, through relationships (one introducing another to church)"
Me: That's conflating evangelism with going to church. Also, this answer can fail horribly as it's possible for the blind leading the blind (the greater the number, the greater the shame). The pastor could take his own medicine on this as he love to quote "You attract people to what you attract them with". Why do people come to church? Because they see the presence of God in the church.
I've also started practicing revising his questions for discussion and self reflection in the bulletin, since last week. To improve myself in correcting confusing questions and statements. These I will not post here for now, as they are trivial.