Internet Addiction and Disorder

Here is a presentation on internet addiction by Dr. Alex Tang a re Known Malaysian Christian author and blogger. What he presented here is informative. In a way, it reminded me to check myself in case I fall into the trap. Hope you can learn from his presentation.

I have asked Dr. Alex Tang's permission to put it here.

Internet Addiction and Disorder on Prezi

The Difference Prayer Makes

Personally, I feel that prayer does make a difference in our life and what we may want to do. Recently, our Church completed a very successful Alpha course, and some of our guests came to know Christ as their personal Savior. I believed that this result was from our Church's prayers well before the start of this course. Literally the hands of God moved for us. Praise God!

Read this article by Philip Yancey ( Daily Bread )

Does prayer have any real impact on our world? Or is it merely a private conversation with God?

When a New Jersey couple learned that a man had been released from prison and had moved into their area, they started praying for him. Then they paid him a visit and opened their home to a weekly breakfast for ex-offenders like him. Now, 22 years later, the area’s most despised men have one place to go where they are welcomed and treated respectfully.

What would happen if we followed literally Jesus’ command to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us? What if we became known for approaching heaven on behalf of outcasts and disagreeable people?

In a scene recorded in the book of Revelation, the apostle John foresees a direct linkage between the visible and invisible worlds. At a climactic moment in history, heaven is quiet. Seven angels stand with seven trumpets, waiting. Silence reigns, as if all heaven is listening on tiptoe. Then an angel collects the prayers of God’s people on earth—all the accumulated prayers of praise, lament, abandonment, despair, petition—mixes them with incense, and presents them before the throne of God (8:1-4). The silence finally breaks when the fragrant prayers are hurled down to earth: setting off a storm of “thunderings, lightnings, and an earthquake” (v.5).

The message is clear. The prayers are essential agents in the final victory over evil, suffering, and death.

God’s work is done by those who pray.

Listen to this song written by a Malaysian Pastor Ng Wah Lok. This song is sung regularly in Malaysian Churches. Enjoy it.

Alpha Celebration 24th Oct 2010

On Sunday 24th Oct 2010, our Church celebrated the completion of the very first Alpha course conducted by our Church. Thanks to all committee members as well as the elders of our Church, the course was successfully completed. We also thank Alpha Malaysia, especially Bro Foo Lai Wei and his team for helping us. Praise God! After more than 10 weeks of the course this celebration is most appropriate and meaningful especially when we see lives touched by Jesus. It is all about Him! Hallelujah!

Our Bro elder Tung Hui said it was by divine appointment that Sis Cynthia from Alpha Malaysia was in Kuching yesterday. She was invited to our celebration and we were honored that she could give out the gifts to our guests who diligently attended the whole course.

To celebrate this auspicious event, our worship team sang a few popular songs. The trainee teachers from Batu Lintang Teachers Training College present three songs, our members presented line dancing, our youth Aaron break dancing to thunderous applause of the audience, our youth also made a presentation of teaching from the Bible. We can see people appreciated the presentations.

Two teacher trainees shared their testimonies. A Chinese student from Swimburne University also shared his hilarious testimony. He found God in Kuching! Hallelujah!

All in all about 260 people turned up for this celebration. This was the work of God. We thank our Lord Jesus for this opportunity. Our Church look forward to the next Alpha course.

Pastor Norbert Knoell

On Sunday, our Church had the privilege of having Pastor Norbert Knoell from Germany. He pastor a church is Nuremberg called "The Father's House. Simon his youth pastor came with him. About 18 years ago Pastor Norbert went to Kalimantan on a mission to the Dayak people there, and he still holds special memories about his trip. After his visit here in Kuching, he will be going to Kalimantan, Indonesia.

Before, Pastor Norbert came, his church members, a couple Wolfgang and Heidi had been visiting our church. Together with Pastor Norbert they will travel to Kalimantan on mission. Wolfgang and Heidi had been on mission in Kalimantan for several years now.

Isaiah 61:1-4

Pastor Norbert preached on the above verses on Sunday. He had there main points:
1. Spirit of the sovereign Lord.
2. Sending.
3. Service.

At the end of his preaching, Pastor Norbert called those who which to serve the church to go forward to be prayed for. He and youth pastor Simon prayed for our church members.

Note: above picture is a part of Nuremberg city.

Crystal Cathedral Mega Church is Bankrupt

The recent financial crisis not only hit secular businesses but also churches like Crystal Cathedral Church, California.

Foundered by Robert Schuller who wrote a popular book "Tough times never last, but tough people do."

Here is the report :

GARDEN GROVE, Calif. – Crystal Cathedral, the megachurch birthplace of the televangelist show "Hour of Power," filed for bankruptcy Monday in Southern California after struggling to emerge from debt that exceeds $43 million.

In addition to a $36 million mortgage, the Orange County-based church owes $7.5 million to several hundred vendors for services ranging from advertising to the use of live animals in Easter and Christmas services.

The church had been negotiating a repayment plan with vendors, but several filed lawsuits seeking quicker payment, which prompted a coalition formed by creditors to fall apart.

"Tough times never last, every storm comes to an end. Right now, people need to hear that message more than ever," Sheila Schuller Coleman, the Cathedral's senior pastor and daughter of the founder, told reporters outside the worship hall decked with a soaring glass spire.

Read more here:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20101018/ap_on_re_us/us_crystal_cathedral;_ylt=ArP2k0F0Q22xQPn91hCSsrR0fNdF

What Are Your Kingdom Priorities ?

Talking about priorities, especially Kingdom priorities, it is very challenging for many people when you have everything you needed. In this modern world, most of us have more than what we need. Of course in many other parts of the world they do not e.g many places in third world countries. Recently popular Christian writer Philip Yancey wrote that it is very hard to be a Christian in the US when you have all you needed. In a way, most Malaysians have most of their needs met. In fact, Malaysians are over eating and diabetes is on the rise.

God says "seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you" (Matt. 6:33)

Read this article from Chrisma magazine :

When your priorities are out of order your life is filled with confusion.

My first word of counsel to every leader is drawn from biblical wisdom—"seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you" (Matt. 6:33). When a person's priorities are out of order, his life will be filled with confusion and God's given purpose will not be fulfilled.

Confirm your status as a citizen of the kingdom of God by acknowledging His authority over your time, talents, opportunities and treasures. When seeking the kingdom of God and His righteousness is top priority, you will be able to experience faithfulness as a steward of God's blessings.

Second, "trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your paths" (Prov. 3:5-6). It is essential for servant leaders in the kingdom to maintain an ongoing, intimate relationship of trust and obedience to God. Challenging situations tempt us to lean upon our own understanding. Always remember that God has promised to be with us at all times and that He delights in our acknowledging and trusting in Him. The kingdom is His kingdom, and we belong to Him; we are God's responsibility.

God's call to ministry is a call to preparation. It is not a call to success, but a call to faithfulness.

Bishop George McKinney is pastor of St. Stephen's Cathedral Church of God in Christ in San Diego and a member of the denomination's 12-member General Board.

Sunday Service 17th Oct 2010

Pre-service Prayer - Praise God! Hallelujah! We had about 20 members who came to the prayer meeting this morning. Praise God that more and more members are coming to pray. Prayers are powerful, it is the lifeblood of a Christian. All are encouraged to come.

Conflict with the pharisees - Clean vs, unclean Mark
7:1-23

Bro. Malcolm shared on the above topic this morning. Praise God for this Bro. who is dedicated and knows the Word very well and he also can explain in easy to understand language. Our Church is blessed with brothers like him.

The pharisees took issue with Jesus because his disciples did not wash their hands before eating. This was after the feeding of the 5,000 , but Jesus saw their physical needs more than ceremonial washing. Jesus rebuked the pharisees saying that they were following man's tradition instead of God's commands. He said instead of honoring their fathers and mothers as instructed by God, they placed giving of an offering (Corban Mark 6:11)a higher priority than honoring their mothers and fathers. Jesus said that nothing from outside of a man can make him unclean, but what comes out of him that can make him unclean. Because what goes in his mouth goes to the stomach and not his heart. From man's heart comes evil thoughts, sexual immorality,theft,murder. adultery, envy, slander, arrogance and folly.

This is valuable lesson for us Christians, as to distinguish between what is clean and unclean. More so our priorities as too the things of God verses traditions.

If you want to watch a video go to :http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KEsCso2Qnrk&p=DC4B70ECB8672FB6&playnext=1&index=8 ( embedding disabled by you tube)

Alpha Course - Session 10

Yesterday evening, our Church had our last session of Alpha that was session 10 "What about Church?". Nicky Gumbel shared about the necessity of being in Church. As Christians we have to relate to others otherwise we may lose our faith.

Next Sunday, 24th Oct we are going to celebrate the completion of the first Alpha course conducted by our Church. We pray that our next Alpha course will be attended by many guests.

In Everything Give Thanks

18give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus.
1 Thessolonians 5:18

I came across an article in our national newspaper, The Star today about Tan Sri Francis Yeoh winning the Oslo Business for Peace award 2010 together with six other outstanding individual around the world.

Francis is the MD of YTL Corporation a conglomerate involved in infrastures, communication,and others around the world.

When contacted he said "I thank the Lord for this and give Him all the honour and credit..". It is such an encouragement to others. Francis usually uphold the name of the Lord and glorify Him in all situation, and he is not afraid to thank God even when interviewed on national TV in Malaysia. ( Majority of Malaysians are Muslim). He is also an encouragement to many Christian businessmen to be forthcoming and to be righteous in their business dealings.

If I am not mistaken, Francis's younger brother and sister in law are instrumental in setting up of Alpha Malaysia National office in Kuala Lumpur. Alpha is impacting many lives in Malaysia now. Last April, the pioneer of Alpha Nicky Gumbel and his team from London came to Kuching to conduct an international Alpha conference attended by about 1300 people.

Praise God for the many Christians who are willing to sacrifice for Jesus!

Watch this video starting 2:50 he talks about his Christian faith.

Life Is Like A Cup Of Coffee

Once, a brother in Church shared about this story of life is like a cup of coffee. Here is the video, very inspirational.

What Good Is God?

This is the title of the latest book by popular Christian writer Philip Yancey. He has written books like "Where is God when it hurts?", "Prayer does it make any difference?" and many more. His books are always interesting. He approaches subjects like a journalist rather than a theologian. This book is not available in our country yet. Certainly I will get it when it is here.

From an interview he gave to Christianity Today, he presents the question at hand like most people would. Certainly we can identify with such question especially when we go through difficulties. Indeed, where is God when we need Him? Yancey recalled a man saying he has no problem believing in God, but "What is God good for?" he asked.

Doubting is not necessary bad, as Yancey showed in many of his books. As we walk with Jesus, there will be times when we doubt, but this can be good for our faith in God.

Yancey also said it is a lot harder to have faith in places like America where you have all you need, and everyday you are bombarded with advertisements of what you should eat, wear and so on. Rather than all these things we should be thinking "How are we coming across to God?". In a way, Malaysian lifestyles seem to be similar to the Americans as we progresses economically. Yancey added that it is hardest to be a Christian in country like prosperous America. Similarly, it seem to be difficult in developed and prosperous countries. Economically Malaysians are getting better off from a generation ago, I pray that many will not lose their faith in the Almighty God. In Him we have abundant lives.

Watch this video.

Stop Complaining

Recently a friend sent me a similar pictures via email. Here is the slid show.

Count our blessings instead of complaining.

Philippian 2:14-15 "Do everything without complaining or arguing, 15so that you may become blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a crooked and depraved generation, in which you shine like stars in the universe."

Sunday Service 10.10.10

Today is special, at least to many couples who have chosen to get married on this day so that they have no problem remembering their anniversary! 10th Oct, 2010!

For it is a good day to worship the Lord! Praise Him for His love and for His faithfulness!

Praise God that we are witnessing people coming forth in our Church. Today we had a new worship leader, a Sis., a Bro.praying for the offering who had not done it before, as well as another Bro. conducting Lord's Supper, he had not done it before too. We are thankful to God for His grace and mercy. Also thank Him for raising many in our Church to make a difference. Praise God!

This morning Pastor Richard preached a sermon entitled "Care and Concern", Mark 6:30-56. The main story was feeding of the 5,000 people there. The story taught about physical rest - when Jesus called His disciples to go away to rest, about needing food - giving food to he 5,000, about speding quality time with His disciples, and also about possibilities of God - with God feeding 5,000 with 5 loaves and 5 fishes was possible. Let us trust our God.

Alpha Course - week 9

On Friday evening our Church had our week 9 Alpha course - Does God heal today? Instead of discussion after watch the DVD talk by Nicky Gumbel we had a time of ministering to each other. Those who had prayer requests were prayed for.

We are coming to an end of the Alpha course -classic and we are preparing the Celebration evening on 24th Oct. All preparations are under way. Our younger members had helped to design an invitation card to be used to invite guests to this celebration. (See the picture of the card, it is a carton character from the Star fish video).

Senior Alpha Training

On 5th to 6th Oct, I attended a training course for Alpha Senior in Kota Kinabalu hosted by Basel Christian Church of Malaysia (BCCM). Bro. Thomas Wong organized this training. Trainers from Alpha Malaysia were Bro, Jack, Sis. Vicky and Bro. Chai Yi. All together there were 17 participants on the first evening, but some could not make it the next day. It was encouraging that 6 of the participants were from the Catholic Church, Secret Heart.

The course was meant for participants who will lead Senior Alpha course that is aimed at people above 50s. I volunteered to be a Senior Alpha Adviser for Sarawak so I have to attend this course. It has been helpful to know the difference between Classic Alpha and Senior Alpha. The course materials are shortened and it is to be conducted in a relax manner so that the older participants can follow.

BCCM Elder Bro. Yin Leung and Sis Margaret had been generous to open their home for our stay in Kota Kinabalu. A big thank you to them. Also not forgetting Bro, Thomas and Bro Chong who ferried us around in a van. Thank you brothers!

By the grace of God, we had Bro Wee from Johore who happened to pass by to gave us an updates of the Senior Alpha he just conducted in Johore, and how lives were changed.

After the course Bro. Thomas and Bro. Chong gave us a short tour of Kota Kinabalu. We had a taste of Nexus Resort about 40 minutes drive from Kota Kinabalu.

Senior Alpha

The Alpha program is divided into various categories to cater to the diverse group of people. There is Alpha Classic, Alpha Workplace, Alpha Marriage, Alpha Prison and Alpha Senior.

A few months ago, Bro. Jack from Alpha National Office was in Kuching with some members to conduct Alpha training in our Church, and he approached me to assist as a coordinator for Alpha Senior here in Kuching. I accepted it as I was already helping our Church with the Alpha Classic program. It is still running currently. For the next two days I will be attending a training for trainers sessions in Kota Kinabalu, Sabah.

Alpha is a fantastic tool for evangelizing because it is a structured program carried as team effort. You probably can image how difficult it is to do individual evangelizing because first you must be well verse with the Bible, second you need the time to talk to the person you are helping, and thirdly usually following up with this person is challenging for Alpha, friends and guests come to an agreed place at appointed time willingly otherwise they will not attend in the first place. Together as a team we let expert like Nicky Gumbel share the Gospel - The Good News. We in FBC is blessed, because our leadership decided to do this on Church basis rather than on Life Group(cell) level.

So I will be away for the next two days, Looking forward to the training and fellowship with our brothers and sisters in Kota Kinabalu.

You all have a blessed week a head. May God be with you in all you do.

The God Who Changes Lives

Recently Alpha Singapore published a book entitle "The God Who Changes Lives" featuring testimonies of peoples' lives changed by God. This is exciting as our Church is also conducting the Alpha course. Indeed, it is an effective evangelistic tool to win souls for Christ. We also have experienced many coming to Christ through this course. Many out there are hungry for God, just that many do not have the avenue to learn about Jesus and be touched by the Holy Spirit.

Alpha Singapore said “Alpha is exploding in Asia,” said Ms Alice Richardson. She updates the main Alpha office in London on developments in the region. “It seems to be God’s timing in Asia; what He’s doing in Asia is remarkable.” Last year, there were 2 million Alpha Courses worldwide, and 950,000 of those, almost half, took place in Asia.

Richardson, 31, went on to highlight how in the last four years, the number of Alpha Courses running in India has increased to nearly 10,000. That figure is a quarter of the total number of courses running worldwide, she pointed out.

“There’s (sic) a real need and a hunger out there for meaning and purpose in life,” said Richardson. “We’re inundated with requests to train people to run the Alpha Course, to do live talks.”

In Singapore, the Alpha Course is currently being run by a total of over 70 churches. Many churches which run The Alpha Course double in size as a result of the course. This is because the Alpha Course encourages commitment to a local church.

Similarly in Sarawak, Malaysia more and more churches are conducting the Alpha course. In Kuching, one of the pioneer church to conduct it is the Catholic Church. In April 2010, Nick Gumbel came to Kuching to conduct an international Alpha Conference successfully attended by about 2500 people from many parts of the world. This conference was organized by Ms Perpetua Pang of the local Catholic Church.

Sunday Service 3rd Oct 2010

This morning at the pre-service prayer meeting, Brother Malcolm shared about prayer and he refered to the Book of Nehemiah. Nehemiah prayed before he asked King Artaxerxes to allowed him to go back to Jerusalem to rebuild the wall. He trusted God in prayers, and we should do the same before we do anything be it talking to our colleagues, friends, superiors of subordinate. It is important to pray.

This is the beginning of a new month of October, our Church will have our monthly prayer meeting. I pray many will come to pray, Amen.

Cost of Mission - Mark 6:1-29

This was the title of Pastor Richard's sermon. To spread the gospel cost money as well as lives. Even in Jesus' time, He and His disciples had to sacrifice tremendously to bring the good news to the people. Jesus was dispised in his own home town. A prophet was without honor in his own home (Mark 6:4). People doubted Jesus. Jesus also instructed his disciples not to bring any money when they went out on mission, they had to depend on the generosity of the people, so that was great sacrifice for them too.

Jesus spoke about John the Baptist,how he was persecuted and beheaded. He wanted to show His disciples that they will face persecution if they follow Him.

Pastor Richard also shown some modern day pastors, and lay people who lay down their lives for Christ. He described meeting a lady by the name of Majorie who spent 10 years of her life in the jungle of Borneo with the Penan in the 50s. That was great sacrifice, in those days one has to travelled by walking many hours to reach Penan village. By grace Pastor Richard who is also a missionary to the Penan met Majorie and was able to share with her news of the mission, and also Penans people whom they mutually know.

Mission is costly, yet we are instructed to be salt and light to the unreached.

The plight of Penans living in Sarawak, Borneo. Watch their story.

Alpha Course Session 8

On Friday evening, our Church had our Session 8 of Alpha - Why and How Should I Tell Others? The lessons from Nicky Gumbel was very useful. There are five methods, a)presence b) persuasin c)proclamation d)power and e)prayer.

We had Navine, a Swineburne University student leading worship. He received the Holy Spirit in our weekend away about two weeks ago. Now he led worship, Praise God!

Watch a video of Navine

From Alpha Course 1st Oct 2010

We also had a student from China also studying in Swineburne University giving his life to Jesus on Friday evening. Glory to God!

Every Time I Pray

This worship song was wriiten by Ng Wah Lok, a Malaysian Pastor and song writer. Since this song was published in 1981, it has been sang widely in many Malaysian churches.

Enjoy it. God bless.