Lessons from a broken chair

On Tuesday, I was sitting on my chair at home. On several occassion I heard a funny sound, perhaps a cracking kind of sound, for several times. I ignored the sound and didn't think of it at all. The time came for me to sit on the chair one last time. I sat on it and the chair broke and gave away completely sending me to the floor with some pain on my buttock.

As I went down I screamed a little bit because of the surprise/shock. Lean Choo was in the house but she ignored me for awhile. After some time she came and told me that she wasn't sure whether it was for real for whether I was just acting, hix, hix.

I learnt some lessons from this "broken chair" incident.

1. Do not ignore warnings

The chair gave me warnings but I ignored it to my own peril.

At times we tend to ignore the warnings of life as well. These warnings can come from God, others, circumstances or our own conscience. If we do this we are doing this to our own peril.

“Anyone with ears to hear must listen to the Spirit and understand what he is saying to the churches." (Revelation 2:17a - NLT)

2. Appearance can be deceiving

Prior to Tuesday I had never imagined that this kind of chair can ever collapse. But appearance can be deceiving. In life, we must look deeper than appearance. There is nothing wrong with good appearance by itself. But is there substance behind the appearance?

Appearance can be deceiving. What looks good is not necessarily good. The opposite is also true.

"There is a way that seems right to a man, but in the end it leads to death." (Proverbs 14:12 - NIV)

3. Credibility is earned through integrity

I like acting. Nowadays, I do not have much opportunity to act though. However, when I was with Lean Choo I would act from time to time. As such, when the incident happened she didn't know whether I was acting or whether it was for real.

It is just like the story of a boy who cries out "tiger" when there is none. When there is a real tiger and he cries out for help people think that he is fooling around again.

Indeed, credibility is earned through integrity. People would believe in your testimony if you have been consistent and honest in your words and deeds. :)

Does it mean that I have to stop acting? :)

4. It is important to feel secure in life

I know what my wife was thinking of when she saw the incident. She thought that I was heavy. That's why the chair gave way.

But I know that that's not true. The incident had nothing to do with my weight. :) Definitely, it was the chair's fault, not mine.

Good thing that I was secure. I wasn't affected by what Lean Choo thought of me. Praise God, he he.


One broken chair and four life lessons to learn. I guess I can now lay the chair to rest in peace for it has served its purpose and more.

Our Young Overseas Graduates and Internationals Ministry

Under the large umbrella of Young Adults ministry we have in our midst our Young Overseas Graduates and Internationals Ministry. Currently, this group is of the size of a large care group which is going to birth a new care group soon. Presently, the beautiful people in this group include those from Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia and Hongkong and those who studied abroad in places such as Melbourne, Perth and London.

The purposes of this group and ministry is two-fold. Firstly, it is to assist believing young overseas grads and internationals to transit or adjust back to life in Singapore and to working life. Secondly, it is to reach out to their pre-believing friends especially those with of similar background as them.

Three Sundays ago (9 Sep) after service we had our very first Returnee Party. This party was a party on behalf of Hope Singapore to welcome some returnees to our church. Returnees can be defined as those who are moving from one Hope Church to another or those moving from one country to another. We really had a lot of fun together. Members of this group and ministry are really warm and fun loving people.

Besides an informal and fun time, good food and warm fellowship we had the honour of Ps Jeff sharing some words to encourage the returnees. We closed the party by giving Ps Jeff supposedly surprise birthday celebration. Unfortunately, he was too experienced for us to be able to surprise him. We will try again next time. :)

Here is one photo from the party:

Zynne is one of the sisters in the group and ministry. The people in the group love her very much. After spending some months in Singapore she is going to move to Adelaide very soon to work there. Though we are going to miss her a lot we know that God is going to use her to be a blessing there. She is going to join Hope Adelaide and she is going to be our representative there, introducing Hope Singapore and our ministry to the people there.

Zynne....................................................With CN & Christine

Perhaps this is a glimpse of what is to come. People coming in and going out from and to many parts of the world. I believe that this group and ministry will contribute significantly to world missions in the days to come.

I thank God for CN and Christine for leading the group and ministry well. I thank God for every single person in this group and ministry as well. May God continue to add to this group and expand their influence to the furthest parts of the world.

To those who are outside the group and the ministry you can truly help by praying for them and introducing your young overseas grads and international to them. On behalf of them I thank you much in advance. :)

He confirms...

This year God has been speaking to me a particular word. Interestingly, this word has been repeated by different people through different prophecies in different times in different places (even continents). Indeed, our God is a very consistent God. And to me it feels great to find God speaking to me about the same thing again and again. It gives me assurance that indeed this is what God wants to do in and through my life.

In the ministry front, in the beginning of the year we developed the following acronym:

Faith

Resilient Love

Urban Discipleship

Inspired Outreach

Tarrying in Prayer

CULTURE

This acroynm represents what we feel collectively as AG4 leadership on God's prophetic direction for us for the year 2007.

In our recent church anniversary celebration God used Ps PN's message to bring some assurance in my heart that He indeed wants us to grow our faith and prayer life.

Ps PN's message was about faith. Abraham against all odds believed and became a father of many nations. Indeed, we need to keep believing in God's promises and sovereignty rather than in the magnitude of our challenges. When I look at the accounts of the Gospel I see faith as one huge factor whether somebody is going to receive their miracle.

The testimony of how Hope Bangkok started the church was also shared. During that time they had prayer meeting weekly. God spoke to them and they interceded according to the revelation received. The result was that the church saw God's divine favour upon them week after week. I really believe that many times we really undermine the power of prayer and intercession. We tend to overly rely on our hard work and skills. And when we pray we tend to pray instant prayers instead of labouring in prayers and listening to the Holy Spirit on what we should pray and intercede.

I really believe that as we serve God dilligently, develop our skills and rely on Him fully we will see mighty breakthroughs in our lives and ministries.

Thank you Lord for confirming your prophetic direction again and again. Help us to continue run this race with faith, prayers and great perseverance for we know that our labours shall never be in vain and that the best is yet to come. Amen!

A Fascinating Video Clip

I just discovered some days ago that I could actually upload a video clip onto my blog.

That's great news. You see, I have in my posession a fascinating video clip.

Some things in life are worthy to be immortalised. In my humble opinion, this video clip is one of them.

The stars of this fascinating video production are Charmaine, Lisa, Esther and the wonderfully tame cheetah. Where am I? Well, somebody must sacrifice to make this clip possible. :)

The moral of the story?

One of them must be that missions and fun can indeed go hand in hand. :)

The Olympia Ultimatum

The Olympia Ultimatum is our 2nd YA event of the year.

Talking about young adults recently a thought came to me about the existence of three types of young adults in our community. They are simply single y (y), double y (yy) and triple y (yyy). Y people are people like me, those who are in the third division. YY people are those who are in their mid and late twenties. YYY people are those who are in their late teens and early twenties. The common thread? All of us are young adults! Yes! :)

Back to the event. It's so good to see mostly YYY people running the event last Saturday, 01 Sep. May they continue to do more for the Kingdom in the days to come!

The event was meant to start at 2pm. At 2pm+ it rained very heavily. But people prayed and the rain stopped completely around 15 minutes later. We ended being blessed by a cool weather for our event. Praise the Lord!

The event was very interactive and entertaining. Those who were there enjoyed themselves a lot. The game shows we watched on TV or YouTube shifted venue to East Coast Park. Our young adults' creative sparks, enthusiasm, laughters, intelligence and athleticism coloured East Coast Park that fateful Saturday afternoon.

I want to thank Clarence Tan and his team for putting up a very good event for all of us. I have to also mentioned Desmond Lee, the advisor to the committee, one of the YY people involved in the organisation of the event. Guys and gals, if you are reading this, "Good job. Keep up the good work."

Some friends did join us for the event and they enjoyed it. One of them came for service the next day and rededicated his life to the One who loves him a lot.

Below are some photos of the event, courtesy of Lay Lay and her camera.

Enjoy!