Inreach

We're all to familiar with outreach. We set forth to welcome people who are not believers, people who are against Christianity, people who are interested, people who are falling out of faith, people who are in need and any other persons who hasn't known Christ yet. Carrying the same meaning, we have an array of reason for outreach such as spreading the Good News, spreading the Gospel, bringing glory to God, offering redemption and salvation from sin, preparing people for His second coming, demonstrating God's amazing grace, living out our faith, showering people with God's love and so on.

A certain experience I had this week though made me realize there is another kind of reaching going on here, on campus. It's what I'd call inreach. There are many churches around campus and there are many Christian focused campus organizations whose outreach sometime crosses over to inreach. This is where they reach out to believers belonging to other Christian groups or Churches. I believe their reasons are primarily comparative such as we have better activities, we're more fun, we're more friendly, we know the Bible better, out pastor is so awesome.

For me, this is sad. I grew up with a Catholic mom and a Methodist father. The first Church I attended was a Catholic Church. Then we went to a Charismatic Church, after that I went to a Brethren Church and had a short experience with the Revival movement. Infact, I've never failed to hear a sermon or remark from the pastor or elders elders in the Church about why they're the right way, the better way and it doesn't end without mudslinging at other denominations, particularly Catholicism. It is by far the reason my mom has given up on attending Church anymore.

The reason I'm writing this is because Intervarisity, as a non-denominational Christian focused campus organization will surely be filled by everyone from different background of faith and theological understanding. And surely we will encounter other Christians groups who may be denominational and have other differences with us, both small and big. Just a couple of weeks ago, we affirmed our believe in the Trinity, that Jesus is really God and also fully man at the same time. This is a position not held by all the people who call themselves Christians though. In fact, I can't be sure either that everyone who was at the Bible study session held that view either. In light of this, have you ever thought about your position when you're face with inreach, whether in within AIV or between other groups on campus? Have you anticipated the challenge being a leader in a non-denominational group may bring? When there exist a conflict between the truth you're convicted of, the interest of the group and the truth the person in front of your holds, what might be our action? And most importantly, internally, in our prayers, both in private and corporately, who are we willing to pray for and what are we willing to pray for.

Prayer Meeting On Saturday

I was prepared to pray alone actually but I expected at least a few people to come. I also didn't know how a prayer meeting goes, so my plan was just to keep praying the whole hour. Around 11:10 I got a call from Sara telling me she can't get into the building. So a problem with having the prayer meeting in East Hall on Saturday is all the doors except the "staff" door is locked and I assume no one else in AIV knows about the side door. So probably we'll have it at a different location next week.

So me and Sara prayed for out summer activities, NSO, the start of fall, preparing the hearts of the upcoming leaders, IVLI, the progress of AIV, the presence of God on campus, the recent disasters around the world, the end of the world mania, the seniors who have graduated and Jordan's baptism. We ended the prayer session asking God's to help us start by working ourselves for all the things that we prayer for and not laze back just because we know God's in control.

There are some specific things you might want to include in your prayers, namely;

For the 3 people going to IVLI, Jodi, Mark and guess what, Jerry is going too. So Sara is following all of them there. I don't want to be waking up at 7:30 for a month and coming humble and under the teachers and leaders at IVLI. So I'm guess it might grow into a struggle for them and umm IVLI is suppose to be something done with a burning passion and not a struggling heart no? So let's pray that they'll have strength and support through out IVLI.

There are quite a number of us whose families aren't Christian they will be going back for summer holidays at one point or another. Pray for their families. God hears us and only the people whom God calls to him can come to him. Let God hear our desperate cries for their families to be saved too! Time is ticking.

Pray for Joyce to get well. I think she'll still on the wheelchair and I don't know if her bones set well so she can't walk normally without needing to go for a major surgery.

Pray for the potlucks and Bible studies we have everyweek. We've got great leaders, great cooks and great jokers. We get to praise God together, study the scripture and have great fun.

And finally don't neglect to pray for yourselves. I don't know about you, but I often do that whenever I make a prayer list.

Sunday

Hi how is everybody? I haven't heard anything about Kelli and I saw Jodi come online facebook yesterday and posted a few pictures. Church was great today and guess what, my friend that we prayed for on Monday came to Church today. So please praise the Lord in your prayers tonight and pray for her continuous presence. Also thank God for having such wonderfully welcoming ladies at Knox. Sara, Grace, Tiffany, Stephanie and Christina did a great job at making her feel at ease and they even invited her over for something at Motherland after Church. And so when you guys get back, even before NSO, there might be another AIVer! Keep praying. Jodi, Kelli take care. Caleb uh, don't overeat in Taiwan. Jimmy I thought you were supposed to be in AA?

Happy Day?

'tis a happy day!


Jordan says he's decided to be baptized soon in the near future! Praise God!
But do I feel joyful? 


"In the same way, I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents."  - John 15:10


Now I realize there are many factors that could contribute to my apparent apathy (sounds harsh, but I can't think of another word :( ). For Jordan's prayer request, he asked us to pray for his baptism that he planned on going through with and that he would have peace about it because of his parents' disapproval. I have never asked Jordan for how he came to know Christ, but I remember someone telling me that Stephanie Chang had spoken to Jordan about the Gospel and that was his first repentance. I don't know much from there, but I feel that I should be so happy for Jordan! But...I didn't realize that I didn't even process what Jordan said until after our prayer was over and Jason asked all of us, "Hey can I pray for Jordan? I want to pray for his baptism". So we all put our heads down (I know I was happy to hear Jason say that) and Jason began to pray for Jordan. And I just kept thinking during his prayer, 'Did I not hear that Jordan is getting baptized?! What was I thinking?!' I feel that sometimes, we as members in the fellowship, focus so hard on trying to evangelize, we forget that some of our consistent members are new believers. Our in-reach only goes to so far as, "Oh you're going to SG, LG, DPM, and church on Sundays? Good, good everything sounds good." Do we forget the powerful transformation of the Gospel that leads people to repent and what Jesus' salvation leads us to? Do we forget about the new believers that we have in our fellowship and do we realize the role we play on campus to further God's campus? That we, just normal college kids, are affecting other people's lives; that we, as average students trying to get by in life, are altering the course of people's lives as they go through this university? If Stephanie had not spoken to Jordan, what would he be involved with now? No idea, but LOOK at where Jordan is today! And I'm just using Jordan as an example, I'm not focusing specifically on his situation. We should CELEBRATE when we hear him say, "I want to be baptized". What does that mean?! He has repented and he wants to live a NEW life, washed clean of his sin and living purely in light of God's righteousness! LOOK at the work that we're doing here people. Isn't it exciting?! What sort of feeling do you get knowing that YOU, possibly YOU, are altering someone's life forever just by representing Christ, stepping out of your comfort zone once, and speaking through the Holy Spirit about God's gift of salvation? Can you believe that God would use us...US to be a part of how He is furthering His kingdom? I'm kind of ranting now with my thoughts so I'm going to return to Jordan's baptism. 


Let us celebrate. Let us rejoice! When a new believer comes to know Christ and repents and desires to be baptized, let's celebrate! You might ask why I brought this up? Because (from what I remember), the only reaction that I heard/saw when Jordan said he wanted to be baptized was, "oh cool" (and Jason's prayer afterwards). And that my friends...reflects the sign of apathy in our hearts. I'm not saying let's break out into gospel singing and dancing every time someone says they've decided to repent of their sins; no, but I want us to look inward and ask ourselves how much we care about furthering God's kingdom and how much we care about our fellow brothers and sisters. Let's ask ourselves...what are we really trying to do here? Where's our heart placed? 


Speaking of gospel singing...:

I LOVE this song :) Love me some gospel choir singing haha tell me what you feel when you get to 1:35 ;) hahahahaha

PS. I promise to not post in spurts from now on :( lol 

Prayer Meeting: Thoughts

I have a couple thoughts after leading the prayer meeting this morning (or after whenever I post this).


8AM is early. Go figure. It's not like I'm not used to it; I get up for 8AM lab every Tuesday and Thursday. No, I don't think the tiredness gets to me until I'm in the middle of prayer trying to focus on words to pray in accordance to God's will. Which didn't happen.


I grabbed my backpack and guitar and stepped out into the rain. My thoughts as I was walking? Who will come? To be frank (and Diane knows this), since Diane was the only one I was pushing to come and she had not answered my three phone calls before I left, I was bracing myself to be strumming my guitar in the open, empty hall of the Math Atrium. Lo and behold, the only person that came was.... Diane! Thank you for coming :)


That changed things a little bit. I had forgotten to remind everyone to bring a Bible in an email for prayer meetings because it would help with the nature of how I wanted the meeting to go (but luckily Diane brought hers anyway). I had scheduled the prayer meeting to go for two hours in the morning because I knew it would be hard for people come at 8, but at the same time I wanted to leave the option open for people who had to get up early for work or class to be able to come in and be a part of the meeting. This is what I'm saying when I say, "Are we doing everything we can to make it easy for people to come?" 8AM Mark? That's not easy at all. Well simply put, I'm quite selfish and my schedule would go 8AM/10AM-9PM most weekdays if I were to schedule prayer meetings at night. Waking up at 8AM is also disciplining me for IVLI since wake up is at 7:15AM on cedar campus (everyday)... But otherwise, that is why we scheduled a second prayer meeting for Saturdays at 10AM-12PM (or 11AM-12PM) so that anyone can make it out to that (except Kelli Strong :P). 


So having only Diane there meant we could discuss verses that we were reading for our QT while we were there. I started off by saying that I want to do a theme of Psalms for worship. I love the nature of the lyrics that David writes for his worship. Many times we hold back a lot of our emotions when we pray to God because we feel that we don't think it's right to ask God for such selfish requests. David thinks otherwise. One verse that I read recently was Psalm 6:5 - "Among the dead no one proclaims your name. Who praises you from the grave?" Before this verse, David sings, "Turn, O Lord, and deliver me. Save me with your unfailing love!" for God to save him from his enemies. He is basically saying, "Look God, save me from my enemies. If you want me to praise you, how can I do that if I'm dead?" I think David's nature in Psalms reflects what a believer's worship should feel like. There is an intimacy in his words, an acknowledgement of the Creator and King, and there is a closeness felt with his Savior. Although we might not be able to relate to some of his Psalms (stop me if you yourself have been attacked by neighboring nations and your enemies have closed in on you), we are still able to see how David prays and how he worships. 


I have not dived too deep into Psalms before, but I plan on reading it constantly everyday (and IVLI's morning devos are in Psalms! Yuhss!). I want to explore how David prayed and how David worshipped God and I feel that using our prayer meeting to go through some Scripture is an excellent way to do it. Our worship can be done using many of Psalms' lyrics because artists today write songs that come from Psalms! Hopefully this study in Psalms during prayer meetings will be fruitful for our chapter's prayer culture. 

David and his harp.

I plan on not leading the Saturday meetings, so you guys can lead however you want! I know I will be going through Psalms on Wednesday mornings and the praying will be pretty free, but Saturday meetings can run like this past year's DPMs. That's all I got for now....

Hope all is well! 

PS. David isn't our character that we're studying. We still need to choose one. Any suggestions?

PPS. I will hopefully have selected a book by the end of memorial weekend! 

Fasting - Desperate Seeking of God's Will

Ah yes...the famed topic of fasting. Let us begin! 

What is fasting?

Fasting is intentionally witholding or abstaining from a certain material, usually food. Fasting serves many purposes, many of which we will look at through examples in the Bible:

-Fasting in sorrow. Because you are extremely grieved for other people or for a particular situation, you fast because you are mourning and you desire for God to take away the reason for that sorrow. Nehemiah 1:4

-Fasting in desperation. When David's son was on the sickbed, David fasted for three days in hopes of changing God's will to save his son's life. We see here that fasting is a way to communicate to God our desperation for His power to work. 2 Samuel 12:16-17

-Fasting in preparation for the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. Matthew 9:13-17. Mourning = fasting = missing Jesus' Presence. How much would the disciples miss the presence of Jesus after He ascended?

-Fasting for God's discernment. Acts 14:23

"My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness" 

- 2 Corinthians 12:9

When we fast, we are weak. No food = no energy. Our physical state is weakened because there is no physical energy to sustain us. We desire for God's power to be fully exemplified and glorified in our lives; therefore, we desire to set ourselves in that posture of weakness. With a lifestyle of fasting, we are posturing our lives to be weak so that God's power is made perfect in our life. This is why we choose to live a lifestyle of fasting; so God's power is constantly being perfected in our lives. This is also why fasting transforms the heart, for if God's power is constantly working in your life, over time, your heart will be like steel, hardened and willing to give up that which increases the Father in our lives; your spirit strong with the nearness that God brings when you distance yourself from physical, worldly things. 

In your moments of fasting, you don't just abstain from food and go about your day. Whenever a character in the Bible is fasting, it is always coupled with prayer. What is about fasting that intensifies the request that we make to God? Why was it that David fasted and prayed instead of just praying to God that God would save his son? As I mentioned earlier in the bullet about "fasting in desperation", David fasted so that God could see his desperation for His power to be at work. When David's son passes away, David gets up and goes and starts eating again (2 Samuel 12:18-22). I love David's mindset here because it really depicts his desperation; he did everything he could to try and persuade God's will. In the same way, when we have that prayer request that we so desperately want answered, do we, as individuals or as a fellowship, do everything on our side to allow God's power to work? How badly do we want our prayers to be answered? Are we desperate for God hand to work?

Another thing to note is fasting for God's discernment as we see in Acts 14:23. I feel like fasting is our way to try and listen to God's will and to try and sense how His Spirit is trying to move and work in our lives. More on heightened spirituality in physical weakness in two paragraphs. 

In our posture of weakness, there is something that happens behind what the eye can see. Something about weakening the physical state of your body strengthens the spiritual state of your mind. Wes Martin, a pastor at IHOP, spoke about the "Great Exchange". When we fast, we are weak and in that state of physical distress, our spirit is crying out to our Father for sustenance. You are saying, "God I will abstain from eating food, in order so that I free up time to spend more time with you, in order so that your power can be perfected in me, and in order for you to transform me into a more humble and willing servant." Truly, I say to you all, when you fast and you pray, over time, you will, indeed, develop a closeness with God. I am actually not one to really say if that's true; that came from Wes Martin lol. He says, "Don't observe the fruits of fasting until a decade later." Fasting is a trial of patience, patience for God's power to transform you over time; it's a lifelong process. 

Here is just a thought: When Jesus fasted for 40 days and 40 nights, He became extremely weak, but became spiritually strong and sound. Jesus fasts while He is in the wild and then He is tempted by Satan, but refuses Satan's offer for all the glories of the world. There is some implication here that Jesus' fasting heightened His spiritual sensation of God's will (I mean, I know He's God, but He is like-minded with God while He is being tempted) to resist Satan. Thoughts. 


Here is the link for the IHOP sermon on fasting. When you get to the website, click on the "Messages" tab and scroll down to the message titled, "The Great Exchange - Wes Martin", dated 12/30/10: 

http://www.ihop.org/Publisher/Article.aspx?ID=1000098570

*there are other sermons, too, if you want to check them out. They are interesting, if not thought-provoking, so I encourage you to check them out when you have time. 

Fasting, I believe, also changes your heart to be more gracious. Primarily of food, of course, but I am sure over time, you will develop a heart of acknowledging the grace of God. This is why fasting works; we don't only eat food for sustenance, but we eat because it is GOOD. And when you sit down to break fast and you're sitting there with your meal waiting in front of you and pray a prayer of thanksgiving to God, you PRAY a prayer of thanksgiving to God. Fasting creates a genuine spirit of graciousness. Ever wonder why God calls us in Phillipians 4:6 to do "everything by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving"? After fasting, thanksgiving seems to overflow into all parts of your life. 

Another principle of fasting is brought up in Matthew 6:16-18. Don't complain when you fast. Don't show it while you're doing it. Why? For all the reasons I stated above. You would completely contradict the reason why you're fasting in the first place. Besides, God promises a reward in heaven for the things you do in secret (which is great, but I think the former reason is more important for a better mindset). 

One other point that many have used Matthew 6:16 for. They interpret "When you fast" as a command; Jesus gives you no choice, it is implied that you are already living a lifestyle of fasting. Of course, while I say it's a command, we know that there are people with limitations that exclude them from needing to fast (people with eating disorders and pregnancy I should think, are two that come to mind). And the whole purpose of this blog post anyways is to get all the reasons for why we should be fasting down in writing. 

And what of corporate fasts? What does fasting corporately accomplish? I believe it aligns with why we pray corporately: when two or more gather and bring their request to God, God will answer that prayer (Matthew 18:19-20). In the same light, when two more gather and desperately bring their requests to God, God will definitely answer that prayer. And simply put, I believe fasting corporately brings the community together in a God-centered way. We, as a fellowship, are enduring this physical hardship together and because no meals free up time to pray, we would pray together (to pray for the topic of why we are fasting). And that I believe, is solid reason enough to fast corporately. 

And lastly, fasting for preparation for the return of Jesus, the Messiah. I do not know too much of the Second Coming (personally, I feel like I haven't looked into it enough to make any claims or to take any stance yet), but what I do know for sure is that Jesus is returning and we better not only ready ourselves, but also intercede that the rest of the world be ready also. Wes Martin delves deeper into the Word, interpreting Matthew 9:13-17. Jesus says himself that His disciples will begin fasting when He leaves them. Martin associates that with the longing and mourning for the absence of Jesus' presence. He says, "When your spouse passes away, or a family member, or close friend passes away, you mourn because you long for their presence; you miss their presence." And so he compares that to Jesus' statement of the disciples mourning for His presence when He leaves (described in the bridegroom comparison in v.15). We fast because we long for Jesus' presence. 

So where does this leave us? Right now, I encourage all of you to pick ONE day of the week to fast. I understand it's a jump to go from eating every meal to missing one whole day of the week. But I believe we can do it, and not only just do it, but do it good and do it until it merges with our lifestyle. Personally, I feel like missing one day of eating is easier to do in college because our sleep/eating schedules are sorta screwed up so I hope that is some encouragement to you.

And for the chapter? I had mentioned during CFW that I wanted to do corporate fasting during (or up until) NSO. We have several ways we can do this. We can pick a week and have everyone fast one meal on each of those days (or fast all day and eat when the sun goes down) and be in constant prayer as a chapter. We could also have a schedule and have people sign up for one day out of like 40 days to fast and pray for NSO (Caleb's idea). That way, there is at least one person in the chapter fasting and praying for NSO during the span of 40 days. Comment and let's discuss what you think! 

That's all I have for fasting. You're a champ for reading this entire blogpost. I was going to post pictures of food, but dangling food in front of people fasting is like a stumbling block. We don't do that to each other :) And I'm just keepin' this post reverent and righteously real haha. 

Thanks for reading!

Crossed Shaped Discipleship

So I have set spiritual goals for myself this summer and one them actually started yesterday when I met up with my accountability partner! She encouraged me to listen to sermons from the Apostle Church and I decided that I wanted to try to listen to one everyday [Mark, apparently you recommended it to her]

Anyways, listened to my first one today and it was quite good .. just decided to share some thoughts... or what the sermon was about.

The basic gist of the sermon was that as a true discipler of Jesus, you do not purely pursue glory. Instead you must endure a life of suffering and love unto God for the good of others. A life of service, life of humility, life of love before you can experience glory.

The disciplers of Jesus initially failed at this. In Mark 10, even after Jesus told them how he was going to die, they asked Jesus how they could become recognized, how they could gain higher status, basically they wanted glory.

So how does it look for us to become true disciplers of Christ?

Crucification was actually the most humiliating way to get punished. Romans didn't even allow their citizens to die on the cross because of how shameful it was!

So the speaker talked about how our discipleship is not a glory discipleship but a crucified discipleship. Jesus calls us death of our reputation and death of control. Basically death to ourselvers. We are to have faith that when we die, we know that He will raise us up from the dead. So He commands us to take up the cross and follow Him. We are always trying to make ourselves look good. But we have a calling to lose our former life. After that, we can truly live.

What does it mean to lose our life?

It's giving up our control over everything and letting God handle it. It humbling ourselves and living a life full of humility. And it's definitely not easy. But it wasn't easy for Jesus to die on the cross for us either.

I mean, personally, it's hard for me to be completely faithful. I mean I can be faithful and trust in God. But sometimes it's hard to give complete control to God to humble myself in His presence. Most of the time I want to do things by myself and most of the time I want to do it my way. But God always has a way to humble me and bring me back. But regardless, what would it look like to completely give my life up to God. It's so much harder said then done. But I hope as the days go by and I spend more time with God that I can truly take up the cross and die and be transformed. Like legit, put full trust in Him and that He will provide.

My friend once said, you know with your mind that you should trust in God but do you know with your heart?

bahaha I don't know if this post makes sense. butttt heres the link to the sermons! I listened to the most recent one and I am going to make my way down. You can download them onto itunes or use the podcast tool!

http://www.apostlesnyc.com/sermonsort/sermon-month/5-2011/

kk peace out girlscouts!

The Start of Something New

Here we go! Post #1


The start of the summer has ushered in a time where God has given us to rest and prepare for the upcoming school year. There is no doubt that there is much work to be done and many things to anticipate, but we are tackling each day one at a time, slowly pushing for the goal. 


I hope all of us will be able use this blog to its fullest potential. The hope is that it is our medium of connection and our way of staying connected with each other and our way of communicating thoughts to each other; it is a place of processing. 


So why did I pick "Illuminations and Revelations" as the blog name? If you had opened up the document that I had sent out a few weeks ago about Leadership Day, the first part of the document discussed the definition of prayer. I used John Piper's definition of prayer:


"Prayer is intentionally conveying a message to God"


Piper asked, "Why don't you just call it communicating to God?" And he replied to his own question by saying that "communicating" sounds like God responding to us with the same method of communication: prayer. The Bible never says that God prays back to us, only we pray to God; it is our one way of communication to Him. God doesn't pray to us, we call it "illumination and revelation". So I thought it was a fitting name to put how God may be "illuminating" our lives as we process His "revelations" on this blog. 


I strongly encourage all of you to post at least once a week. These posts can include anything from interesting readings in QTs, ideas or suggestions for prayer next year, thoughts on a book we're reading, or just daily insights that you have. 


Just a couple of reminders that I had mentioned in the email:
-Tag your posts!
-Post pictures and videos!
-Save the blog on your bookmarks toolbar so you have an easier time accessing it! 


So on a leaving note....


I've always had a small man crush on zac efron...:

no judging :)


anyways, when I think of awesome encouragement when being sent out to further God's kingdom, I think of this guy:

It's not really related, but this guy really knows how to give a pep talk haha.


Here's another great one: 


300 Final Scene - Call To Battle


could not get the video to work...




Until next time!