The Art of Mentoring

Started reading this as we were starting to mentor the younger leaders in our church. Challenges you.

Anger, Handling A Powerful Emotion in a Healthy Way.

Anger originates in the perception that something is wrong and that this sense of morality finds its root in the fact that we are created int eh image of a God who is holy and has established moral code for the good of  His creatures. Anger is not evil; anger is not a part of our fallen nature; anger is not Satan at work in our lives. Quite the contrary, Anger is evidence that we are made in God's image; it demonstrates that we still have some concern for justice and righteousness in spite of our fallen estate. It reveals our concern for rightness, justice and fairness.

I Was Just Wondering

I think one of the main reasons why I like Philip Yancey is because he distills some of the greater writings into palatable bite size nuggets of enlightenment There was a phase when i was so inspired by his description of certain classical writers that I bought the original books- it didn't help that I was in the States and books were really cheap off amazon. But 2 years later and counting, I have not managed to finish a single book with many 'given up halfway' attempts in between.

This book is a collection of his thoughts as he reads and observes the different phenomenon around him. Its kinda like a collection of blog posts arranged in loose themes. I love his writings because they juxtapose the reality of the world with God and show that they actually complement, unlike popular belief that they are always in conflict. I don't mean that the values of the world and God are in sync, but the distortions and beauty that we see around us are shadows of what the bible says. Its like how the old testament foreshadows Jesus, the world and the human experience foreshadows a greater being and realm. And in doing so, he strips away the jargon and the the hypocrisy to offer a new perspective.

The Me I Want to Be

Young Adult's Cell group material July 2011- current

Your Life is God's project, not yours.

The Me I want to be, not should be.

1 John 1:9

1 John 1:9

⁹ If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousnes

This is not meant for the believer. 

Only Paul was chosen to speak to gentiles and he wrote 3/4 of the new testament. Nowhere in his books is there mention to confess our sins. If confession was so important, he would have wrote about it somewhere.

Destined to Reign

This was my summary ( refer to post below). It is not written in nice prose but rather sentences that spoke to me- characteristic of all the other summaries in this blog. 

What's So Amazing about Grace.

This was actually written by David Lim at a time when I was trying to come to terms with  Joseph Prince's message of grace. For the unfamiliar, David actually attended New Creation church for about 2 years and the pastor there has a different take on the message and its application. And I needed intellectually to resolve the two interpretations before I can move on ( poor boy? haha).  So we decided to read two different interpretations of grace.. one by Philip Yancey who I'm familiar with and Pastor Prince's book on ' Destined to reign'. We then summarised a book each and shared it with each other. And they actually meet in many parts of their argument. Maybe I would do a similarities and differences one day when i reread these summaries written more than 2 years ago.

It was a long hard struggle of questioning before I came to some sort of resolution. I must thank David Chan also because he had a heart to share Ps. Prince message with us and loved enough to debate endlessly with me despite me being emotionally involved. And more importantly, he has a clear idea of why he believes what he believes which helped my understanding at the end. yup, i think i came away with a clearer idea of what grace is, something which i think is paramount! especially if you grow up with the image of a stern God. You should run to God more when you're darn dirty rather than wait till you're clean. okay enjoy reading if you decide to.