I DREAM OF A CHURCH

I was thinking. When Jesus was on earth, He was irresistible. People flocked to Him, Children loved Him, the sick wanted to be near him. Jesus was Irresistible.

I believe that the Church, being Jesus' Body and him the head, has to reflect that same irresistibility on earth.

As I look at our Church today and honestly ask myself -
IS OUR CATHOLIC CHURCH IRRESISTIBLE? Are we reflecting who Jesus is? Are people flocking to church? Or do they can't wait to get out of there?

I believe change is needed. The worlds needs the Church. But they will not darken the doors of the church if we continue to be what we are. Already we see an Exodus of our own young people out of our church.

I believe a generation of Spirit-Filled Catholics can make a change. We are the Future of the Church. What we are is what the church will be in the Future.

That is why I dare to say...


I DREAM OF A CHURCH ...


I dream of a church in the future that is Irresistible.


I dream of a church where everyone is passionately satisfied by Jesus and are filled with the Holy Spirit.


I dream of a church where every man, woman and child would rush in every Sunday. An environment so irresistible, there is no better place to be.


I dream of a church that is relevant to culture. That sees culture not as a foe but as a friend, not as friction, but traction for the Gospel of Jesus Christ.


I dream of a church where people are real. Where perfection is not expected and grace is extended. Where we warm hearts and not pews. Where we are friends and not strangers.


I dream of a church where joy, not just knowledge, is the measure of faith.


I dream of a church where clergy and laity are equal, even partners.


I dream of a church where the Word of God meets Real Life. Where what is heard on Sunday can be used on Monday.


I dream of a church where the presence of the Lord is tangible and the joy of the peoples contagious.


I dream of a church where there are signs and wonders, healings and miracles, prophecies and deliverances.


I dream of a church that doesn't just have small groups but will be of small groups. Where people live shared lives and care for one another.


I dream of a church where character is the measure of maturity. Where people fear the Holiness of God, love Righteousness and do justice.


I dream of a church where every person discover their purpose and is released into ministry.
Where everyone is released to be everywhere.


I dream of a church that is irresistible to the lost, the hurting, the broken and the skeptic.


I dream of a church that is bold and dangerous enough to capture the imagination of the leaders, achievers, the artistic and the intellectuals of our society.


I dream of a church that change lives, impacts society, blesses the nation and touches the world practically with the Love and the Spirit of God



How?

We need to see a rising generation of radically God-Centered Catholics whose passion for Jesus will ellipses the pervious generations.

Students and young people so sold-out to the Kingdom and so broken for lives who do not yet know Him that they are willing to risks all. A people of great resolve to prudently challenge the present and forge a framework of a Future Church that will be able to speak in the culture in the most effective way possible. These people go on to establish communities and ministries that will embody the very blueprint of the future.

An Irresistible Church - as Jesus was when He was on earth.

It can happen. The Dream can become Reality. We have to start now.

One Generation. That's all it takes.

The Irresistible Church.

The BEST is yet to be.

Catholic Junior College Retreat

Amplify together with many other ministries are combining forces this weekend to minister to 220 students of Catholic Junior Collge. The theme is "Mosaic - Art In Me". This theme was chosen to represent the fragmentation and brokeness of our lives. Yet in the Hands of God can become something beautiful.

We will be helping the students examine the different aspect of our lives - Self, Friendships, Family, Church and Purpose. Please pray for us, the participants and the service team- that God's anointing with pour down and many many lives will be changed for His Glory!

It going to be awesome!

Leo

The Purpose of Life: His Glory


Last Friday I (Leo) gave a session at Amplify Fridays on the Glory of God. Frankly, if I could only give one sharing for the rest of my life, that would be it. I showed from scripture, how God's chief purpose of creating and governing the world is to display His glory. And we, as creations of God, the purpose of our lives is to glorify God.

Now, what then does it mean to say that God created us for his glory? Glory is a very hard thing to define. It is like the word "Beauty." We all can use it and communicate with it but to try to reduce it to words is very frustrating. It is easier to point to examples. A sunset seen from the top of the Blue Mountains- that's glory. A perfect performance on the balance beam by Nadia Comaneci—that's glory.

The glory of God is the beauty and excellence of his manifold perfections. It is an attempt to put into words what God is like in his magnificence and purity. It refers to his infinite and overflowing fullness of all that is good. The term might focus on his different attributes from time to time—like his power and wisdom and mercy and justice—because each one is indeed awesome and beautiful in its magnitude and quality. But in general God's glory is the perfect harmony of all his attributes into one infinitely beautiful and personal being.

So God's chief purpose for everything is to display who He is.


Now for some of us, this is a very disturbing thought. That God lives and does everything for his own glory. Say if I tell you that I live for the glory of myself, you would tell me that I have a major issue. So if its wrong for me to seek glory for myself, how could it be right for God to do so?

And the reason why we think this is because for many of us, our concept of God is that He is just a little more bigger than us. Or that like Cheryl Crow puts it, 'like a stranger on the bus, trying to make his way home.' So if its wrong for us to seek our own glory, it should also be wrong for God too.

But it is not so. Because God is God and we are not. Consider this quote:


"Now, if it right for men to have the Glory of God as his goal, can it be wrong for God to have the same goal? If man can have no higher purpose than God's Glory, how can God?

If it is wrong for man to seek a lesser end than this. It will be wrong for God too. The reason it cannot be right for man to live for himself as if he were God its because he is not God. However it cannot be wrong for God to seek His own Glory simply because He is God."

- A.W. Tozer



And because God seeks to display His own Glory, He created everything in the heavens and the earth. He created Man, in his image and likeness to reflect His glory in a way no other creature can. But Man turned away from his created purpose, betrayed God and chose to glorify themselves instead

But God, bent on His glory, sent His only Son into the history to suffer and die for the very people who betrayed Him- us. In so doing, leveraged our sins for His Glory, namely His unbelievable love and goodness. See, when a King die for his subjects, its says more about the King than it does the subjects.


This shows very clearly that our very existence is for the Glory of God. That in the end, God will get what He created us for. Either we will glorify Him as Loving Father and Savior by our total trust and reliance on Him in this life and next. Or we will glorify Him as Righteous Judge when we refuse, and are sentenced to pay the penalty of our rebellion against a Holy God in the fires of hell.

Either way, God will have His glory. The question is by which way would my life glorify God? This is what we will all need to ask and answer all our days, in every choice, every circumstances, every season, every relationship of our lives. How will I glorify God in this?

For this is the our purpose. And our choice.




"Today I put before you Life and Death... choose Life that you may live!"
Deut 30:19



Leo

Turning the World on its head.


There are certain truths in the universe that when discovered have the potential to turn the world upside down..or rather right side up. For example:

1. The Earth is not flat. You cannot fall off the side of the earth like coming to the end of a table.

2. The Earth is not the centre of the universe. It revolves around the sun. Not the other way. The first guy who discovered that - Cop got into a whole lot of trouble as a result of it.

3. God does not exist for me. I am not the centre of the universe.

4. God exist for Himself. God is the Centre of the universe.


Living in the 21st Century, Pt 1 and 2 are of course, already well established facts. Pt 1 makes perfect sense when you look out at sea and you can see a horizon- your line of sight doesn't go on forever, read - the earth is a sphere. If there were any more doubts, space travels of this century would have effectively put that theory (as well as pt 2) into the casket, said our final farewells and burnt in the fires of intellectual hell. Still there are some people in the world especially from the Flat Earth Society who are totally convinced that this is all a huge conspiracy theory and they meet once a year to revel in their preservation of the 'Truth'.

Well, being Singaporean, if my science text books says it lound, its lound. I believe.


However Pt 3 and Pt 4 - 'God does not exist for me', 'God exist for Himself' are real hard one to swallow. It took me years to finally come to an acceptance of this fact of reality. Consider this:

"But I had concern for My holy name, which the house of Israel had profaned among the nations where they went. Therefore, say to the house of Israel, "Thus says the Lord God, 'It is not for your sake, O house of Israel, that I am about to act, but for My holy name, which you have profaned among the nations where you went. And I will vindicate the holiness of My great name which has been profaned among the nations, which you have profaned in their midst" Ezk 36.


What God is saying here is that He is about to act for the sake of His own reputation which His own people whom He had entrusted it with had totally ruin before the eyes of the other nations. Incidentally earlier in Isaiah, He had already told them that the reason why He created them in the first place was 'for His glory.' (Isa 43:1-7) That was why Israel was precious to God - He made them for Himself.

But this doesn't just apply to Israel, it applies to all of God's Creation. Including you and me. It's all about Him. God created everything for His Glory.

Now, I don't know about you. But that is hard to shallow.

I think one of the reasons it is hard to accept this Biblical reality for us modern, secular people is that the Biblical mindset and the secular mindset move from radically different starting points.

What I mean by the secular mindset is not necessarily a mindset that rules God out or denies in principle that the Bible is true. It's a mindset that begins with man as the basic given reality in the universe. All of its thinking starts with the assumption that man has basic rights and basic needs and basic expectations. Then the secular mind moves out from this center and interprets the world, with man and his rights and needs as the measure of all things.

What the secular mindset sees as problems are seen as problems because of how things fit or don't fit with the center – man and his rights and needs and expectations. And what this mindset sees as successes are seen as successes because they fit with man and his rights and needs and expectations.

This is the mindset we were born with and that our secular society reinforces virtually every hour of the day in our lives. The Apostle Paul calls this mindset "the mind that is set on the flesh" (Romans. 8:6-7), and says that it is the way the "natural person" thinks (1 Corinthians 2:14, literal translation). It is so much a part of us that we hardly even know it's there. We just take it for granted – until it collides with another mindset, namely the one in the Bible.

The Biblical mindset is not simply one that includes God somewhere in the universe and says that the Bible is true. The Biblical mindset begins with a radically different starting point, namely, God. God is the basic given reality in the universe. He was there before we were in existence – or before anything was in existence. He is simply the most absolute reality.
And so the Biblical mindset starts with the assumption that God is the center of reality. All thinking starts with the assumption that God has basic rights as the Creator of all things. He has goals that fit with his nature and perfect character. Then the Biblical mindset moves out from this center and interprets the world, with God and his rights and goals as the measure of all things.

What the Biblical mindset sees as basic problems in the universe are usually not the same problems that the secular mindset sees. The reason for this is that what makes a problem is not, first, that something doesn't fit the rights and needs of man, but that it doesn't fit the rights and goals of God. If you start with man and his rights and wants, rather than starting with the Creator and his rights and goals, the problems you see in the universe will be very different.

Is the basic riddle of the universe how to preserve man's rights and solve his problems (say, the right of self-determination, and the problem of suffering)? Or is the basic riddle of the universe how an infinitely worthy God in complete freedom can display the full range of his perfections – what Paul calls the "riches of his glory" (Romans 9:23) – his holiness and power and wisdom and justice and wrath and goodness and truth and grace?

How you answer that question will profoundly affect the way you understand the central event of human history – the death of Jesus, the Son of God. It will affect your view of Life and all human events around us.

In fact, it will turn your entire world on its head.

There is still much to say about this. But I'll just end here for this entry. If you are reading this, I want to encourage you to think about. I will be giving a session tonight, 13 oct at Amplify Fridays about this. Do come down or leave a comment and join in the conversation.

God Bless,

Leo

I Hated Life

There was something missing in my life.

I couldn't explain it but deep in me there is a whisper that haunts the moments when I am alone and quiet - "that is more." Like Neo in the first Matrix Movie, there is a foreboding sense of 'things are not as it should be.'

I am not where I should be. I sense a defect, a dsyfunction, a brokenness, a defeat, a distance in my life that I can't place a finger on. All I know it I would like to be better. So I went on a search.

I searched within myself, I enquired about my past, I seeked in hope for my future. From self-help books, to motivational ideas, building my self-esteem by repeating phrases that should make me feel powerful to improving my physical appearance, being ambitious and hanging out with the right crowd resulted, in the words of U2 - "I still haven't found what I was looking for".

"Therefore I hated life because the work that was done under the sun was distressing to me, for all is vanity and grasping for the wind." Ecc 2:17


Then one day, it occured to be that maybe I am searching in all the wrong places. That maybe my probelm is that I have been looking at me from the wrong end. Maybe my search should begin somewhere else. Then one day, I learnt something that changed everything. I came across this quote by A W Tozer-

"The most important thing about me is what comes to my mind when I think about God."


hmmm. I stopped. Could that be my problem? Till then, I thought that "the most important thing about me is what comes to my mind when I think about me." - my esteem, my self-images, my circumstances, my upbringing. Yet this quote left me thinking in a different train of thought.

I begin to think about my perspections of God. That led me to uncover some really sterotypes I have of Him which I realised were more of less impressions of people superimposed on him. Apprently God made me in His image and likeness and I kinda returned Him the favor. And I have entertained these impressions of Him as distant, moody, unhappy, judgemental and doughing out favors from time to time.

Then I realised it kinda makes sense. What I think about God determines how I respond to Life. If I see God as I did, distant, moody, judgemental etc..then I would approach life with caution, expecting things to go wrong as some sort of 'punishment' or walk about with the need to prove myself through performance.

If I saw God as Great, Loving, Wise, Powerful, wouldn't I then live with more trust, hope, risk and confidence? If I respond to what life throws at me out of the storehouse of my own life, I am inadequate. (which explains why I've screwed up thus far..) But If I respond out the storehouse of God's sufficiency... huh! then things would be vastly different!

So I realised that I need to let go of my wrong perceptions of God. I learnt that the Right view of God is to see Him as a Perfect Father - Kind, Compassionate, Forgiving, generous, disciplines, encouraging, protective, providing, guiding, wise and unconditional in His love. I realised that God loves me as His child and I'm beginning to grasp what that means - more than embracing a philsophy to life, or being a member of a church. Its a Relationship.

A Relationship with a very unique slant and very intriguing possibilties.

I think I will give it a try. I have nothing to loose. It doesn't start with me. It starts with God. And slowly..


And I hate it no more.




Leo

Creating Belonging

"Now you are no longer strangers to God and foreigners to heaven, but you are members of God's very own family...and you belong in God's household with every other christian."
Eph 2:19


Last night, a couple of leaders from Amplify met at a coffeeshop at Boat quay for dinner, proceeded to Burger King for an hour and then ended up at Macdonalds for another hour. Incidentally, we met to discuss on developing a plan to help new people feel belong in Amplify. We were talking about assimilation.

Assimilation is the task of moving people from an awareness of Amplify, to attendance at our weekly prayer meets to active membership in Amplify. Outsiders talk about 'that community of Amplify". Seekers and Attenders talk about 'this community of Amplify' but a Partner talks about "Our Community of Amplify". They are contributors, not just consumers.

C.S Lewis wrote an essay once on the word 'membership'. He reminds us that the word is of Christian Origin. But today, that word has been taken by the world and emptied of all its original meaning. now it means having your name on some roll, or paying dues or keeping silly rules to secret handshakes. St Paul, however had a very different view of membership. To him, being a member is not some cold inducement into an institution. But rather it meant being a vital organ of a living Body.

We need to take this images seriously. Any organ detached from the body will not only miss what it was created to be, it will also shrivel up and die quickly. It is the same for Catholics or Christians that are left out of a community.

Now, the incoperation of members into Amplify does not happen automatically. It we don't have a system and a structure to assimilate and keep the people we reach, they won't stay in our community. We will have as many people going out the back door of our community as are coming in the front door.

I think we have being in Ministry long enough to know that having a God Experience at YISS doesn't mean that we've closed the deal, and now its up to the new believer to follow up with his commitment and join a community. Often than not, baby believers don't know what they need. It is our responsibility to take them by the hand, and take the initiative in assimilating new people into the community. Thus the reason for the 5 levels of commitment in Amplify. (Incidentally, the night before, another group of Amplifers met to see how we can start cell groups in the East, West and Central of Singapore.)

I believe that when God want to deliver a generation of young people passionate for Him, he looks for the warmest incubator he can find. I believe that communities who make new member assimilation a priority and have a plan for doing it are usually blessed with growth. Conversely, those who don't have a plan, or are haphazard about - don't grow.


So the problem we met to solve is this:

We are haphazard about membership and creating belonging in Amplify.

1. We have many 'floating members'. It is difficult to determine who is a partner of Amplify.

2. It is unclear as to how a new person become a Partner of Amplify.

3. There are no stated requirements or expectations of a Partner that separates from a Attender.

4. There are insufficient or haphazard channels of internal communication and care in Amplify

5. Therefore, our backdoor is as wide open as our front.


We came up with a couple of suggestions on solving this problem. Having a Membership Class, a membership covenant, cell groups, clear channels of applications, commissioning ceremonies etc. This are just some of the initial ideas. If you have any pls feel free to drop a comment.

Essentially, we do this because we know the difference it makes being a vital part of a community. Our own lives have changed so much as a result of it. Let's gather to give those whom God send our way that same opportunity.

"We need to start caring." - Don Macus

Leo

Over the next two weeks, I'll be speaking at Amplify's Fridays. I am especially excited over this topic that I will be covering which will be about God's Glory which is essentially the sum of His attributes.

Nothing fires me up more than speaking about God. Not the 'stuff' about Christianity or the 'Christian life', or moral, ethicical issues, but just pure unadulturated GOD. Who HE is, not just what He can do for us. If our last series was God + Life, this series could be called God Minus Everything.

There are Three reasons why I'll be teaching on God and His Attributes.

Reason 1: Worship rises and falls on our perception of God.
How we see God is the way we will respond to Him. One of the biggest problems in the church today in my opinion is that many Catholics do not see God as great as He is. There is really little other reasons why there is so much indifference. If we see God as He is, like Peter and Isaiah, our only respond will be awe, white hot wonderment not to mentioned Repentance and Trust.

Also God calls us to worship Him in Truth- who GOD really is.


Reason 2: Our view of God determines how we respond to Life
The most important thing about us is what we think about when we think about God. That perception will determine how we respond to all of life. No person or nation has ever risen above their view of God.

Think about it. Whatever our idea of God is - policeman, a Judge, Loving Father, or a faraway deity, it will affect the way we interprate and respond to life.


Reason 3: Beholding is Becoming
I firmly believe that the Christian life is the fruit of a mind and heart that is transformed by savouring God in all His fullness. "As we with unveiled faces beholding His glory are being changed from glory to glory." - beholding is becoming. It is impossible to keep our moral practices sound and our inward attitudes right while our idea of God is erroneous or inadequate. Nothing affects the moral life of a person more than to behold the true holiness of God.



So you can see why I am especially passionate about this topic. This week I will be unpacking Romans 11:33-36 and next week Philippians 2:6-11, verse by verse and word by word. Not only am I interested in uncovering God's Attributes but also how it relates with the way we live our life which is really the whole point.

So If you are interested, I invite you for Amplify Fridays at the Catholic Spirituality Centre, 8pm this week (6th) and next (13th). It will be AWESOME. Literally.

See you there!

Leo