Celebrating Advent Purple-ly

Today marks the beginning of the Advent season celebrated by the Catholic Church that begins on the fourth Sunday before Christmas, which is today for this year, and ends on Christmas Eve. I may not be Catholic but I have always found the rhythms of the church year as practiced by the Catholics to be very meaningful.

Advent candles. Imagine how pretty they will look
sitting on the Advent wreath!

I first learnt of the Advent season and the tradition of lighting the Advent candles in my teenage years. That was long before I was a Christian, when I was reading a book on the Trapp family on which the musical "The Sound of a Music" was based. Even then, with my unrenewed mind, I have always thought that it's a beautiful tradition to have a season of hope and anticipation that culminates with the celebration of the birth of Christ. 

As Pentecostals, we do not celebrate Advent but this morning, on a whim, I decided to wear a purple dress to commemorate the first Advent of 2013; to welcome the coming of the King. I may not be able to celebrate Advent properly, but I can surely celebrate it purple-ly!

To my delight there were so many TOPians dressed in purple today! God really moves in mysterious ways and He makes us happy even in the silly wishes of ours that we dare not even utter for the sheer foolishness of the request. Thank you, Lord!

An Extraordinary Sunday Worship Service

Today we had an extraordinary Sunday worship service line-up and it all started with our Senior Pastor spraining his back yesterday. 

By evening he was still in pain and so the SOS went out for Bro. Koay to take over the preaching for him and for me to conduct the Holy Communion. 

When I went to church this morning, I went looking for Grace Tan, the worship leader, to find out when she is going to pass over the service for me to conduct the Holy Communion. Lo and behold! I was told that she had fallen sick that very morning and that Melissa was taking over the worship leading. 

So this morning we had an unprecedented occasion in TOP where we had a replacement worship leader, a replacement Holy Communion leader and a replacement preacher. All on the same day. We just stepped up and into our roles and it's "business" as usual even when the Senior Pastor is not around.

That is wisdom of training up and empowering lay leaders to do the work of the ministry. No panic. No running around like a chicken without its head. No problem. 

Well done, TOP!

TOP Family Camp 2013

It's been a long, long time since we attended a church family camp. We missed the most recent one that was held two years ago at Kampar because it coincided with the wedding of one of our senior staff at KRPG.

I was so excited at the prospect of going away for camp that I woke up bright and early this morning. Macam budak kecil!

Unfortunately Hubby was not as enthusiastic and so it was 11am by the time we left the house.

We thought of going to the corner coffee shop near our office for breakfast but changed our mind at the thought of battling the Vesak Day crowds and traffic at the many temples in the vicinity.

But that also meant that the fish in the office aquarium will have to go hungry for two days. Poor fella! Anyway we eventually ended up at Old Town White Coffee at Precinct 10 for breakfast.

Our breakfast. The French Toast hasn't arrived yet.

During breakfast Hubby received an sms from Pastor Gideon reminding him to be sure to pack a long sleeved shirt and a tie to wear for the Board installation at the camp. He had forgotten and so we had to return home to pack his shirt and tie.

After that we had a stop at the petrol station to fill up and finally, we got on to the bridge at 12:30pm.

The journey was fast and at Taiping Hubby opted for lunch at Yut Sun Restaurant along Jalan Pasar. Thank you, Alvin Tan for the recommendation. Hubby really liked the food there.

The vegetables were lightly fried. Tasty without being salty. The Inche Kabin was well-fried without any blood oozing out of the bones. Yucky!

The only thing missing was the Worcestershire Sauce. How can you serve Inche Kabin without the ang mor tau eu!

The owner's collection of key-chains

One thing I noticed: there were Malays among the customers! Obviously they had no qualms about eating at a pork-free establishment even though the menu is not halal-certified.

This is the true 1Malaysia spirit. How unlike the rhetoric we hear from our leaders that are seldom, if not never, translated into reality.

We finally checked into the hotel at 3pm. And now it's nap time!

Nice compact room that reminds me of Cititel in KL

Shocked

This morning Poh Lin attended service at TOP. After the service she came to us and said that she had a shock when she heard me being introduced as the speaker.

She said I was funny. I suppose giving people a good laugh is preferable to making them cry.

The last time she came to TOP, she also got a shock when she saw Hubby playing the guitar as part of the worship team.

She told us that she didn't know that we are such a "talented" family. And she is impressed.

So the Lord sprang two shocking surprises on her last two visits to TOP. Hmmm, I wonder what God has in store for her next.

A Welcome Change

Today I felt so carefree at the EGM held to make a decision on the intended purchase of the 3rd Floor. No need to bother about taking notes for the minutes because I'm no longer the secretary.

Now the person responsible for all that is the one standing up on the extreme right in the photo below.

I am also no longer in the Church Board so it was a welcome change for me to just be a member of the floor.

Having said that, I also miss working with some wonderful people in the more than one decade of my service as Church Secretary; people like Day Bi and Night Bi.

We had our fun times and serious times but they were all good times.

Starting on r12

Yesterday we launched a new cell group series entitled r12. r12 really sounds like some health supplement but, in a sense, that is an apt description because it is a spiritual health supplement.

We are embarking on an exciting adventure in pursuit for true spirituality as laid out by the apostle Paul in Romans chapter 12.

In the introductory session I wanted to remind the cell members on 3 matters with regards to spirituality. As usual, things did not turn out the way I expected :-( so, for the record, here's what I actually planned to say.

1. Do not confuse religiosity with spirituality. At the same time we cannot deny that spiritual disciplines are often a means to a deeper relationship with God. And spiritual disciplines like prayer, fasting and good works are, more often than not, the outflow and fruit of a vibrant relationship with God.


2. Do not confuse theological knowledge with spirituality. We can know a lot about God without knowing God. On the other hand, we cannot know God without knowing about Him. A desire to learn more about God and His ways should be the result of a love relationship with Him.


3. Lastly, do not compare yourself with others. Who are we to judge one another on spirituality? Only God knows the heart of a person. Instead of judging another brother or sister we would do well to check our own personal walk with the Lord and why we do things we do. Are we doing them out of love for God or love for the approval of people?

Annual Cell Durian Feast 2012

Somehow we have made it a cell tradition to have a durian feast once a year.

This year the organisers wanted to order RM400 worth of durians! We persuaded them to scale it down to RM200.

When the durians arrived - together with the mangosteens and rambutans - I thought there would not be enough for us to eat our fill. I was even more concerned when the first few durians they opened had worms.

As usual I overestimated our eating capacity. We had just enough for everyone and we ate our fill without reaching the point of diminishing returns.

To top it off, this year we also had steamed pulut, courtesy of Frankie Teh, to go with our durians. This is the traditional nyonya combination with durian and it would have been perfect if we had fresh santan to drench over our pulut and durian.

A Visit to a Hawaiian Church

On 9 October 2011, which was our second Sunday at Maui, we had the privilege of attending a Hawaiian church at South Kihei Road.

This kind lady took 8 of us to church. That's the church behind us. 
She had to make 2 trips.

 The church also calls itself 

"The Little Church by the Ocean Spray"

 The church bulletin

 One of the musicians with her ukelele

The whole service was so laid-back and casual. We were each given a flower to wear in our hair and most of the people involved in worship were bare-footed!

The service started out with the members of the congregation choosing songs and choruses from a song book for the band to play and the whole church to sing along. Then they sang their church song.

After that the they blew the conch shell and the service proper started with a procession of Hawaiian girls saying some chant in Hawaiian followed by an elder and the Pastor who came down the aisle with a staff in his hand. That reminded me of Moses and his rod.

 One of the many hula dances during the service.

Click here to see the hula dancers dancing to the church's theme song.

 An elder (or was he the ex-pastor?) 

giving announcements barefooted! 

Shaking hands with the pastor. Notice the staff in his hand.

Plenty of Sunday Left

We were among the few who were left behind last Sunday when the whole church went to Kampar for church camp.

We wanted to visit PCC but, after breakfast at Arati Vilas, we ended up at Fettes Park Baptist Church instead. Fettes Park Baptist Church is less than 5 mins drive away from our apartment and we saved so much time on the road.

The worship was beautiful. I especially liked the smooth flow from song to song with minimal comments from the worship leader. They had a guest speaker who spoke on the Father heart of God.

The service that began at 10am ended at 12 noon. After lunch and some grocery shopping we went home and managed to accomplish so much that afternoon. For once we experienced the advantage of going to a church near home that has an early Sunday service. No wonder many people change church whenever they relocate.

It was a real luxury for us to have plenty of Sunday left after church and it turned out to be was one of the best Sundays we have ever had in a long time.

TOP's 32nd Anniversary Bowling Competition

This year we celebrated TOP's 32nd Anniversary yesterday with a difference. We still had the usual combined service but after that the whole church - both the Hokkien and the English congregations, the old and the young - adjourned to BJ Bowl for our first ever bowling competition.

Members getting ready for the competition

We managed to form 35 teams of 5 players per team. There was even a pastors' team and we even managed to persuade our guest speaker Pastor Clement Wong to stay back and take the place of one of our players who was away to KL. I, with my injured finger, also also had to take the place of another player who went down to KL for the weekend.

Combined GLO photo comprising 4 teams
- Power GLO, Super GLO, Mighty GLO and Wonder GLO.

Many people commented that the names of our teams reminded them of washing powder. Maybe that's why some of us ended up being "cuci longkang" specialists.

But we didn't do too badly considering the fact that all of us were amateurs, most of us have not bowled for the past ten or twenty years and some have never bowled before. Power GLO was runner up for the title of best team and they lost to a team whose members came with their own shoes and bowling balls. So we're actually the best even if I say so myself.

Power GLO members with their medals

Pastor Clement, our anniversary guest speaker,
with Sean Hooi a.k.a Super Hero, Wonder GLO's team leader

Don't know what this is but I like it

Why So Dead

Somebody asked me why my blog is so dead. It's because I've been so busy with work, church stuff and a party to plan that there's hardly time to sleep, much less blog.

My mind is active all the time with something to do or to be done.

I am simply not a multi-tasking type of person. I need focus.

A Night at the Opera

A Teochew opera, that is, and all the way from China.





I was hit by a wave of nostalgia in those few minutes when we stopped by a teochew wayang performing at the Batu Lancang Road Market for sis to take some photographs for her project.

The theatrical make-up, the the high pitched singing, the dazzling costumes and the scent of joss-sticks transported me back to those by-gone days when we would park ourselves in front of the opera stage whenever the lunar 7th moon comes around.

We didn't understand what they were singing but we could roughly guess what was going on. We were more captivated and impressed by the spectacular costumes, the stage make-up and the stylized moves of the actors.

The Chinese opera is one of our cultural heritage and it would be great if someone could write a Chinese opera in English or one of the Chinese dialects. Just imagine transforming the parable of the prodigal son into Chinese opera. Awesome!

After all, the cultural background of the Bible is oriental so maybe it's about time we intentionally make the medium, other than language, for the communication of the gospel message oriental as well.

God Did Something Different

We invited Pastor Ann Low from the Malaysia National Prayer Network to minister at our Prayer Rally last Saturday.

Unlike the other prayer rallies we have had in the past, this prayer rally was relatively relaxing and definietly more enjoyable. There wasn't all the non-stop praying and shouting that leaves you hoarse at the end of the four hours. I didn't feel "wearied" at all because the flow of the Spirit was so natural and effortless that we just flowed along.

First of all we learned to be still and to listen to the Lord. Isn't that THE most part of prayer? Our usual approach in prayer is come before the presence of the Lord with a To Do List and, after some preliminary praise and worship, begin to issue commands and tell God what to do instead of listening to Him. That is so wrong. As if we are smarter than God.

We also learned to share and to listen to one another. As Pastor Ann said, how can we pray well for one another if we do not spend time to listen to one another. Listening to one another also means listening to what God is speaking to the other person. Very often we subconsciously think that God can only speak to us and disregard what God is saying to others.

She encouraged us to journal so we can track what God's leading and guidance in our lives. I am not much into journaling so the closest I will ever come to keeping a journal is to turn this blog into a sort-of-journal. So bear with me if, from now on, the contents of this blog get kinda weird.

And she issued a challenge for us to memorize scripture - the whole book of James in 5 months! For me, a passage here and there is manageable but not 5 chapters of 108 verses. By the time I reach Chapter Five I would have probably have forgotten Chapter One 'cos my forgettery is better than my memory.

Then on Sunday I received another nugget from Pastor Ann. She taught us to pray 1 Cor. 2:9 in reverse. Where the verse says "No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him," we can pray and ask God to give us eyes to see, ears to hear and a mind that is able to conceive what God has prepared for us because we love him. Isn't that wonderful?

I am glad this prayer rally is different. I have been so blessed and it is indeed the most enjoyable prayer rally I've ever attended. If prayer rallies are run this way more people might be encouraged to join us.

Mother's Day Gift from the Church

This year we received such lovely gifts for Mother's Day.

The gifts in a pretty bag. No need to wrap!
Makes life easier for our church staff.

We actually received 3 gifts for Mother's Day.
A draw-string bag, a coin purse and a vanity mirror.

Not only are the gifts pretty and feminine, they are also functional as well. In terms of gifts, anything that combines form with function deserves a thumbs up from me.

Thanks Gemma for volunteering to do the Mother's Day shopping on the church's behalf. You're a real gem! [That's so cliche but I couldn't resist it]

What If Starbucks Marketed Like A Church?

I've just attended the Eagles Team Leadership Summit Series 2. As part of our last session's discussion on how outsiders perceive Christians and the church we were shown a short video clip entitled "What If Starbucks Marketed Like A Church?"

It's a 21st century parable and so the message really hits you between the eyes. Does it make you uncomfortable?

Weird, pushy, unfriendly, talk funny, act strange, an exclusive club. Yup, that's how outsiders perceive the church and Christians.

I think TOP is not too bad but Christianity on the whole has an image problem. We really have to do something to fix that if we don't want to turn out to be a turn-off to outsiders.

Maybe we could start with something simple this Sunday, like giving a visitor a smile, a handshake and a short welcome-cum-introduction.

Stressed to the Max

My stress meter registered 10 over the past 10 days.

On the work front there were so many things to rush out within a short space of time and having an impatient, stressed out client barking away at us did not help the least bit.

The church is in transition and again there are so many things to attend to. Letters to write and so many emails and sms-es to send out in order to keep everyone informed.

I find that in times like this it is the simple, foundational truths of our faith that can provide a stabilizing factor to undergird us and to keep us sane through all the upheaval.

• God is who He says He is.
• God can do what He says He can do.
• I am who God says I am.
• I can do all things through Christ.
• God's Word is alive and active in me.

I taught these facilitating a video Bible Study by Beth Moore. I never expected them to be my life line.

I survived. God is good.

Pastor Sean Prasad

We had a guest speaker this morning - Pastor Sean Prasad from Good Tidings, Shah Alam. He told us he is an evangelist and a former Youth Pastor. Even if he had not told us, we would have guessed from the pithy quips which peppered his message that he used to be a Youth Pastor.

Pastor Sean at the pulpit

The message was on "Divine Presence" taken from John 20:19-23. In the presence of the Lord there is . . .

• Peace, or Eirene in Greek, which means "unity, tranquility and concord." He defined unity as the ability of agree in disagreement. (Agreeing to disagree?) Contrary to demon possession, where there are many demons or spirits residing in one body, in unity there is one Spirit with many bodies.
• Power from the Holy Spirit to be "unified, empowered and to testify."
• A Promise of forgiveness. God's forgiveness is Full, Free and Final.

Pastor Sean after the service

Pastor Steven Teo

This morning Pastor Steven Teo was back to preach at TOP. He's Singaporean, if I'm not mistaken, and is currently residing in Melbourne.

He shared on dreams based on the passage on the miraculous provision of the widow's oil in 2 Kings 4:1-7. Here are some bits and pieces from his message which left an impression on me.

• Dreams can be forgotten. Go back and reclaim your dreams. Go back to your hobbies! Yes, he said that and that made me realize that we have been sold on the idea that we should not do things just simply 'cos we enjoy doing them. Everything must have a meaningful purpose, a good reason before we are allowed to indulge in it without feeling guilty. Hey, our life in totality belongs to God. That means everything, even our hobbies. Sometimes our hobbies could be the means God uses to expand our ministries. Pastor Teo wanted to study art but did not paint for 31 years after his mom told him that that was not a profitable field to work in. Then one day God told him to go back to painting. He has had an exhibition where his paintings were sold and all the proceeds given to mission. Hallelujah!
  

• Never despise small beginnings. Most big things are the result of small things. A little spark started the huge bush fire in Australia. There is always enough in any peculiar or particular situation for God to work with. God may be slow but He's never late. Always just in time.
  

• In pursuing your dream, do not throw away your confidence. Confidence is not a feeling but a choice, a decision. It is not seasonal, nor dependent on our moods. "So do not throw away your confidence; it will be richly rewarded" Heb. 10:35.

There are 6 billion people on earth and God deals with each one individually, personally, one at a time. PTL!

Pastor Steven Teo in action

Pastor Teo graciously posed for a photo

Dawn of a New Day

After more than 10 years of lobbying we finally had our first Bible Study in TOP this morning.

Bro. Koay our teacher

PTL! for answered prayer. The class started with 78 students without much promotion, other than one short announcement the Sunday before. That's how hungry people are!

The class