I was wrong to post this at this time, and I'm taking it off. Pastor, I apologise for writing negatively of you and the church in this public forum. I am sorry I hurt you this way. It was never...
Yesterday, I blogged about my thoughts and feelings concerning my church. It痴 no excuse that I thought no one from my church knew about this blog. It was wrong of me to do that, because if I have a concern...
On Monday night, I met up with two friends for a time of worship and prayer. One of them asked us to pray for someone he knows. This lady had accepted Christ for about six months when she found out...
Macker got down to the brass tacks in my comments box yesterday.Mizwacky ... you make some very good points. All too often they are all too true. So as a leader in my church, how would you expect me to...
And now that youve heard me rant, the Mute Troubadour tells how its like from the other side of the coin:Last night it was mentioned at a meeting that we'd be having a Christmas Day worship service. Not a long...
I seem to have created a controversy of sorts without meaning to. Many thanks to James Cordey of Threshing Floor, who said of me, "She continues to process the whole thing and try to hear God in it all and...
This morning, I went to a church called Soulcare Church. I thought the name was quite appropriate! The pastor is a friend of mine, someone I originally met over the Internet(!). I've always seen him as a sort of "on-line...
Wow, I'm still getting emails over the church issue. Thank you for all the encouragement and support extended to me. Having blogged out all my frustration and cried out all my pain in church on Sunday, I'm back on an...
Awesome! You have to check out Frank Johnson's blog, ProdigalGod.com. In his latest post, he talks about how the house church might be a better idea than a "real" church because it offers a truer sense of community and connectiveness,...
This post is actually long overdue. I've been thinking of writing about this for quite awhile already, but haven't gotten down to it. Procrastination is one of my besetting sins. *blush* Last Sunday I attended a Baptist church where one...
I'm encouraged. The Mute Troubadour thinks a church such as I described yesterday can exist.Can a church like Sunflower's [description] exist? Yes, but only when we remember that the church is not a business, pastors are not managers or CEO's...
Cathy Lynn Grossman of USA Today writes: The color of Christmas may be red ink this year for many of the nation's churches. Experts blame 6% unemployment and sinking investment income for pummeling budgets of congregations great and small, black...
Darren Rowse has a true story of, how shall I put it, an exclusivist church:This story made me angry. It's an extreme illustration of something that I feel many churches today are guilty of - building walls. The pastor that...
Blogger was totally crashing on me yesterday, so if I manage to post this, I will be VERY happy. Actually, I'm already very happy that I managed to post the post below! Thank God for small miracles! Chinese New Year...
On Sunday, I woke up really tired. Really, really tired. I think I would have given church a miss, if not for the fact that I'd agreed to give someone a ride there too! And I asked God, "Father, is...
I think there is a tendency for me to say, "I need this," or "I want that". Yes, there definitely is. I suppose that's very human. What I haven't reconciled is how that works in a church/Christian context, where people...
Having people attend a worship service as the primary way of doing church communicates that being a Christian is about passively attending to someone else’s ministry efforts. There has to be a pastor, who presents the information to be absorbed....
I am now officially one of the unchurched. Yeah, sounds so much like "the undead". Heheh. After months of doing the should I-shouldn't I-should I-shouldn't I dance, and lengthy talks with my pastor, I've decided it's time to move on...
It's Friday, a day when most cell groups meet up. Soulcare tried the cell group thing for a while. We had 'em on Tuesdays, though. So I don't know why I suddenly feel like I've nowhere to go. Suddenly, I'm...
One of the strangest questions has to be the one church-goers typically ask someone who's new to their church: "How did you find the service?". It scares me to think that I've probably asked this question before. I mean, what...
Lady Snoflek has threatened to strangle me if I don't set the record straight about her church, the one I mentioned in my last post. So here goes... In their defense, yes, one of the pastors DID call me up...
Jesse asks, How did you find the church you're in now? This looking-for-a-church-to-belong-in stuff sure isn't as easy as it sounds. I'd like to hear your stories, too, so leave a note in my comments or in his. This should...
I've been good. I went to church on Sunday, and the Sunday before that. And that's really the way I think of church, which kinda reveals a lot. To me church is still something you gotta do, if you're a...
I didn't realise that I viewed the after-service chit-chat & lunch as part of "church". It's something I've always taken for granted -- you go for service, then hang around and catch up with friends; later, the whole group adjourns...
I think my "church search" is over. Those are scary words. They signal decision time, and I've always hated making decisions. I'm scared I'll regret my decisions later and have to retract my words. But, as one of my housemates...
When I told a friend I'll be going to DUMC for the time being, he started ranting. "Why is everyone gravitating towards the megachurches?" he said. Hey, I'm not so wild about megachurches either! But what's a "megachurch"? The Hartford...
One of the reasons I'm scared to say that I'll settle down in DUMC is because I don't know if I really will. I think it's too early to tell. I want to be happy and excited and to thank...
Ok ok ok. Don't panic. Don't panic. *takes deep breath* So, I was pretty disturbed yesterday by DUMC's goals for 2004, especially all the numbers. Numbers and numbers and numbers. I'm still not sure if I was making a mountain...
I'm seeing a lot of people get very... exercised about the church issue. I'm half sorry I wrote about DUMC because it's been getting some brickbats from other bloggers who aren't much acquainted with the church or the church's leadership....
I want to give the whole church thing a rest, but if I don't write about church I'll be writing about relationships and y'all are gonna think I have a two-track mind. One-track is better more focused :P On...
"This morning's worship leader was good, but the lady scheduled to lead worship next week is better," said a lady to me recently, one morning after Sunday service. (Yes, I know the charismatics call 'em 'celebrations', not 'services', but 'service'...
Roberta asked me to "test" Mac Swift's contention that the cell group system is there to control members and monitor dissent. I'm still thinking about what Mac said. Certainly, in my previous previous church, this was at least partially true....
I nearly skipped cell group last night. (Here's where I start being extra-careful about what I write, coz some of my group members read this blog! LOL) Well, I was hungry, hadn't had dinner -- hadn't had lunch either, unless...
Mom made me go to church service on Sunday. You see, my hometown church holds service at the ungodly hour of 8:30am, and I've never been much of an early riser. As far as I'm concerned, the adage "the early...
Bob called me out for lunch yesterday to ask if I were okay. "Why wouldn't I be okay?" I replied. "I noticed you haven't been going to church..." If it were coming from anyone other than him, I'd probably have...
Messy Christian and I went out for dinner last night and somehow started talking about the way people tend to measure commitment to the church. I have a sneaky suspicion that some people might not think I'm 'committed' simply because...
Messy Christian and I were talking yesterday about attending church (yes, AGAIN). Eventually she invited me to write out what I'd said on her blog, and I did. Later at night, I met up with Bob for dinner. Bob is...
I went to church on Sunday with a friend. I'm starting to realise that for me it helps to arrange to go together with someone or to meet someone there -- it's like accountability. My cousins have invited me to...
Sometimes I really think I am getting old and cynical. I went to church yesterday, and there was a visiting preacher who was teaching about "prophetic ministry". Now although I believe in the prophetic, I am always rather wary when...
Thanks to all you readers and friends who hastened to assure me that I'd been right to walk out of church service on Sunday. I appreciate the support... but I walked out with a critical spirit and I do not...
This whole church thing is an extremely volatile issue. There are a lot of walking wounded out there -- people who have been hurt at one time or another by church leaders, manipulative practices or wrong teachings. And yes, I...
Messy Christian recently wrote about "being real" and honest within the Christian community. Before I discovered such a concept as "Authentic Christianity", to survive as a Christian I had to put on my best mask to deceive others into thinking...
I was talking to someone recently about the way certain quarters of Christianity are always trying to do stuff to make our message appear more "relevant" to today's society, culture and/or young people. Thankfully, the subject's not such a hot...
My church launched an MYR$25million building project at our 25th anniversary dinner on Sunday. I suddenly found myself in the unenviable position of trying not to let my (unfortunate) experience with a previous church prejudice me too badly. Our senior...
It's a Wednesday night and I ought to be at my church cell group meeting. The thing is, I haven't been to either cell group or church service in at least two months -- except for the time I visited...
Talking to people helps to clarify my thoughts, ideas, motives, and intentions. I just got off the phone with my aunt, who attends the same church I do. She said, "Ping, I'm worried about you, because you don't seem to...
I wrote this about four years ago and had forgotten about it until I saw it yesterday afternoon. A lot of the sentiments expressed are still true for me now. Lord, I've got a little problem I'd like to take...
It strikes me that my internal conflict over church isn't quite over yet. Yesterday for some reason I was deeply reluctant to go to church. I called my housemate Emmy: "I don't want to go to church. How???" "Come with...
Sometime ago I was talking to a friend who's about a generation older than I. We were talking about church when she told me about a small Presbyterian church quite near my place. "But it's very small," she warned me...
Christmas is coming. That means evangelistic events are coming. You know, like drama productions and stuff. And "home e" (evangelistic programmes carried out within individual cell groups). Well... I've never felt comfortable inviting people for drama productions or "home e"...
I had dinner with my assistant cell group leader last week and told her that I've almost decided to leave our church for Christian Life Gospel Center. The wrench is not in leaving the church itself, but in leaving my...
For Maundy Thursday, today, I went to Bangsar Lutheran Church (BLC). We shared a "Christian Passover meal" (the Passover is a Jewish festival... Jesus celebrated it the night before He was crucified) and washed each other's feet, like how Jesus...
Sherman recently wrote a series of posts on "Friendship" and challenged me to not only write out what I think about them, but to conduct an open correspondence with him on the subject, on our respective blogs. Since his last...
After roughly 10 years of floating around various charismatic churches, I spent some time with a decidedly non-charismatic congregation recently. And suddenly realised how long it's been since the last time I was truly involved in a church community and...
"Can't I just stay at home and skip church?" I groaned. "Cannot!" exclaimed Mom, scandalised. "You must go to church to worship God!!!" Mom and I have had this exchange several times. How can you argue with a line like...
One of the sketches in The Runaway Bride (by the Footstool Players) portrays a lady manning a drive-thru window at "McChurch". Every "customer" is greeted with a relentlessly cheerful, "Good morning, welcome to McChurch! Jesus loves you! May I take...
I discovered yesterday that I am sick of talking about church. Big churches, small churches, impersonal churches, community churches, traditional churches, charismatic churches, blah blah blah blah blah -- I am just sick of it! What is the point of...
After reading Ted Haggard's letter to his church, I am very saddened. In addition to being senior pastor of his church, Haggard was president of the US National Association of Evangelicals, the American counterpart of our own NECF (National Evangelical...
For the past two weeks, I've been thinking about what 'ministry' is and isn't. Y'know, ministry in the Christian context -- coz most of the time that word is used to mean 'participation in church activities and programmes'. So today...
The other day a friend was saying that if you have a job that consistently prevents you from attending church Sunday service, you should quit your job. Blink & I objected to this because, if that's so, then there would...
If not for my pastor asking me whether I was coming for Christmas service, I would have forgotten it was Christmas. On Friday when we were leaving the office, one of my colleagues mentioned only coming back to work on...
I spent the first Sunday morning of the new year in church. Well, sort of. I was an hour late. Last year my life was like plain porridge -- slightly greyish, gooey, sticky and not very appetizing-looking. I didn't have...
Friend of mine who works closely with various NGOs called one of the churches in Johor -- a large church, she said -- to ask whether they could provide assistance to a particular village that is submerged. The families need...
Unknown to us, many things form part of our lives and our belief systems, things we don't even think to question. As children, we learnt that green is green and red is red, and to this day we take for...
I wouldn't know a good wine if it knocked me on the head. Seriously, today I was out with a friend, perusing shelves and shelves of wines, and I really have no clue what is what. So many different brands,...
I like what Sherman wrote yesterday, that the decision-making process in a Christian community should be based on relationships, not committees and boards. But I find myself torn, because churches do also function as organisations, and... well, you need some...
This is a reply to Dabido's comment... it got so long, I decided to plonk it out here :P Well... in the parable of the talents, the master said that at least the servant could have dumped the money in...
Although I'm not very bothered about church denominations and denominational differences, I think I might always consider myself a Methodist at heart simply because I was brought up in a Methodist church. Blink said the same thing and he's now...
I've been thinking I'm now apathetic about going to church, but I read something tonight that showed me I'm not. I figured I was apathetic coz I'm no longer angsty. I don't agonise about not going to church on Sunday...
Sherman: In the present situation of the church, we cannot look to the institution to provide us with the feeding we very much need. We have to find our own ways around that -- look to the organic embodiment of...
"Excuse me... do you have a blog?" I asked the guy sitting across the table from me at dinner. "Yes... how did you know?" "You took pictures of your food. That's blogger behaviour!" Thus I got to know Isaac. One...
After the Mooncake Festival Celebration tonight, I was sitting in the church office with Minishorts, helping to fold the weekly bulletin for tomorrow's service. And the photocopy machine, which was making double-sided copies, somehow spewed out some sheets with the...
Yesterday (Dec 2) marked the beginning of Advent season in the Christian tradition -- the 40 days before Christmas. This year I am more excited about the approach of Christmas than ever before... maybe partly because I'm singing in my...
Christian music is changing so rapidly in my generation that, if you don't go to church for four months, the next time you go, you might not recognise any of the songs anymore. I was in Damansara Utama Methodist Church...
Found this really great quote today. Spoon feeding in the long run teaches us nothing but the shape of the spoon.--E. M. Forster Very apt for the Malaysian education system. *** Work proper hasn't started yet; classes resume July 7....