"E06? What's that?"
I had people asking me this question when I told them I am going for a conference at SIB KL. I actually not sure what the "E" stands for so I actually asked Ps. Lee Choo and she said it stands for 'exist'...which has a long history behind it. That's another story.... I nearly didn't go because the people who were supposed to go, all pulled out and I was the only one confirmed going. I had some trouble with finding transport as well, but I felt that God wanted me to be there and He provided me with all my transport needs...God is so good!
"So how was e06?"
This was the second most asked question to me when I came back from the conference. So to save time...and breath I decided to answer all these questions refering them to my blog. Smart eh?!! Hehe...I am excited to share with everyone what I've learned at the conference so I 'm going to share about each session. I will try, I said TRY to keep it short and sweet but hehe...not so sure I have been successful! There are actually 3 streams during the conference which is the youth, college and uni students and finally the stream I am in, the young adults. Let's start with...
Day One:
We had the morning message with Ps. Danny Guglielmucci entitled, "How Big is your God?" based on Psalm 139. In his message, Ps. Danny talked about how God has a plan for each of us. He doesn’t lose it or forget about it. And if we obey His commandments, we are walking in His will. Therefore His will and plans for our life will come looking for us. We don’t have to go looking around for the will of God for our lives.
So how big is your God depends on how you “see” God. Just like when things get magnified when we look through the magnifying glass, we need to see God under “our magnifying glass”. We must “magnify” God in order to get a bigger view of our God.
We also need God to search us for any sins in our lives. He doesn’t want to hurt us but to heal us. Do we trust God enough to have full control over our thoughts, our being, our life? When God calls us, He doesn’t compare us. Each of us are unique and God loves each and everyone of us because He just can’t help it.
In order to serve God effectively we need:
1. Revelation
We need to know who God is and what He has done.
2. Transformation
We need to be transformed by the renewing of our minds. We need to love our Bibles. Some may say the Bible is brainwashing people…so choose who washes your brain, the Bible or the world. It’s just not enough to read the Bible but to act on it be transformed by it.
3. Activation
There are 7 motivational gifts given for us to serve and activate our faith (Rom. 12:6-8)
4. Separation
We need to be separated from the world’s value system. The world wears branded stuff in order to have an identity but we have been branded by Christ.
5. Demonstration
We need to be loving people. If I don’t love people, I can’t lead them. We will be a Christian of demonstration when we have all of the above in order.
In Genesis 22, God told Abraham to kill his son to test his faith. When God tests parents, the kids get involved. The pastor carries the burden of the vision, the church have to carry the wood. Isaac knew how to follow and partner with his father. He didn’t have to be tied up or struggle but he helped to carry the wood. So the reason we serve is not because we want to earn our Father’s love and approval, but because we want to get involved with what our Father is doing. And in doing so, we have to die to self. And when we die to self, God will raise us up.
Opening Workshop: Stop and Look – What is this life all about? ~John 10:10~
This workshop started with a skit on a girl called Jane and her struggles with her career, relationship, family and faith. After that we had a group discussion on what happened in the skit and also to reflect on our own struggles. Every young adult begins life with their dreams but experience struggles along the way.
This session highlighted on how we respond to our struggles and how it affects our outlook in life. Young adults mostly struggle with their values, priorities, expectations and insecurities. These struggles expose a deeper issue which is basically a search for our own identity. Struggles are also like a crack in our life where the thief can come in and destroy but God also allows these struggles to build in us perseverance, then character and hope which gives meaning to our life and struggles.
So what is an Abundant Life? Is it a life or a lifestyle? An abundant life starts with the Bible. Life is not about the abundance around us but the abundance in our life. So the question is “Do you seek a “Life of Abundance” or an “Abundant Life”? Life is a journey. Struggles opens doors…but to whom? The thief or Jesus?
Love of Christ that never leaves me
Identity in Christ
Freedom from the law of sin and death
Eternal perspective of life
Workshop A: Look Out 1: Love thy neighbour: Negotiating the tension between Dogmatism and Tolerance by Ps. Sivin Kit
I chose this workshop mainly because of my daily encounter with gays and lesbians. And sure enough most of the group discussions chose to talk about this issue as well. Though there are no easy answers for each situation is different, but we as Christians should practice love in all our relationships with gays and lesbians.
Ps. Sivin actually posted on his blog about his experience during the e06 conference and I’ve also linked some interesting articles which he passed out to us which you can also find on his blog namely, "Uncommon Decency”where they addressed Christian civility and also a transcript of a videotape with Tony Campolo and his wife, Peggy in “Is the Homosexual My Neighbour?” The interesting thing about Tony and his wife is that Tony believes that the Bible does not allow for same gender sexual marriage nor is same gender sexual intercourse permissible. While Peggy, his wife believes in monogamous relationships, and within the framework of evangelical Christianity, gay marriages are permissible. With such extreme viewpoints, it’s amazing how the couple can still live harmoniously in a marriage relationship.
Day 2:
Workshop B: Look Out 2: What is Success? Living faithfully in a status-anxious world
by. Ps. Timothy Loh
We started off by discussing about what success means to each of us and who is our success hero. Of course each one will have their own definition what is success to them. But at the end of the day, we need to look at what the Bible have to say about success. Success begins with the Bible and God wants you to be successful!
We covered 4 sections which are:
Concept of Success
Component of Success
Charting Success
Challenges to Success
“Success is living life to the fullest potential in Christ without doing harm to any other parts of your life” ~ Ps. Timothy Loh~
Workshop C: Look Up: The return of the prodigal son
This is one of the most meaningful workshops for me. Ps. Lee Choo headed the session by showing a replica painting of Rembrandt’s Prodigal Son, painted by one of the church members. She also recommended the book by Henri J.M. Nouwen who did wrote his personal reflections on this painting. Good stuff! Must get the book.
We had group discussions within our group to talk about the struggles that the younger and older son went through in the parable and what were their choices/responses and ultimately the consequences. We also discussed about how the two sons viewed their Father. But ultimately the Father was good irregardless of how the two sons behaved.
In giving the younger son his inheritance, the Father was literally giving his son “a part of his life”…giving him the license to live as he wants to. The Father gave him the freedom to live and he squandered away his life. As a result, he lost his status, dignity, freedom and identity. He thought he understood life better than his Father. As a matter of fact, we struggle with giving our will to God because of the very same reason. But the younger son finally came to his senses and was restored and reconciled with his Father. He recognized him as Father and called him “Father”.
As for the older son, he was trying to earn his Father’s love instead of enjoying his Father’s love. He focused on WHAT he has done rather than WHO he is. He saw himself as a SON yet a SLAVE. He viewed his Father as “You” rather than as “Father”.
Actually this session reminded me of an old favourite song that I makes me cry every time I hear it. The song is entitled “When God Ran” by Craig and Dean Phillips. The lyrics were very meaningful. Good song.
Day 3:
Workshop D: Look In – What am I looking for?
We had Playback Theatre in this workshop, where someone from the audience tells a story from his life, chooses actors to play the different roles, then watches as their story is immediately recreated and given artistic shape and coherence. It is meant to help audience see their own experiences from the outside, including what happened and things they did to others. This is a way to initiate a shift of attention away from blaming the other to taking responsibility for the attitudes and actions of one’s self.
The main purpose of the playback theatre is to use this creative tool for the process of reconciliation, particularly in situations where relationships have been severely damaged by hatred, mistrust, oppression and discrimination. For our session, we had a girl who has a fractured relationship with a domineering mother and frustration over her timid father.
It’s not easy to forgive those past hurts especially done by those who should have loved us. We need to forgive and be reconciled with our past in order to reverse the curse of past generations and release God’s blessings and salvation to our family and future generation. This is essentially important especially for young adults who are the majority of people who will be getting married and starting their own family units.
Closing workshop: How then shall we live?
In this closing workshop, we walked through a tunnel of past sessions which we had done during the conference. We spent some time reflecting and writing a letter to God, sealed it and address it back to ourselves which the e06 committee will then post it back to us later.
We were also given goodie bags and “bread and wine” to have communion with our group members before going up front to be prayed for. Ps. Lee Choo prayed for me and gave me a word from the Lord. What she said to me…well, it’s kinda personal though meant to help change me and I’m slowly but surely being perfected day by day. It’s a promise!
“One Life One World” Concert – Great concert with lots of great music and free goodies! Special appearance of Superman A and Superman B…haha!
Day 4:
Community Carnival at Prima Selayang
This is where the “rubber meets the road”. A chance to make an impact in the community, in our world. Prima Selayang is a community of lower income group in this particular area where gangsterism and crime was rampant there. It was an outreach that SIB KL started a few years back and this is the third phase of the work. During the carnival, we had fantastic prizes for our Prima Idol, Treasure Hunt and Food Contest. We also gave out goodie bags containing food supplies and tins of milk powder…FOC!! The people in Prima Selayang sold food in the carnival and the 3 of the best tasting ones won prizes like microwave ovens, toasters, etc.
We had a special guest appearance by Juwita Suwito who also helped to train the contestants of the Prima Idol. The Prima Idol winner and first runner up were actually siblings. The title went to the elder sister and the prize was a personal computer. As for the Treasure Hunt the group who won got a mountain bike each. We also had face painting, balloon sculpture, games, and photo taking where they’ll take your picture with a colourful background of balloons, get it developed and they can come collect later all framed up. We also had a special guest appearance of our e06 Superman and the kids had a great time taking photos with him!
I was helping with the Treasure Hunt and literally explored the whole place! Humbling cos the kids knew where to look for the clues better than us cos they know the place like the back of their hands. But one incident that struck me most throughout the carnival was this elderly Indian man. On first sight he was an eccentric character which under normal circumstances I would think twice about approaching him. But as I observed him and his odd mannerisms, I was touched by him because out of all the people in Prima Selayang who came and participated in the carnival, he was the only person there who took the time and actually shook the hands to as many of the e06 people as he could see, recognized by our bright orange e06 T-shirt we had to wear that day. As he shook our hands, he thanked us and was so grateful for the work we are doing for the community.
When we announced the free tins of milk powder to be given out, there was a mad rush for the table and this man actually helped us to control the crowd and made them line up properly. In a way, it was like he wants to help give us back something as a way of showing his gratitude. He was truly an unforgettable character and shows us that the most unlikely character can have the biggest heart. Man may judge us by our looks but God knows our hearts. Like the 10 lepers, only one came back to thank Jesus. May we be like that one leper.
“One Life One World” Concert – another great night of good music, more free goodies. We had a special guest star who sang “Jesus loves me” and is only about 3 feet tall! As usual, Superman A and Superman B made their appearance to lighten up the atmosphere.
Conclusion:
"Can one man make a difference? Sometimes I believe I can. Some days I lose all faith..." ~Matt "Dare Devil" Murdoch~
Sometimes I can identify with what "Dare Devil" (a comic character) said. The Dare Devil was known to be "The man without fear" but "a man without fear is a man without hope." But we do not fear death's sting and our hope is in God. With God, we can do all things in Christ who strengthens us. And this e06 conference is about our lives making an impact to the world around us. To have an abundant life and redeem what the thief have come to steal, kill and destroy.
So if there’s one thing I learnt from e06 after all those workshops, it is that the reason I serve God is not because I want to earn his love and approval. I serve Him because I am His child, not His slave. My identity as God’s child is not dependent on WHAT I do. A child of God wants to participate in the Father’s work, not under compulsion, but out of love for the Father. Maybe this was the reason why I lost the joy of serving Him…I had a wrong perspective of my relationship with God.
I always struggled with the fear that God will not be pleased with me because I’m not as good a Christian as I should be. I feared disappointing and failing God in whatever I set out to do for Him. “God loves you” becomes just a cliché for me until I forget that He loves me not because of what I do. He loves me…period. And like the older son in the parable of the Prodigal Son, I have anger and resentment when God doesn’t “bless” me for my “hard work and faithfulness” to Him. So many times we forget that God’s blessings are all around us and are ours for the asking. The thief has stole my joy of serving God and tried to destroy my loving relationship with my Father. This has to stop and as I continue my journey in life, I will continue asking this question, “How Then Shall I Live?”
I had people asking me this question when I told them I am going for a conference at SIB KL. I actually not sure what the "E" stands for so I actually asked Ps. Lee Choo and she said it stands for 'exist'...which has a long history behind it. That's another story.... I nearly didn't go because the people who were supposed to go, all pulled out and I was the only one confirmed going. I had some trouble with finding transport as well, but I felt that God wanted me to be there and He provided me with all my transport needs...God is so good!
"So how was e06?"
This was the second most asked question to me when I came back from the conference. So to save time...and breath I decided to answer all these questions refering them to my blog. Smart eh?!! Hehe...I am excited to share with everyone what I've learned at the conference so I 'm going to share about each session. I will try, I said TRY to keep it short and sweet but hehe...not so sure I have been successful! There are actually 3 streams during the conference which is the youth, college and uni students and finally the stream I am in, the young adults. Let's start with...
Day One:
We had the morning message with Ps. Danny Guglielmucci entitled, "How Big is your God?" based on Psalm 139. In his message, Ps. Danny talked about how God has a plan for each of us. He doesn’t lose it or forget about it. And if we obey His commandments, we are walking in His will. Therefore His will and plans for our life will come looking for us. We don’t have to go looking around for the will of God for our lives.
So how big is your God depends on how you “see” God. Just like when things get magnified when we look through the magnifying glass, we need to see God under “our magnifying glass”. We must “magnify” God in order to get a bigger view of our God.
We also need God to search us for any sins in our lives. He doesn’t want to hurt us but to heal us. Do we trust God enough to have full control over our thoughts, our being, our life? When God calls us, He doesn’t compare us. Each of us are unique and God loves each and everyone of us because He just can’t help it.
In order to serve God effectively we need:
1. Revelation
We need to know who God is and what He has done.
2. Transformation
We need to be transformed by the renewing of our minds. We need to love our Bibles. Some may say the Bible is brainwashing people…so choose who washes your brain, the Bible or the world. It’s just not enough to read the Bible but to act on it be transformed by it.
3. Activation
There are 7 motivational gifts given for us to serve and activate our faith (Rom. 12:6-8)
4. Separation
We need to be separated from the world’s value system. The world wears branded stuff in order to have an identity but we have been branded by Christ.
5. Demonstration
We need to be loving people. If I don’t love people, I can’t lead them. We will be a Christian of demonstration when we have all of the above in order.
In Genesis 22, God told Abraham to kill his son to test his faith. When God tests parents, the kids get involved. The pastor carries the burden of the vision, the church have to carry the wood. Isaac knew how to follow and partner with his father. He didn’t have to be tied up or struggle but he helped to carry the wood. So the reason we serve is not because we want to earn our Father’s love and approval, but because we want to get involved with what our Father is doing. And in doing so, we have to die to self. And when we die to self, God will raise us up.
Opening Workshop: Stop and Look – What is this life all about? ~John 10:10~
This workshop started with a skit on a girl called Jane and her struggles with her career, relationship, family and faith. After that we had a group discussion on what happened in the skit and also to reflect on our own struggles. Every young adult begins life with their dreams but experience struggles along the way.
This session highlighted on how we respond to our struggles and how it affects our outlook in life. Young adults mostly struggle with their values, priorities, expectations and insecurities. These struggles expose a deeper issue which is basically a search for our own identity. Struggles are also like a crack in our life where the thief can come in and destroy but God also allows these struggles to build in us perseverance, then character and hope which gives meaning to our life and struggles.
So what is an Abundant Life? Is it a life or a lifestyle? An abundant life starts with the Bible. Life is not about the abundance around us but the abundance in our life. So the question is “Do you seek a “Life of Abundance” or an “Abundant Life”? Life is a journey. Struggles opens doors…but to whom? The thief or Jesus?
Love of Christ that never leaves me
Identity in Christ
Freedom from the law of sin and death
Eternal perspective of life
Workshop A: Look Out 1: Love thy neighbour: Negotiating the tension between Dogmatism and Tolerance by Ps. Sivin Kit
I chose this workshop mainly because of my daily encounter with gays and lesbians. And sure enough most of the group discussions chose to talk about this issue as well. Though there are no easy answers for each situation is different, but we as Christians should practice love in all our relationships with gays and lesbians.
Ps. Sivin actually posted on his blog about his experience during the e06 conference and I’ve also linked some interesting articles which he passed out to us which you can also find on his blog namely, "Uncommon Decency”where they addressed Christian civility and also a transcript of a videotape with Tony Campolo and his wife, Peggy in “Is the Homosexual My Neighbour?” The interesting thing about Tony and his wife is that Tony believes that the Bible does not allow for same gender sexual marriage nor is same gender sexual intercourse permissible. While Peggy, his wife believes in monogamous relationships, and within the framework of evangelical Christianity, gay marriages are permissible. With such extreme viewpoints, it’s amazing how the couple can still live harmoniously in a marriage relationship.
Day 2:
Workshop B: Look Out 2: What is Success? Living faithfully in a status-anxious world
by. Ps. Timothy Loh
We started off by discussing about what success means to each of us and who is our success hero. Of course each one will have their own definition what is success to them. But at the end of the day, we need to look at what the Bible have to say about success. Success begins with the Bible and God wants you to be successful!
We covered 4 sections which are:
Concept of Success
Component of Success
Charting Success
Challenges to Success
“Success is living life to the fullest potential in Christ without doing harm to any other parts of your life” ~ Ps. Timothy Loh~
Workshop C: Look Up: The return of the prodigal son
This is one of the most meaningful workshops for me. Ps. Lee Choo headed the session by showing a replica painting of Rembrandt’s Prodigal Son, painted by one of the church members. She also recommended the book by Henri J.M. Nouwen who did wrote his personal reflections on this painting. Good stuff! Must get the book.
We had group discussions within our group to talk about the struggles that the younger and older son went through in the parable and what were their choices/responses and ultimately the consequences. We also discussed about how the two sons viewed their Father. But ultimately the Father was good irregardless of how the two sons behaved.
In giving the younger son his inheritance, the Father was literally giving his son “a part of his life”…giving him the license to live as he wants to. The Father gave him the freedom to live and he squandered away his life. As a result, he lost his status, dignity, freedom and identity. He thought he understood life better than his Father. As a matter of fact, we struggle with giving our will to God because of the very same reason. But the younger son finally came to his senses and was restored and reconciled with his Father. He recognized him as Father and called him “Father”.
As for the older son, he was trying to earn his Father’s love instead of enjoying his Father’s love. He focused on WHAT he has done rather than WHO he is. He saw himself as a SON yet a SLAVE. He viewed his Father as “You” rather than as “Father”.
Actually this session reminded me of an old favourite song that I makes me cry every time I hear it. The song is entitled “When God Ran” by Craig and Dean Phillips. The lyrics were very meaningful. Good song.
Day 3:
Workshop D: Look In – What am I looking for?
We had Playback Theatre in this workshop, where someone from the audience tells a story from his life, chooses actors to play the different roles, then watches as their story is immediately recreated and given artistic shape and coherence. It is meant to help audience see their own experiences from the outside, including what happened and things they did to others. This is a way to initiate a shift of attention away from blaming the other to taking responsibility for the attitudes and actions of one’s self.
The main purpose of the playback theatre is to use this creative tool for the process of reconciliation, particularly in situations where relationships have been severely damaged by hatred, mistrust, oppression and discrimination. For our session, we had a girl who has a fractured relationship with a domineering mother and frustration over her timid father.
It’s not easy to forgive those past hurts especially done by those who should have loved us. We need to forgive and be reconciled with our past in order to reverse the curse of past generations and release God’s blessings and salvation to our family and future generation. This is essentially important especially for young adults who are the majority of people who will be getting married and starting their own family units.
Closing workshop: How then shall we live?
In this closing workshop, we walked through a tunnel of past sessions which we had done during the conference. We spent some time reflecting and writing a letter to God, sealed it and address it back to ourselves which the e06 committee will then post it back to us later.
We were also given goodie bags and “bread and wine” to have communion with our group members before going up front to be prayed for. Ps. Lee Choo prayed for me and gave me a word from the Lord. What she said to me…well, it’s kinda personal though meant to help change me and I’m slowly but surely being perfected day by day. It’s a promise!
“One Life One World” Concert – Great concert with lots of great music and free goodies! Special appearance of Superman A and Superman B…haha!
Day 4:
Community Carnival at Prima Selayang
This is where the “rubber meets the road”. A chance to make an impact in the community, in our world. Prima Selayang is a community of lower income group in this particular area where gangsterism and crime was rampant there. It was an outreach that SIB KL started a few years back and this is the third phase of the work. During the carnival, we had fantastic prizes for our Prima Idol, Treasure Hunt and Food Contest. We also gave out goodie bags containing food supplies and tins of milk powder…FOC!! The people in Prima Selayang sold food in the carnival and the 3 of the best tasting ones won prizes like microwave ovens, toasters, etc.
We had a special guest appearance by Juwita Suwito who also helped to train the contestants of the Prima Idol. The Prima Idol winner and first runner up were actually siblings. The title went to the elder sister and the prize was a personal computer. As for the Treasure Hunt the group who won got a mountain bike each. We also had face painting, balloon sculpture, games, and photo taking where they’ll take your picture with a colourful background of balloons, get it developed and they can come collect later all framed up. We also had a special guest appearance of our e06 Superman and the kids had a great time taking photos with him!
I was helping with the Treasure Hunt and literally explored the whole place! Humbling cos the kids knew where to look for the clues better than us cos they know the place like the back of their hands. But one incident that struck me most throughout the carnival was this elderly Indian man. On first sight he was an eccentric character which under normal circumstances I would think twice about approaching him. But as I observed him and his odd mannerisms, I was touched by him because out of all the people in Prima Selayang who came and participated in the carnival, he was the only person there who took the time and actually shook the hands to as many of the e06 people as he could see, recognized by our bright orange e06 T-shirt we had to wear that day. As he shook our hands, he thanked us and was so grateful for the work we are doing for the community.
When we announced the free tins of milk powder to be given out, there was a mad rush for the table and this man actually helped us to control the crowd and made them line up properly. In a way, it was like he wants to help give us back something as a way of showing his gratitude. He was truly an unforgettable character and shows us that the most unlikely character can have the biggest heart. Man may judge us by our looks but God knows our hearts. Like the 10 lepers, only one came back to thank Jesus. May we be like that one leper.
“One Life One World” Concert – another great night of good music, more free goodies. We had a special guest star who sang “Jesus loves me” and is only about 3 feet tall! As usual, Superman A and Superman B made their appearance to lighten up the atmosphere.
Conclusion:
"Can one man make a difference? Sometimes I believe I can. Some days I lose all faith..." ~Matt "Dare Devil" Murdoch~
Sometimes I can identify with what "Dare Devil" (a comic character) said. The Dare Devil was known to be "The man without fear" but "a man without fear is a man without hope." But we do not fear death's sting and our hope is in God. With God, we can do all things in Christ who strengthens us. And this e06 conference is about our lives making an impact to the world around us. To have an abundant life and redeem what the thief have come to steal, kill and destroy.
So if there’s one thing I learnt from e06 after all those workshops, it is that the reason I serve God is not because I want to earn his love and approval. I serve Him because I am His child, not His slave. My identity as God’s child is not dependent on WHAT I do. A child of God wants to participate in the Father’s work, not under compulsion, but out of love for the Father. Maybe this was the reason why I lost the joy of serving Him…I had a wrong perspective of my relationship with God.
I always struggled with the fear that God will not be pleased with me because I’m not as good a Christian as I should be. I feared disappointing and failing God in whatever I set out to do for Him. “God loves you” becomes just a cliché for me until I forget that He loves me not because of what I do. He loves me…period. And like the older son in the parable of the Prodigal Son, I have anger and resentment when God doesn’t “bless” me for my “hard work and faithfulness” to Him. So many times we forget that God’s blessings are all around us and are ours for the asking. The thief has stole my joy of serving God and tried to destroy my loving relationship with my Father. This has to stop and as I continue my journey in life, I will continue asking this question, “How Then Shall I Live?”
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