I just dug out an article that a friend sent to me really really long ago! It’s about singleness.
The Godly Woman - Becoming Esther
by Charo and Paul Washer
Click on it!
All men are like grass,
and all their glory is like the flowers of the field;
the grass withers and the flows fall,
but the Word of the LORD stands forever.
1 Pet 1:24 Isa 40:6-8
Have a good day people! ",
John 1 (The Message)
14The Word became flesh and blood,
and moved into the neighborhood.
Eugene Peterson puts it interestingly in The Message… We are the church in the world, the flesh and blood in the ‘huurd, equipped and empowered by the Holy Spirit to share the light of Jesus!
Yet, it’s easier said than done.. It’s easy to be buried under the pressures of the corporate world, under the pressures of this human rat race (sorry, oxymoron), under the distractions of worldly desires and ultimately losing sight of our eternal goal. It’s so easy to do that, I must say… I’ve absolutely not tasted and not seen the real world!
Cafe Pralet…a Tiong Bahru Hideout!
In Dr Simon Chan’s course on worship, he always said this: "Maintain the paradox.." and he refers to the characteristics of God and the way we do church.. I.e., God is love, but He is also Holy; God is a ‘nice’ God, but there is such a thing as righteous anger! Talking about paradoxes… I went to Cafe Pralet with Cgull and YL…
Three people (Cgull,YL,M) share three cakes… That’s the way it should be! If you like your cakes light, and not too sweet, you must come here… A little quaint cafe hiding in the middle of tiong bahru… In the middle of several blocks of low-rise flats, pretty quiet.. Nobody would think of finding this little ‘rose among thorns’! I mean, right opposite is a temple, and next door is this mega outdoor seafood czhe char stall! Weird…
Cafe Pralet - A place full of paradoxes (I feel!)
The location is one example. Next is the ambience.. Once you step in, you get this homey feel.. Yet, the layout and furniture says otherwise.. The cakes taste homemade (contributed by the mildness in terms of sweetness and flavour), yet, they are presented quite professionally.. Now, the toilet. It smells homey.. Yiling describes it as having a ‘potpourri’ scent; not too strong, just pleasant.. BUT, the look of the toilet is very hotel/resort.. (The sink’s fully glass and it’s got pebbles around, and the tap is very atas.. haha..
When I got to the counter to see the cakes.. Boy, my eyes shifted to the breads! (Mom and I love eating bread..) Something caught my attention immediately.. This three-toned loaf.. Looked like those $1 Wall’s icecream bread, which I really can’t stand.. Well, this one had to be different! (haha.. it was $3.50 - it better be.) Called "Beetroot, Carrot, and Spinach". Wow.. all three swirled together in a loaf? For real? I hope I won’t have to put icecream in between the slices man! Anyway, I thought i’d buy back for my mum.. And I did! Before I move on, let me say, this bread is full of paradoxes too! :S hmmm.. haha but here goes:
Savoury | Sweet
The spinach gives that savoury kick, and the beetroot adds a tinge of sweetness. The carrot is a bit of both.. The nice thing about this is, the flavours of all three blend quite interestingly together… It’s not overwhelming, neither is it so mild, it’s just right. There’s no distinct aroma but when you bite into it, there’s just this nice aftertaste that disappears really quickly.. I wished it didn’t, though! :S But it doen’t matter.. I think I’m intrigued enough by the colour and the blend of flavours!
Light and fluffy | Chewy and ‘Solid’
Being soft, it just feels great biting into.. Plus, it’s so brightly-coloured! Seriously like candy floss, you know? ", It’s weird.. but… i can’t say it better! :S I LOVE chewy breads that is at the same time light and fluffy.. And this one just nailed it! So hard to find such combinations… In other shops,while their bread may be chewy, it is also doughy… yuck! Stick to your teeth..Like eating dough lah - after you put it into your mouth, your saliva will churn it back to pre-baking state of dough! haha.. Good. Try it.. No regrets.. $3.50 only.. Ask them to slice it THICK! Mmm…
It’s so good, you must eat it on its own…
Toast it if you want, but generally, it’s good like that too.. BUT PLEASE don’t spread anything on it!! Not even butter! Cos you’re gonna miss that subtle, ‘unassuming’, flavour and aftertaste! This morning, my mum didn’t know… she ate it with peanut butter… she thought i’d buy her the ice-cream man’s bread!!!! ARGH…. what a waste! Haha.. How can you bear to spread peanut butter on this! No way….
Cafe Pralet
17 Eng Hoon St, Eng Hoon Mansion
Closes at 9.30pm
Nice place for hi-tea.. chill alone. or with one or two good friends! ",
They’ve also got weekend breakfast specials, hi-tea sets, pastas and some local sel
Too good to be true?? Well, maybe! haha..! I try to present it just as I have experienced it BUT… i’m also practising writing ahhaha.. :S
Anyways… cya! I shall be drowning myself in John Piper Wisdom these few weeks! Just bought ‘Desiring God’! I was amazed at how THICK IT IS when I saw it at SKS… almost didn’t buy it.. thicker than my bible can?? haha.. but the words bigger lah…
I have the urge to write an article… an essay, rather
It shall be entitled:
Godly SNAGs (Sensitive New Age Guys)
Maybe somewhere down the road when I actually have time to organise my thoughts on this… But for now, there seems to be a million things going on around me.. and going on in my thoughts..
this was a note i wrote on facebook on 30 april 2009.. something i wrote not hoping to change anything, but that it’d get people thinking abt such an issue! ",
You are walking along the street, and you start singing humming the song you heard at church last sunday. Later in the day, your casual conversations seem to have fragments of lyrics in them. (e.g. Hey friend! Why u so sad! Turn Your eyes upon Jesus, look full in His wonderful face! OR, Come on Dude! You’re so gonna be a History Maker in this land. You can do it! ) Haha.. well, that’s uber cheesy and extreme, but know what i mean?? :S
Is that you? Well, that’s me. being cheesy sometimes!! hah!
As Adriel would say, we are a ’sensate’ generation, constantly bombarded by loads of adverts, kinds of music, noises blah blah.. and we just FEED on these things regardless how meaningful (or lackingly) they are. cos there’s just too much, coming too soon, we can’t evaluate the ‘goodness’ of these things! Then, they just sit deep within us subconsciously. Have you heard of any preacher who said something totally off, but shouts AMEN, and have all the congregation shouting AMEN back? Hah.. See?
Now, what about the songs we sing in church? Why sing some songs, and not others? Sad to say, some people remember songs more than they remember sermon points (sorry, Rev Alvin, sorry Adriel :S haha). What if these songs have distorted biblical ideas we don’t even realise??! oops…! Not good, not at all!
Like it or not, it was commented that the songs we sing in church shape people’s theology! (If we’re all consumers in the church, we won’t bother verifying the truth of the songs.) They shape people’s idea of what the Christian life is about. Maybe it’s a Y-generation thing that people are more ‘alert/plugged in’ to songs/music than pastors preaching! Haha.. but that means this danger:
Songs with distorted theology = people with distorted theology (!)
Sometimes we do need to be alert to the songs we sing today. Do they make sense, or do we just feel good singing them even though they make little sense and go ‘man, I’m IN THE ZONE!’ 
yikes.. emotional high.. Maybe we need to go back to singing theologically rich hymns from now on!! haha! maybe not, i can sense some objections already.. then maybe we need to write new songs altogether haha! That said, there won’t be a song that can adequately portray God for who He is… cos… He’s an indescribable, uncontainable God!!!! ", But there ARE good songs around that we keep singing over and over! E.g. How Great is Our God, Shout to the Lord.
The next problem is that songs we sing today are too ‘me-centred’, how ‘I’ feel, how God touched ‘me’. Very individualistic, rather than God-centred. e.g. Oh oh oh, i am Yours and You are mine.. I love You x 3. Nothing wrong, we just need a balance! Are we consumers in worship? Or do we gather, to worship Him TOGETHER, praising Him for WHO He is, exalting His HOLY name, and not merely what He can do for us? There is a place and time for our individual experiences.. again, not saying sunday morning’s not a place but there needs to be a balance!
Worshipping TOGETHER as a body of Christ is not a corporate gathering of individual experiences of worship, but building up of the CHURCH itself (Gordon Fee).
Life-transforming Worship
The question I always ask myself as a worship team member is:
When people leave a ‘worship’ service, will they be more in awe of WHO God is, how good & Holy He is? Have we encountered God? Have we been transformed? Or, will they just feel better about themselves, or feel that the worship team did a great job in moving them? When we truly encounter God, will we feel good about ourselves?? I don’t think so. Like in Isaiah we’ll be so ashamed of ourselves saying ‘WOE TO ME! I am a man of unclean lips!’
Not saying that those who come with heavy burdens and problems will have their needs left out this way, but when we truly understand and worship God for who HE is, His nature.. all our problems/worries will be secondary IN LIGHT OF HIS glory, His Holiness!! And don’t forget, in His presence, there is fullness of Grace & Mercy, fullness of Joy, No condemnation… This is the God we worship. This is our God.
oops.. see what i mean? I can be cheesy with the lyrics.. :S
So anyway, the next time we gather in YM, we could all start thinking more carefully about the words in the songs we sing! Mhm! (: Maybe one day we’ll have the worship leaders pick all the incoherent songs and see whether people still sing them! ", Objections?
(Inspired by Dr Simon Chan’s CDCM series on Worship)
