What a Global Conference! :D

Wow... simply breathtaking. I'm so grateful that God gave me the opportunity to be there. And HQ and I were, like, beating our chests and saying that our CG should have been there.

And it was a GREAT time of meeting my fellow brothers and sisters from Hope churches from other countries! And... also from within my own church! Had a great time of fellowshipping with Spencer from HopeKids ministry, Ps James of Mandarin service, Ps Brandon from Hope Adelaide...

And got to know more people from the Hope media ministry and the Tertiary ministry too! :D Got to know Nehemiah, Andrew's sheep... who in turn introduced me to Aloysius from the Poly side... who in turn introduced me to Jiayi in the sound ministry and also to Shuzhen.

And got to know this sister from Mandarin service... I thought she was 25 years old, latest... turns out she is over 30+! Wow! She was grinning so widely haha when she heard my mistake. Haha! Praise God...

And thank God too so much for His giving me a chance to bless two sisters from Hope Chiangmai. Initially, I was supposed to help host a pastor from Hope Jakarta, but for some reason, he was not able to make it in the end. So I thought the SIM card that I had bought to bless him would go to waste.

But as I prayed, thanking God anyway that He sees the heart behind what I do even if it seems wasted. And then, while walking out from the auditorium after the first plenary session, Michael, my district pastor, took me aside, and asked me whether I was free. I said yes, and he asked me to help escort the Hope Chiangmai team to the lunch venue. And to help host two sisters. Both are quite senior I think... well, one of them has white hair haha... so I helped the older one carry her luggage.

I was quite shy at first, 'cos I dunno my Thai, but thank God the younger one knows English pretty well. And, yeah! thank God! I passed them my SIM card, and they were very blessed. Praise God for His grace!

Hee! Also watched how the Hope Chiangmai team interacted with one another... I saw how they put their hands together to greet one another... so I tried. Haha... felt very shy 'cos I'm so used to doing handshakes instead. Haha... thank God they were very gracious, and returned my clumsy attempt at imitating their graceful wais. But it was very fun! 'cos it was a great way to practice what I learnt in the Missions workshop about adapting to other peoples' cultures!

How I think my wai looked like to them...

Also, I was very touched and inspired by Pastor Marcus Rose from Hope Berlin. Hilarious testimony too! He was sharing with us about how God touched him, even as a non-believer, during a time of worship, that he actually started crying! He looked at us in mock horror when he said that: "Oh no! I was crying! I'm a guy! I'm a German guy! And German guys aren't supposed to cry! I mean, c'mon, we fought two world wars!

ROFL! Very funny, the way he poked fun at himself and his country... :D

But more seriously, he shared with us from the depths of his heart that he really wants to live a Christ-centred life. That everyone he meets, he wants to treat them like Christ Himself would treat them.

OMG. This is really radical. To see people as Jesus would see them. To treat them as He would treat them. It made me think. Just how often and how much do I actually see people through the eyes of Jesus Christ? And how often and how much do I treat others like Jesus would treat them?

After that, Ps Brandon of Hope Adelaide joined Ronald, Kong Wee and Edmund Lim for supper. I joined them, and thank God, though we men were all pretty laconic (as men tend to be) while munching, eventually Ps Brandon started sharing more about how he came to know Christ. His testimony was very encouraging, especially since Australia is actually not very spiritually receptive... his own persecution by his parents... and how God started using him. We especially were very blessed by Ps Brandon's testimonies about his overseas experiences. One thing that struck me was how he shared very real about his fears while going to dangerous places for missions e.g. Pakistan, Rwanda and so on. Thank God too for his witty humour haha... and oh yes, his saying, "By day, I'm just a boring research scientist. By night, I'm..."

And oh yes, the night conference on the second day. Fantastic! The Spirit was really moving... so exciting! Very specific prophecies and so on.

Jiayan wrote about it. And here's the great video that Ps Dennis used to illustrate the importance of the Holy Spirit in the Christian's life:


I also learnt a great lesson about why the Bible described the Holy Spirit, when He descended upon Jesus after his water baptism, as in bodily form, like a dove.

To quote from Jiayan's notes:

The holy spirit is likened to the dove and the wind. I personally like the analogy of the holy spirit as the dove very much:The dove never fights, the dove don't like noisy places, the dove is not territorial and once you release them, they will not fly back unless you feed it consistently.

And the important lesson is, if you want a dove to land upon you, please don't be so busy... be gentle and humble in spirit, and be still... and feed your spirit with the bread of God's Word... and we know how bread crumbs attract doves and pigeons very fast... :D

For the third day, Huanyan, Shuyi and I went together for the intercession session, led by James Loke and Ian Foley (I think that's his name). It was a good and powerful time... James prayed for some of our Hope Singaporeans to be delivered from a sian life... then Huanyan gave what he sensed to be a word from the Lord... so James led the team to pray together in response for further intercession. Then I sensed that God wanted to reply in response to the intercession using Isaiah 9 as His answer. Wow! Exciting! When we pray, the hands of God do what our own hands cannot do! Amen!

So many exciting moments... And oh yes, during the Kids Builder workshop, Ps PK's wife, Kim, shared that she's trying to start a children's ministry in Hope London. So she asked a lot of questions. Then someone (I think it was a sister from Hope Kuching) asked whether I had an archive of scripts and skits that I could share with them. Whoa! Yeah I do...

So that gives me a small idea. I think I can help to contribute to the Great Commission by supporting other Hope churches to build vibrant, biblical children ministries by sharing great skit ideas with them! Exciting! :D

And last but not least, the powerful dramatization of the Scripture readings of Acts 1 and 2. It was great! Of course there were a few synch issues in some of the coordinated readings, but the overall effect was heart-stirring! that's the power of the arts in communicating the Scriptures... it can really stir the emotions of men, and help open afresh their minds to receive God's Word more readily! Amen!

So! Really want to encourage you all to go for the next Global Conference in November... and to live out the Core Values... to let Jesus Christ be the Core of your life!

"Greater things are still to come;
greater things are still yet to be done."

Disclaimer: This is strictly a Photoshopped spoof... Intel has nothing to do with our conference... though thank God for Intel's chips that enable our computers to run... haha.

To end off here, want to share with you this very meaningful quote by John Ortberg:

Change requires the right vision, and then actual effective methods for change. But these methods will have to involve ways of life that you will actually want to do.

Where this is no vision but lots of methods, there is legalism.

Where there is vision but no understanding of method, there is frustration.

Where there is neither vision nor method, there is apathy.

But where the vision is strong,

and method is actually effective and workable,

then transformation can happen.

Let's live our lives with Christ at the core of our lives!