Congregation meeting was one that refreshed my spirit. As Pastor Eve shared about her testimony about praying blessings into the life of her colleague, I reflected and realized that indeed as long as we do our part to be a blessing to someone, to pray or even share Christ, God is already working among and within us. There are times where I felt really dejected why I could not be that vessel for God to use and bring people to church, but through this I was reaffirmed that so long as I give my best to glorify God in my actions, He is pleased. Pastor Danny also gave some pointers regarding Faith, which is the focus of the meeting. As I pray and seek God to renew that faith in my heart, especially in the area of my family, He spoke and said,” take my hand and follow me.” It was simple sentence yet I struggled at the first instance! But as I reflect on the way home, I answered a firm ‘yes’ as I know that everything will only fall in place when we choose to follow God and give in to Him.
Liangming sent this SMS a few weeks ago that goes like this: Fear imprisons, faith liberates. Fear paralyzes, faith empowers. Fear disheartens, faith encourages. Fear sickens, faith heals. Fear makes useless, faith makes serviceable. Most of all, fear puts hopeless at the heart of life while faith rejoices in God.
I used to have bad digestive problems in the past until I realised in sec 3, that the cause of it was because I had a jaw problem. Dentist said that I wasn’t able to put on braces as my case was a serious one. I was then referred to an orthodontist.
During my first visit at the orthodontist in Jan 2008, he said that my case was a very complicated one and I needed to go for operation. I took X rays and was scheduled for an operation in Jan 2009. I started off with braces first as my teeth needed to be straight first before I was able to go for the operation. It was said that my jaw would be more emphasized after my teeth are being straightened. Still, my parents committed me to the Lord and believed that a miracle would happen. I told God that no matter what, operation for me is a No.
By September 2008, my teeth were completely straight already. There was improvement in my jaw as compared to previously. My orthodontist was amazed but still, he said that if I’d stop improving, then I may want to consider going for the operation due in another 4 months.
However, God is awesome! My jaw continued to have vast improvements under the treatment of my orthodontist. I was asked to put on rubber bands in my mouth in order to move my jaw to the left since it’s crooked to the right. The treatment was an uncomfortable yet encouraging one as I see the hands of God upon me. By December 2008, my jaw was totally straightened but both the upper and lower jaw still wasn’t able to meet. By December, my orthodontist was very pleased with my improvement and said that I no longer need to undergo operation. Hence, operation plans was cancelled. Healing still continued with constant prayers. By May, I was able to have a perfect bite and my jaw is now completely healed!
I was the first miracle case to my orthodontist. He said that it was near impossible that such a complicated case like mine is able to avoid operation. Little did I know that my orthodontist’s a Christian too. I believe that it wasn’t by mere coincidence that I was referred to him. I believe that God was using his hands to heal me. Praise God! God truly answers prayers!
E-Tribe Congregation Meeting at Pastor Eve’s house 25th April 2009 @2pm
-picture proudly found by chuanz-
No matter what the level of your ability, you have more potential than you can ever develop in a lifetime. - James T. Mccay
The girls from DE-Tribe had a wonderful and powerful congregation meeting with Ps Eve. Ps Eve shared with us on the topic of the potential. All of us have a potential within us that we have to discover this potential and realise it.
Potential is defined as a latent excellence or ability that may or may not be developed.
Yes, potential is something undiscovered, something that we need to spend time to realise it so as to make it real in life.
But, how can we realise it?
Believe and go do it with FAITH.
Willing to explore all opportunities: Dare to say: “Yes, I will do. I can do!”
Experiment the area: Don’t get into the habit of “Huh, cannot lah”
Three seemingly simple steps but requires time and the spirit of “Yes God, I will do my best of the direction you have given me.” Potential does not come overnight, but it requires time and most importantly, it is the God-given purpose that determine the potential.
Eph 2:10 “For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do so.”
It is not about how small, weak, good you are, it is all about how great, how wonderful God is. Are you willing to let God turn your situation around and fulfil His purpose? What we have are we willing to serve God? Are we putting the “I” bigger that “GOD” in our hearts?
These are a few questions that God placed upon my heart. And I responded. It is not an easy route. But it will be a wonderful and fruitful route and journey. God says, fix your eyes onto Me, fix your mind on My word.
God is willing to mould us to the person with the potential He has placed within us long before we are born, may we too be willing for Him to be moulded by Him.
TGIF is often thought of as an outreach event to bless pre believers and I agree that it is very much. At the same time though less often mentioned is that it is also a time of blessing for believers.
This TGIF, I was richly blessed by the Lord because of a few reasons and here I would like to give thanks… I would like thank God for the unity the cell displayed in pulling the event through. I thank God for Clar and Val, without their creative ideas and energy the planning and preparation phase for the event would not have been so smooth. Also, thank God for Pastor Danny and Lionel for lending their support and encouragements. Valerie, Candice came and helped to prepare the food. Others came by to help out later. Chantel, together with Clar, Jia Jing and Dinali led us to play some interesting icebreakers. It was a good time spent that allow us all from various groups to engage in some good clean fun. Then Clare came to lead us into worship. God was using her mightily. God came and ministered to us and really set the stage for the testimony sharing.
I thank God that in the midst of sharing, God came and communicated the message to the guests in ways that mere mortal words can’t. I believe in either big or small ways, the seeds have been sown.In the latter part where we broke into small groups to share, each and every member made an effort to help the guests to settle down and mingle. In such a holy setting, food is a must. And everyone settled in to eat and well… all was finished…
Through it all, I felt God’s reassuring presence not just in His presence but also in the community that He has provided. I thank God it’s Good Friday because of Him and His people…
Holy Spirit visits TGIF event in Eastern part of Singapore
The Holy Spirit has reportedly visited one of the Thank God It's Friday (TGIF) events held in Singapore over the weekend of 10-12 April 2009.
Speaking to the media shortly after the event, Kevin Ng, a 16 year old participant shared that he could sense the presense of the Holy Spirit throughout the event. He said, "I could sense the presence of the Holy spirit throughout the event, especially during the worship session as well as while watching the video".
More than 20 participants gathered at an undisclosed location in the eastern part of Singapore on Friday, 10 April 2009. The event started with games that involved throwing marshmellows into the air and catching them with mouths. The participants were also made to act as boats and lighthouses. The games ended with Nutella all over the faces of popular hosts Steven and Derrick. A time of praise and worship to the Lord was followed by a screening of "The Crossing" video before the participants broke up into their groups.
One of the event organisers, Mr Lionel Chan commented that the event was meant to be a simple and meaningful affair allowing participants to have a good and fun family time. A good and fun family time it was indeed. 25 year old university student Benjamin Lee said, "It was a great and fun time for bonding among the guys in DE Tribe". He added, "We should have it more often since we don't always get a chance to interact with guys from other cells". Responding to this positive feedback, organisers have announced that plans are underway to organise an "All Guys" outing. In a telephone interview, Mr Terry Lim, spokesperson for the organisers said, "I think so.....yes.....it (an "All Guys" outing) definitely is in the pipeline. We should have a clearer picture in the next couple of weeks."
The public is advised to wait for further instructions on the "All Guys" outing or alternatively, they can enquire with their cell leaders.
"The reason we fear to step out is because we know that it might not go well. We have a history of wounds screaming at us to play it safe. We feel so deeply that if it doesn't go well, if we are not received well, their reaction becomes the verdict on our lives, on our very beings, on our heart."
Doesn't that sounds familiar? That it always happen to us? But this is what follows after... "That is why we can only risk stepping out when we are resting in the love of God. When we have received his verdict on our lives-that we are chosen and dearly loved. That he finds us captivating. Then we are free to offer. "
Entering the time into the 100k campaign, some of us the NDP, examinations or even into a new phrase of life, we need to deeply root ourselves in the love of God. Knowing that He's all that matters. To return back to that love which brought us thus far. Be bless, Chuan Lian LM's Cell Ps, Quoted Parts from the book, Captivating by John & Stasi Eldredge
It had been some time since I wrote a devotion post. Many things happened and life went on piling up with experiences upon experiences. I came to a major crossroad of my life just about 3 months back. That was the end of my 3 years of poly life. I need to chose between working or continue studying on. Honestly speaking, I did not have the financial ability to continue in pursuing my degree. I would either need to get a bank loan or to work and earn school fees.
In one of the service, Pastor preached about crossroads. I asked the Lord. What do you want me to do? Which step is the best for me? If I go out and work now, am I ready? I was filled with uncertainty about how I am going to handle the new life that is approaching me. I was sitting on the fence and couldn’t decide what to do next. The Lord spoke. Everyone have their own life to live and I have my own. What may seem best for someone else may not be the same for my case. Each person is carefully and wonderfully made by the Lord with a different purpose of life in them.
God opened a door for me in this midst after speaking that I should work for the money then continue to study. I was initially interested in events management/ coordinator and office job. But there is no such combination from what I have seen so far. You either be in the events industry where work time is not defined and all around the clock or it would be a pure 9-5 job where I would be desk bounded. However, we have a creative God who plans things in a unique way. He led my current manager to share with me about the position of central support officer in church. Then I realise that such position does exist. Although that meant that I would need to sacrifice things that I quite treasured like the time I sit together with the tribe and have a mini gathering cum briefing with the tribe every Sunday, it is a place where I knew that my spiritual life would not be depleted by the job but rather grow in my walk with the Lord.
I went for the interview and after a few days of anticipation day and night, I was accepted. About 2 weeks later, I went for Service learning facilitation course. One of the facilitation illustrations was asking the participants to walk in circles along and within the track. Those who cannot keep up with the speed of the others will be called an outcast and brought to another room which is dark and there we are all isolated somewhere in the corner of the room and isolated from the others. That game was called “Pace of life”. The Lord made me understand that I do not need to follow people’s pace all the time. I can be the pace setter or chose to be the outcast. There are two kinds of outcast - One that chose to be an outcast or one who is labelled as outcast when you cannot keep up with the pace of the society.
In this part of my life, I chose to be that outcast. To believe that I am different and there is no need to follow everyone else in the same pace knowing that it may not be suitable for me. The facilitator of the program sat us down and asked us how we felt being an outcast and those who are left on the track. There are many answers but with a little of feeling of being left out and felt uneasy, I still said “Who cares?” That was truly how I felt when I chose to work full time and committing myself to the Lord. It is not an easy journey with many family objections and discouragements added with many questions darted at me. Many could not understand and agree with what I was doing. But the Lord reminded me that I am his special one and he plans the best route for me in my life. As long as I trust in him, he will bring me through and gain victorious battles.
At the end of the day, it is your choice. To choose to be an outcast or to chase after the pace of the pace setters in your life and be labelled as outcast when you cannot follow up with their footsteps. I pray that you would be able to say, “Outcast? Who cares?” when people name you that. May God reveal his plans to you.
I had a concert in march and it turned out well, so I thank God for sustaining me throughout the whole concert preparation. Its not my personal performance, the concert has many performers.
For this concert I had to do a lot of technical and production planning and coaching conducting, but it was quite alright cos God provided me with some really nice friends in the club to help me.
The tough part of this thing- the concert preparation- is that there were a lot of dissatisfaction and cynical remarks from the members. And many people thought we were sleeping on our job so I was secretly angry at them. But I thank God for helping me cope with grace and forgiveness. Though on the surface I was scoffing at the asininity of all the gossip and behavior and nonchalant at the same time, I was really quite affected. we had AJC as our guest performers a few weeks before the concert when we had already long finished planning so a lot of the documents had to be amended, which we managed to, so thank God.
then one week before the concert, the director of the management came and spoke to the members and said some hurting words- according to them- cos i was at the g12. reason was because out of 343 tickets, only 26 were sold so he said that if ticket sales do not reach 80% in 3 days, the concert will be off and of course this is bad news to especially those who almost died preparing for this concert, but the concert turned out to be a full house, so thank God. though i personally only sold 9, God really works in ways we cannot see.
And I was returning home late 4 days a week just for guitar, so my parents were not happy but they were surprisingly accommodating
the concert- playing sound lighting entrance exit logistics- went on smoothly. I pleaded alot, if you knew how much. Many people thought it was impossible, and that’s why I know it is not by our might, but God’s.
I am very glad it is over because it was draining most of me. I hope the concerts will look good on my resume in the future.
For the last few years, I have been through several Mass Harvest events. To conduct MyHope Evangelism which is a cell based harvest event, it felt strange but yet brings a thrill of excitement to me.
In preparation for MyHope party, my cell shared and reviewed each others' testimonies. We also went through training for the sharing of John 3:16. The most helpful training session of all, I would say was the one conducted by Pastor Evelyn which taught us how to broach the salvation question and how to handle excuses.
Due to some adjustments in calendar, my cell's party was finally scheduled to 12Dec Friday. There was only 10 days from the day we confirmed the date, to the actual event. I delegated some tasks to my helpful members and was grateful for their support.
Many of my gers could not get any of their friends for the party because of the short runway and their friends' travelling plans. Only on the night before the event, did we have 3-4 guests whose attendance was confirmed.
On the actual day, Sarah, Juliana and Paulina came in early to help out in the carolling, going through the icebreaker games etc. Around 630pm, we were still confirming attendance! The 4 of us prayed for God to use us as vessels and we invited Him be the VIP for our party.
We expected 20 persons (members and guests) and the food seemed insufficient. However, our Lord the Provider multiplied our "5 tau-hueys and 2 almond jellys" (an inside joke) to a living room carpetted with food (thanks to Sarah for coordinating!). Guests were satisfied and we had plenty of leftover food! The guests participated actively in the icebreakers (cheers to Paulina!). After a pretty awkward time of carolling, we shared our reason for celebrating Christmas and showed the DVD.
Out of our 7 guests, 1 gave his life to Jesus and 1 rededicated her life to follow Him. Out of the remaining guests, few have indicated a desire to know more about God and join us for future events. This was a surprise to us to receive such open-ness, from friends who has rejected us in previous harvest events. A seed has been planted, and we have more opportunities to water and nuture it.
Introducing my team who made it possible!
Juliana: MyHope taught us to be good hosts and allowed our friends gain some ideas about "church stuff" in a comfortable setting.
Sarah: I learnt that one pair of hands wouldn’t be able to accomplish much, but together, we managed to plan the party, enjoy ourselves and even the guests had fun and laughing to the various antics we displayed. And indeed the Lord provides, in food, in guest numbers and also in the smooth flow of the party. It was a blasting success.
Paulina: I saw the simpliest form of evangelism as we all gather and serve our guests with food and drinks. of course, how everything is possible when we invite God as our guest of Honour.
Upon reflection, I knew that this entire event could not have been possible if not for the Lord's intervention. Initially, we could not fix a suitable date for the party and the response from the ground was poor. We were not confident of carrying it through because my girls had not prior experience and I had not lead a cell-based harvest before. It was a major step of faith for us to plan it with such a short runway.
However, when the Lord shifted our calendar, when the guests started streaming in, I knew in my spirit that the Lord's hand was upon us. The event was so well received that the guests lingered on to chat, even when we were already cleaning up (sign that they have to go, haha!). This is nothing short of amazing. And just like how Kelvin Soh would say it, All Glory Goes to God!
When I watched this video it sort of reminded me of who I was before Christ. Lost, hopeless unsure of what I am looking for. But as I walked with the Lord in the years that I have given my life to Him, I now know what is real happiness. And as this season of MY HOPE Singapore, I pray that the people that I am inviting will also understand that without God, we cannot find the happy life that we so yearn for.
A question from a brother hit me hard in one of the sharing sessions. I pondered about it through the whole session that night.
I always had this problem of waking up on time for school. The condition got from bad to worse because I didnt like school. The impact was seen from my last semester's grades.
The question was, " You don't do your QT daily right? " At first, I couldn't gasp what he meant. Then, the explaination came. Cannot wake up was an excuse to don't want to wake up. I agree. That shows the lack of discipline. The person lacks discipline and so the actions will show the lack of discipline.
From this, I see the integration of my spiritual life and physical life. What I do in my physical life will have its share in my spiritual life. Thanks brother for the enlightenment.
To train discipline, action must be taken. He suggested putting 3 alarm clocks instead of one. He did that and he could wake up even before the first alarm clock ring after some time. Proven effective if one have the heart to do so. It is all in the mind.
Well,I will try hard to discipline myself. Try the 3 alarm clock idea for those who have problems waking up in the morning! =)
Love, Jovii =pP
13 "If you keep your feet from breaking the Sabbath and from doing as you please on my holy day, if you call the Sabbath a delight and the LORD's holy day honorable, and if you honor it by not going your own way and not doing as you please or speaking idle words,
14 then you will find your joy in the LORD, and I will cause you to ride on the heights of the land and to feast on the inheritance of your father Jacob." The mouth of the LORD has spoken.
Bringing boldness into the marketplace Last Friday, Daven and I met up in our school planning to set up a prayer point like what Pastor Khong has called us to do so. We actually wanted to prayer-walk the school and ask for God’s presence to come into the school. And the Lord showed us that we need to claim the land for God.
So, we decided to use the most ‘traditional’ way to claim the land. By planting ice-cream sticks along the circumference of the whole school. With every ice-cream we plant, we pray that God will reign over this campus. Just as what it is written on the ice-cream stick itself, “Jesus Christ is lord, Reign over this campus”
With every ice-cream stick we plant, we could see small little ripples coming out from that stick. And with the theory of an engineer (Daven), we believe that with many small ripple effects; will then create a massive huge ripple effect that will sweep across the whole of the campus.
Lets all start to do something that you’ve never done before in your marketplace, and believe that God for a miracle. Just like what we’ve done in our school.
Ps: It’s bold because we almost got caught by the security guard by anyhow planting things into the soil of Temasek Poly. But thank god, we didn’t get caught! (:
One balloon to represent one day of Elliot's life. 99 balloons to sum up his entire life. But in just 99 days, his life has touched many and brought life, hope and love to others! What about yours? Are you willing to let God use every single day of your life? The DE tribe blog team
We watched this video several months back , and I believed we were all changed! Basically it speaks about how we can change our view of the world, our mindset to one thats always am able to see the beautiful things in life! More importantly do we believe that in things that are mundane or just plain or boring, that there can be beauty in them.
In recent weeks, many things have been happening to the people around me, and these are things that hurt me. Seeing people feeling down and out and basically feeling life is not worth much, I began to worry, because life is fun. It is meant to be fun with full of hope and optimism basically LIFE is meant to be in fullness, ZOE(fullness of life). Go read john 10:10
Things happen for a reason, and there is no such things as coincidence whether it is something good or bad so we should not just brush it one side, but we then need to ask ourselves this question, how then should I view this situation in my life. What good can come out of it? What is God saying in the midst of confusion? I believe this video will help to answer that, which is to CELEBRATE WHAT IS RIGHT WITH THE WORLD!
This is a long video about 22mins in total, I encourage you to watch it again! Especially from 7:30min onwards. Kenny Foo
Welcome to the DE Tribe Blog. We hope it finds you well. With this new layout, we are also introducing new content to enrich your blogging experience. As with tradition, we will continue to have our usual devotion/thanksgiving column. The email address to send your devotion/thanksgiving to is detribe@yahoo.com.sg. Moreover, we are introducing 2 new segments. They are the Pastors’ Column, where Ps Danny and Evelyn will pen their thoughts and also the DE24 Column, where our resident writers will discuss topics that will spur our growth.
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