Trustworthy Sayings of Saint Paul

1 Timothy 1:15-17 (NIV)

"15Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners—of whom I am the worst. 16But for that very reason I was shown mercy so that in me, the worst of sinners, Christ Jesus might display his unlimited patience as an example for those who would believe on him and receive eternal life. 17Now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory for ever and ever. Amen."

1 Timothy 3:1-7 (NIV)

"1Here is a trustworthy saying: If anyone sets his heart on being an overseer,^[a] he desires a noble task. 2Now the overseer must be above reproach, the husband of but one wife, temperate, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, 3not given to drunkenness, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money. 4He must manage his own family well and see that his children obey him with proper respect. 5(If anyone does not know how to manage his own family, how can he take care of God's church?) 6He must not be a recent convert, or he may become conceited and fall under the same judgment as the devil. 7He must also have a good reputation with outsiders, so that he will not fall into disgrace and into the devil's trap."

1 Timothy 4:9-10 (NIV)

"9This is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance 10(and for this we labor and strive), that we have put our hope in the living God, who is the Savior of all men, and especially of those who believe."

2 Timothy 2:11-13 (NIV)

"11Here is a trustworthy saying:
If we died with him,
we will also live with him;
12if we endure,
we will also reign with him.
If we disown him,
he will also disown us;
13if we are faithless,
he will remain faithful,
for he cannot disown himself."

Titus 3:3-8 (NIV)

"3At one time we too were foolish, disobedient, deceived and enslaved by all kinds of passions and pleasures. We lived in malice and envy, being hated and hating one another. 4But when the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared, 5he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, 6whom he poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Savior, 7so that, having been justified by his grace, we might become heirs having the hope of eternal life. 8This is a trustworthy saying."

And now for a taste of things to come...

Coming soon...Sports Day 2007 - February 23, 2007

The Hippocratic Oath is read to the fourth year MBBS students at the medical school in Herston and the torch is lit. From there they will run across the city all the way to the UQ St. Lucia campus picking up any 1st, 2nd and 3rd year students they happen to bump into along the way. Here we will witness a battle of strength, agility, endurance and gastrointestinal mucosal integrity in the form of a tug-'o'-war, jelly wrestling, relay races and drinking games. This will be topped off with an evening at the Regatta Hotel for more festivities.

Dress Code: scrubs

Fantasy Update

I thought I'd miss hockey a lot more down under but it actually hasn't been that bad. I normally don't have time to watch many games on TV and I might attend the odd Flames game now and again. The time difference is very nice because when I return to my place in the evening, all of the games are finished and it's just a matter of browsing through the scoresheets and stats. Back home, I'd be wasting time constantly checking the scores all night long.

Will the Avs make the playoffs? I have a feeling they will squeak out an 8th place spot in the West. They have a lot of young talent and scoring power - just inconsistent goaltending and defense. You can only outscore opponents so often (like that 7-5 win against the Flames). Leopold better start pulling his weight seeing as Tanguay is certainly putting up a respectable number of points. And who knows? Maybe some miracle will happen and the $5.5 million burden named Theodore will be lifted by February 27...

I'm pretty happy that two of my three fantasy teams are sitting on top of their respective leagues. Hopefully it stays that way until April.

The Search for Church

So far I've had a chance to visit two churches here in St. Lucia. The first was the Chinese Christian Church Brisbane (CCCB) located at about a 10 minute walk from my place. It was a fairly small church that reminded me a lot of my old church, Evangel Alliance. The second was Unichurch. They meet in a primary school gymnasium that's also about a 10 minute walk from my house. I've been to both their morning and evening services.

I'm very confused as to how exactly I'm supposed to go about finding a church. I've always just gone to whatever church my family went to and I've been fine with that. Should I be attending a church that best fits my needs? Is that the purpose of church? Or should I be looking for one that I can be of service to as part of the body of Christ? It almost feels like I'm "church shopping" where I look for the sale prices and try to get the best bang for my buck. What I ended up doing was go through a mental checklist for each service:

1. Hospitality/Welcoming

The pastor at CCCB, Steve Nation, was the only one who approached my friend and I prior to the start of the service. He immediately recognized that we were new and made a point to introduce himself and welcome us to the church. He took some time to talk to us before and after and was just super friendly. His wife, Keiyeng, was also very nice and actually gave my friend and I a ride back to my place after the service. Only one other lady introduced herself and proceeded to bring me over to meet her daughter, who happened to just graduate from University and was working. Sadly, I don't remember either of their names.

At Unichurch, there were a few people who were super friendly and welcoming. Everyone there had name tags so it was really easy for me to meet people and remember them. Plus, it was easy for people to notice that I was new because my name tag was handwritten in black sharpie marker. Nobody gave me a ride home but there were plenty of people who introduced themselves to me.

2. Music

Music is a huge passion of mine and I absolutely love worshiping God through it. But so far I've found it difficult to really get engaged through the music at both churches. As I said before, CCCB is a small church that reminds me of my old church. I actively served in the music ministry and I know personally how hard it is to work with limited resources. I didn't know any of the songs and the style was more on the conservative side (nothing wrong with hymns).

Unichurch seems alright. The morning service I went to I didn't know any of the songs they sang. It was a simple setup including two acoustic guitars (that complemented each other beautifully...one was a 12 string), electric bass, upright piano, and a flute. The evening service I went to last week had an acoustic guitar, drums, piano and saxophone. The only song I knew was "In Christ Alone".

I guess in my mind I wanted to find a church that sang songs by David Crowder, Israel Houghton or Starfield. I wonder if it's wrong for me to desire to worship God with a certain type of music in mind?

3. Teaching/Preaching

Probably the strongest attributes of both churches I went to. Pastor Steve at the CCCB was one of the first people to shake my hand when I walked through the door. He was all smiles and super outgoing. It wasn't the fake front that I often see in people either. He'd ask me something and when I explained he appeared genuinely interested in what I had to say. His wife, Keiyeng, was equally hospitable. I went with a classmate of mine who wasn't completely committed on Christianity yet. Keiyeng spoke to her for a while after the service and ended up giving her 3 books to keep. One was Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis. After some snacks and tea, she then drove us both home so we didn't have to walk home in the 40ºC weather.

As for the sermon, it was good as well. He was just starting a series on Proverbs and how they apply to our daily lives. He gave everyone a list of readings from Proverbs that provide us wisdom for living. It included themes like the power of words, justice, politics, sexuality, parents and children, alcohol, friendship and money.

The first Sunday at Unichurch, their senior pastor wasn't speaking. Instead it was one of the ministry trainees, Pete Kutuzov. He gave a sermon on how God guides us. He spoke of how it can be unwise to seek guidance solely from things like circumstances, opportunities and emotions. Apart from God, these can be misleading. We must test everything with scripture. Plus we know from scripture that he wants us to be holy & blameless (Eph 1:4-5), do good works (Eph 2:10), be sanctified (1 Thess 4:3) and to love God and others (Mark 12:28-31).

I had a chance to talk to Pete the following week. Apparently, the path to full time ministry down under is a bit different. They spend two years working as a ministry trainee at one of the churches. During this time they have a chance to serve in various capacities in the church - preaching, leading songs, doing prayer and leading bible studies. Then they can decide if full time ministry is something that they really want to do before they dive into seminary. Hopefully, by gaining some valuable experience beforehand, they know for sure that full time ministry is what they want to do. Some of the ministry trainees end up moving on to other vocations as they realize that full time ministry just isn't for them. Instead, they continue to serve in other capacities.

This past Sunday, their Senior Pastor started a 3 week series on Titus. We covered the requirements of godly leaders in chapter 1. There were a couple of interesting points that stuck in my mind. One was that he emphasized that elders should be appointed and not voted in. Paul instructed Titus to go around Crete and appoint elders in all of the churches. Another was how women should not be in a position of leadership within the church.

4. Young Adults

There were a lot more people that appeared to be around my age at the evening service at Unichurch. Both churches told me that their numbers are much lower than usual since it is the summer holidays and many people (students especially) are away. Everyone I met seemed pretty nice but we never got past talking about things like how I'm from Canadia and the weather.

5. Miscellaneous

Both services were much longer than I was used to. The services went over 90 minutes I think. What made it longer was the fact that they had a small proportion of their worship time spent singing and a large amount of the time sitting and listening to the sermon. At Unichurch they only sing 3 songs total (1 before and 2 after) so the sermon was at least one hour long. At CCCB they had maybe 4-5 songs but that's only about 20 minutes out of 90.

One thing I liked about Unichurch is that they have a Q&A session after the sermon. The pastor gives the congregation a chance to ask him any questions they might have on what he spoke about. This is something that I've never seen before and I think is a good thing. It gives people a chance to clarify things and also shows that the pastor is open and willing to be challenged as to what he's teaching. I think it's good that if we don't think that he said something right, we are free to ask him about it.


So what's the final consensus? Well, I think I need to evaluate the purpose of church. It's not simply a building to visit once a week to ease my conscience. The singing, scripture reading, prayer and studying the bible can all be done outside of a church setting (and probably should too). But one word that comes to mind as I sit here in my room is fellowship.

I often say on a Friday night that I'm going to fellowship. But am I using the word correctly? In the bible, the greek translation is koinonia. This word is found in the KJV 20 times and they are all in the New Testament following the day of Pentecost. Significance? Probably relates to our spiritual relationship to God through the Holy Spirit. Bob Gillam outlines seven facts regarding fellowship. From these, he comes up with a biblical definition of fellowship:

"Fellowship is a relationship of inner unity among believers that expresses itself in outer co-participation with Christ and one another in accomplishing God’s will on earth."

God's will is an important aspect of fellowship - it does not stem from just any activity involving a group of believers. Ephesians 3:10 states that the church has an integral part to play in God's eternal plan. That part is to proclaim the glory of God to the world. As a Christian, there is no way that I can accomplish this by myself. As Bob Gillam put it, God's plan is more like a beautiful symphony of Godly capacities rather than a solo. The difference is that instead of musical instruments, we have varying spiritual gifts.

So this brings me back to the question: what are my spiritual gifts? After all these years I'm still not sure. Even after spending some time with friends in some intense study and discussion of spiritual gifts and some of the controversies behind certain gifts, I'm still not sure which ones I have. But does that mean I should be going around looking for the church that needs the most help or that has opportunities for me to serve?

To be continued...

Matt's New Aussie Vocabulary: Part One

1. Prac - instead of using "labs" they call them "pracs". It actually took me a few days to realize that my anatomy and microbiology pracs were really just labs.
2. How you going? - This sounded (and still sounds) so strange when I first heard it. I responded with, "huh? I'm not going anywhere." But what I thought was a localized case turned out to be quite widespread. A common greeting that they use along with "G'day". I'm more comfortable with "How are you?" or "How are you doing?"
3. Fly-bys - I got this a few times at the grocery store. Finally figured out that this is their version of Air Miles. For some reason I thought maybe they had to do with drive-bys...
4. EFTPOS - the Aussie version of debit.
5. Crisps - potato chips. I guess chips refer to fries. I wonder what fries refer to?
6. Full-on - hardcore or HC. HC for JC and HC for MD!
7. Barbies - instead of BBQ they simply refer to them as "barbies".

There's probably more but that's all that I remember at the moment. Cheers mate!

Unashamed Love

I remember absolutely loving this song when I first heard it. The words are so simple and yet they spoke directly to my heart during a time when life was busy. I've always struggled with quiet times with God because I'm so used to running around in a go-go-go state of mind at 299 792 458 m/s. Time to quiet down my busy life and spend some time listening to God because he's worthy of my unashamed love.

Have a listen to it on the sidebar...