Saturday, May 29, 2010

Ctrl+C?

Song writing is an art. Some people are better at it than others. How does one decide if a song is better than another? Does the beauty lie in the ears of the beholder?

Anyway, I was listening to some John Butler Trio the other day because a friend mentioned him to me. Then I was listening to some Dave Matthews Band, one of my favorite groups because of their diverse technical playing (although I'm not really a big fan of his vocals). Love the mix of guitar/drums/bass/sax and their drummer, Carter Beauford, is insanely talented. Anyway, I came across two of their songs that sound very similar. 'Big Eyed Fish' by DCB and 'What You Want' by John Butler Trio. Yes, I know they're not exactly the same...





And yes, I know you can find thousands of similar sounding songs out there that use the same riffs...just look at most of the songs we sing in church - not exactly the most diverse assortment of music available out there. I wonder if it's purposely done to avoid the music becoming a distraction and taking away the focus from God? I often find myself turning to secular bands or artists for my everyday listening because of the paucity of music diversity in praise & worship music. Is this a bad thing? Shouldn't everything we do be aimed to give glory to God?

Hmm...

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Saturday, May 22, 2010

Wan-Goh-Wah


My Cantonese is about to improve immensely over the next few months - at least the verbal comprehension part of it - as I live with an older Chinese couple. They can understand my English but sometimes they just speak Cantonese to me and I pretend that I understand what they're saying. I would rate my Cantonese speech and language development at a 3 year old level. In situations like these I'm glad I have my charades skills to fall back on. Wikipedia states that 52% of people here in Wan-Goh-Wah are ESL which puts me in a minority group for language.

The second leg of my flight was unremarkable. I sat next to an old guy who slept most of the flight and snored loudly. At least he didn't have that "old person" smell. Combined with the rattling of the plane (I thought the wing was going to break off mid-flight with the amount of noise that was coming from it) and the two very unhappy babies that happened to be in my section, it was a pretty noisy 11 hrs. Lucky for me I can sleep through a hurricane if I'm tired enough. I watched Shutter Island and only managed to get through 60% of Invictus before passing out. Probably the most disappointing part of the flight was when the flight attendant gave me the Asian breakfast despite me saying, "I'll have the omelette please" in my perfect Canadian English. I still ate it but I would much rather have had the eggs/hash brown/muffin over the watery congee/pork-floss/salty 'n spicy-cabbage-salad-thing/hard boiled salty egg.

I must have looked real suss in the airport because I was approached on 3 separate occasions by the customs/police officers. It's probably because I was traveling alone and hauling 50+ kg of stuff into the country. None of them knew what abalone was.

I've pretty much unpacked and settled in. Met up with "Ocho" Ang for lunch that included sweet potato fries. I think I might go with him and visit the Evangelical Chinese Bible Church in Burnaby tomorrow morning. I had a look at their 'Statement of Doctrine' and it appears to be okay. I'll probably hitch a ride tomorrow. Not sure how easy it is to get to by bus so that may influence my decision of whether to continue attending.

Hoping things warm up here because it's a lot colder than Brisbane despite it being close to summer here... I'm really starting to love Brisbane's year-round-shorts weather.

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Friday, May 21, 2010

The More Random the Better


So I've got 2 hrs to kill in the Taipei Int'l airport and I thought I'd share the latest story of randomness...

I'm usually a pretty keep-to-myself traveler. I don't go chatting up random strangers on the plane or in the airport. I'm either reading a book, listening to music, watching the in-flight movies, or sleeping. Anyway, before this flight I was thinking about how often I waste so many opportunities to share the gospel with people around me and how a plane ride is an awesome chance to do just that.

So I'm sitting in my aisle seat and there's a Chinese lady sitting in the window seat next to me. I'm reading my book and as the plane takes off and gets under way I decide to say hello to her and tell her that I plan to snooze off and on during the flight and not to hesitate to wake me up if she needed to get out (my last flight I'm pretty sure the girl was afraid to wake me up so everytime I woke up she asked to get past me and looked like she was busting...). I wasn't sure how good her English was going to be and it turned out to be pretty good. We made some small talk and found out a little bit about each other.

A bit later, I excused myself to use the toilet and while I was gone I just felt a huge burden to share the gospel with her. It's just the two of us sitting together, she speaks English on a flight where most of the people don't look like their English is great, she's friendly, we've already broken the ice...what am I waiting for? Deep down I knew if I didn't say anything the whole flight I would have ignored the Holy Spirit's voice.

When I got back to my seat I decided to talk about church to try to lead into a discussion about God. When I mentioned church, she lit up and said, "Are you a Christian?!?! Praise God!" It turns out that she is a disciple of Christ as well and just an amazing woman of God and the whole plane ride she had been praying for courage and good enough English to be able to share the gospel with me!

We shared about what God was doing in our lives, we prayed together and we just enjoyed a really good time of fellowship on the flight - something that I never would have expected! I told her about my unknown future and she prayed for me and reminded me how God never fails and how He always has a plan for us. She told me about the visions she's had from the Lord and how God has just answered her prayers in so many miraculous ways over the years. God definitely answered my prayer and I can't wait for more opportunities to encourage/be encouraged by other Christians as well as to share the gospel over the next couple months

Even more random - it turns out that she might be the godmother of this guy I met just yesterday for the first time. Small world.

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Tuesday, May 18, 2010

Mishandled


Hopefully I'll have better luck this time...

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Monday, May 10, 2010

iWorship

Almost makes me want to get an iPhone...almost


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Sunday, May 02, 2010

Be A Man - Do The Right Thing

Men.
Soldiers of the faith.

We are in the middle of a massive battle over something more important than land, territory, physical rights or freedom. For millennia, a spiritual battle unseen by many has been raging on - a battle for the salvation of souls for all eternity. A battle for the glory of God in heaven. On our own strength, we are no match for our enemy - he is powerful, cunning, relentless, and will stop at nothing to destroy us. But with God's strength, all things are possible and victory is ensured.

I look around and find myself in a house of young men, taking a "break from life" to play video games to ridiculous hours of the evening. Don't get me wrong, we need to rest and the Sabbath is a great time to do so. But are we neglecting other important responsibilities? Are we losing the eternal battle by doing so? Are we guilty of laziness, complacency and being lukewarm - people that make our God and commander-in-chief so sick that He wants to vomit.

So often we play war-related video games and we don't even realize that the battle for our souls is being lost at the very same time. An evangelistic evening approaches and yet, not a single young man turned up to church to pray for the event a week prior.

Should we be praying on our own? YES!
Should we also unite together in corporate prayer? YES!

What does this say about our resolve? Do we think that we stand a chance on our own??? I hope not. Victory is only possible by the grace of our LORD in heaven. We can only win if we depend 100% on the power of the Holy Spirit to fight the good fight - to fight long, to fight hard, to never give up until the mission is over. And our mission - to love God, to love our neighbours, to preach the gospel, to make disciples, to act justly, to love mercy, and walk humbly before the sovereign CREATOR of the UNIVERSE - is not complete.

In wartime, deserters are SHOT for abandoning their duties...

I do not speak down from my high horse but instead plead with my brothers in arms - I've been struck down so many times after giving into the temptations of the flesh. We cannot do this alone. We need to be united in this fight. When someone falls, we pick them up. When someone surges forward, we provide cover and support and follow in after them. Nobody gets left behind.

If we have time to play then we have time to pray.
Because if we don't play, we may miss out on a few hours of self-indulgence and enjoyment. But if we don't pray and get help from God, we may be defeated in the battle for our souls for all eternity...AND not just us, but we will allow countless other souls to be lost as well...

Time to MAN UP

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