Unplugged

My internet connection failed for more than 48 hours till now.

Out of the blues, it suddenly died, then began my attempt for reconnection and re-booting the computer times and again, then called the ISP x number of times, each tech had his/her only way of saying things, but nothing helps. Finally I set up an appointment for an onsite repair, which is 4 days down the road.

I vaguely am aware that I am online a lot of time. So, now unwittingly I went thru a partial unplugged experience. I heard of a Global Unplugged Experiement done last year among the universities, that the participants would refrain from using any media (internet, phone, newspaper, music, TV, any printed material including books ... etc).

For the last 48 hours, there is nothings to do with the internet, I found myself with time to read books, sleep earlier, house cleaning, shopping, yes I have been thinking of getting a new set of bowls for quite sometime, and even spent more time for supper. In a way, it is going back to pen-and-ink days, Sound like Back to Stone Age, don't I?

When I was about to go to the public libray to renew my borrowed books, (I usually would do the renewing online,) I met a cable TV repair man right out side my apartment door. I asked him about any disruption, and in 10 seconds he fixed my pain, my cable was plugged into a wrong socket!

I am back online, Hip Hip Hoorray.

Habits formed without our earnest attention, it just slowly creeps up on you. Are you not addicted to your own habits? The worst kind is your own way of thinking. We all think in a certain way without giving it a thought. That is the true self, isn't it? We are too addicted to being ourselves, and we cling onto our own senses and judgment and would even defend ourselves ferociously.

Why don't you try a little unplugged experience yourself. Take a 24 hour leave from the internet or TV could be a start. Dare to discover a little bit more about your true nature.

New year wish

Did you stay up late last night for the New Year count down?
It is getting routine to say nice things at such a moment. And oftentimes, the "new wishes" are nothing but a repeat of last years sayings. I guess the top 3 are: good health, world peace and prosperity.

I come across an old hymn as my wish for the new year, He Leadeth me.

He leadeth me -- O blessed thought!
O words with heav'nly comfort fraught!
What-e'er I do, wher-e'er I be,
Still 'tis God's hand that leadeth me.

Wish you will experience the same, that your coming year will be a testimony of God leading you 365 days in a row. Wow!

Christmas or Xmas

I remember in my childhood days, I began to notice that people wrote Christmas as "Xmas". I did not think twice about it, as people told me that it is just an easier way to wrote the long word.

As I became a Christian, I notice other Christians reacted negatively to this shorten form, saying that people have remove Christ even out of Christmas. Some even openly say that no Christian should write the X to replace Christ...

But any one can do a bit of research, what I found is that the "X" is not English alphabet, but Greek, it is the letter "Chi" , the initial letter of "Christ" in Greek. (Mind you, that The New Testament was originally written in Greek, the Greek is the official language, not English! )

If you think negative of Christ and put a big X there, surely you would turn Christmas into another episode of X-File, something comparable to the strange fiction, that fact is even hard to believe. All you get is truly a Xmas.

But if you follow the old tradition of using initials of Christ in Greek, (the most common one is the Xp combination, the first 2 letters of Christ in Greek, chi-rho, not English), you will not be erasing Christ, but getting back into the root of the whole thing.

Next time, when you see Xmas, just remind yourself that it is Greek!

What's the point about Christmas?

The center key figure of Christmas is missing from todays culture. We can do all the shopping, dinners, and home gathering as much as we want but we can not find the focus of Christmas in them. These are not bad things on its own, but can hardly give meaning to Christmas.

What then is Christmas?Well, the name sys it all, it is CHRIST-mas. No wonder Christmas is never fulfilling if we left Christ out from our lives.

Without Christ in this holiday, we will revert back to traditions, home-comings (oh, do I pity those poor travelers got stuck in various airports during this cold holiday weekend!), feasts for no particular occasion, and making a lot of substitution, making Santa, the tree, the lights as the focal points. We have displaced Jesus Christ from our hearts and replaced by all these commercialized stuffs into our mind.

When we feel something is missing, what else to do? Well, people just keep doing more, thinking more of everything could fill up our lives, i.e. more shopping, more wine more food, more partying more fun. It will turned into a big vicious cycle.

That's it, the more we try to remove Christ from Christmas, the more we will feel unfulfilled at Christmas.

Christmas Mood

We were in the city center just a couple of days before Christmas. To our surprise, we felt the Christmas Season atmosphere has dampened in compare to our memories of yesteryears. We saw fews lights, fewer decorations, fewer Santas, very few traditional Christmas carols, though there is no shortage of people wandering back and fro looking for something.

It causes us to wonder, what should be the Christmas atmosphere?
Perhaps we all have different expectations groomed by our year after year celebration. What is your concept of a "merry Christmas"?

This may be a short list of your expectations:

1. Christmas cards: this used to be the first reminder of Christmas when we open the mail box way before the holidays and began to receive REAL Christmas cards, then hang them up on a string... but how many cards did you receive this year? Some how, even e-cards are getting fewer and fewer...
2. Christmas gifts: great excuse to go shopping, probably people enjoy the long hours of shopping experiences more than the people to whom they give the gifts to!
3. Christmas deco & lights: great photo session with friends and a must for boy/girl friend.
4. Santa: another great photo session especially for those who have young kids.
5. Christmas songs and /or the annual church event: surely it is time to get emerge into 'proper' Christmas spirit with the oldies tunes.
6. Christmas home deco & tree & huge family reunion with the long lost cousins: Keep busy...
   
7. Christmas dinner: no excuse not to go! Otherwise will surely feel like a scrooge to eat by your self on the 24th.
8. If none of the above appeal to you, there is always the last but not the least option: fly away to a strange land to break away from the familiar home town atmosphere.

What is Christmas to you?

Merry Christmas and Happy new year 2011

Time surely flies.

Now we are at the close of 2010 and it will be a new year before you know it.
We will be re-starting the blog once again.
Do drop in for a visit soon.


Cheers.

The new book has ARRIVED TODAY

The long awaited book has ARRIVED hot off the press today.

Praise the Lord.

This is a combined effort of the brothers and sisters in the church. They all have a part in the authorship to producing this book in its final form.

In the past two years, we all learned valuable lessons of how to function as a Body of Christ to work in harmony and in unity for God's Kingdom.

The idea of producing the work in the form of a book came only after a year of their projects. Although we had intended the book to be printed by last Christmas, the delay has been good for us.

In the coming months, may the Lord be pleased to use the brothers and sisters as they launch out into the deep to spread God's message to their friends, families, colleagues, and loved ones.

We printed 1000 copies.

We pray that each person holding these copies will truly be blessed by the message inside and if the Lord will, we will consider doing a Part 2 of this series.

Preface of the coming new book

Preface

Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Launch out into the deep…” (Luke 5:4) This was the theme of our Tsuen Wan Church Easter Camp in 2005. Truly, we experienced the wonder of God’s working, and our hearts were challenged to go forth to launch out for the Lord.

Why did the Lord Jesus command the disciples to launch into the deep? Of course that’s where you find the fish. During the camp, we studied about the Lord’s commission to us, and how He imparts many spiritual gifts to His people for His work. We also examined what spiritual gifts the Lord has given to each one of us specifically. We prayerfully asked the Lord to use our gifts to build up His Body, so that our Tsuen Wan church can be more effective in fulfilling the Great commission of preaching the Gospel to the ends of the earth.

In the camp, we designed four different creative projects to help brothers and sisters to grow in the Lord in unity, as well as to develop their spiritual gifts to preach the Gospel. They each launched out on one project and worked together as a team for one whole year.

The projects were:

1. To acquire the discipline of writing out their daily quiet time and to boldly share their meditations with others.
2. To cultivate an interest in reading devotional books and to inspire others to a closer walk with God in this spiritual journey.
3. To learn the creative skills of story telling in order to communicate more effectively the message of the Gospel.
4. To discover and explore innovative ways of presenting the Gospel through today’s multimedia.

Just as Simon Peter replied to Jesus, “at thy word I will let down the net.”, we also responded to God’s call and let down our nets after the camp. The projects were designed in such a way that each participants had to put into action the Biblical truths they discovered in their learning, so that their sharings were from their life experiences.

Now, more than a year has passed, what did we experience? Through these projects, we witness God’s miraculous wonder in our launching out. The Lord united our church in one spirit to produce this book. This is a joint effort of the whole Body. As one family in God, even our Sunday school children participated in a daily devotional one-year Bible reading plan which you will also read about in these pages.

Jesus’ concluding words to Simon Peter, “Don’t be afraid, from now on you will be fishers of men.” (Luke 5:10).

We, too, pray that this book can be a means to spread the Gospel to our families, friends, colleagues, neighbors, and everyone we come into contact with.

May God bless you!

Raymond and Rosablanca Suen
Tsuen Wan Christian Gospel Disciples Church
November 6, 2006

A new book

It's been half a year since I last posted here. The caring of the church and nurturing brothers and sisters to grow in the Lord had taken up most of our time that there is little time left to work on the website.

Almost a year ago, our church b/s ventured out on some target projects to launch out into the deep for the Lord. And now some fruits are bearing forth from their labor.

Today, I just wrote the 'preface' of the book that the brothers and sisters are going to take to the printers to publish, hopefully in time for this year's Christmas to give to our families and friends as Christmas gifts.

Usually a book is written by only one author or two at most. But this book is put together by all the brothers and sisters in the church. They each contributed as they could to put into writing the wonderful workings of the Lord in their lives in the past year.

May the Lord bless them as well as the readers.