What a week! Praise God that a whole bunch of us have had a solid week of spiritual food, equipping us to serve more effectively in ministry. It was definitely a very full on conference, with a talk in the morning, followed by strand groups, an afternoon workshop and a night talk everyday.
The theme of the conference was 'Church Matters' with LT Hopper and Peter Lin coming to speak with us. They were crazy good and I learnt a lot about what it means to be God's people and how to go through ministry and life serving Him. Lots of the sermons were pretty challenging (which I really liked). I don't remember a lot of things, but I remember Steve Nation saying this: "Sound theology being preached should flick the comfortable, and comfort the afflicted" - AMEN!
I attended Ignite for the first time two years ago in 2011 with NATMAN and I found it really difficult to keep up with the strand content. Because of this, I decided not to attend last year so I could grow in knowledge and be better prepared to learn as much as I can. I think the plan worked. This year I completed strand 2 YAAAY! :))
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| Steve, Eric, Ezekiel and I went to Yuen Si Hong to get some asian snacks for morning tea. We tried to get the cheapest of everything and ended up getting pandaroo jellies which not many people liked. Oh well. |
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| J: Give me the grapes Fer Fer F: You're not getting any grapes off me! |
As a group outing, we went to Celia's parent's house. It was crazy cool!!! They have a huge pond with an island in the middle. The grass looks really cool to roll in but don't be deceived! There's HEAPS of geese poop everywhere.
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| Celia's dad built this bridge. What a handyman dude! |
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| Dragonfruit is growing on the island! Steve and Josh picked some and cut it up for us to eat. Tasted much better than the ones we bought from the supermarket! :) |
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| We all tried to be Nat doing her 90 degrees peace sign :) |
Strand 2: Biblical Theology
I'm no expert, strand two helped us to understand the old testament and how it fits in the big picture of the bible. We studied the passage of Jeremiah 23:1-8 which talked about God bringing judgement upon the evil shepherds and promising to raise up a righteous Branch who will save His people and gather them back to Him. This event will be so great and unforgettable that it will make the exodus seem insignificant and forgettable!
It was so so interesting learning from Steve and Celia - two awesome, godly and knowledgable strand group leaders. I was trying to soak up everything they said like a sponge - I learnt so much! I have always wanted to delve into the old testament to a greater extent than just reading it and moving on, but I've never quite known how to approach it. But this week in strand group, my yearning to study God's word has been ignited ha.. hahaha. Here are some general things I have learnt:
1. Everything in the bible is there for a reason - we just need to work harder to figure out the relevance
2. There is always connection between any passage to Jesus
3. There's a concordance at the back of my bible! So useful for BT
4. There are many different ways to approach/understand a passage of the OT (Steve printed out an article for us)
5. The general history and geographical migrations of Israel that represents the current state of their relationship with God
There have been so many mind blowing moments during this week it's crazy. Here are some books that Steve brought along to show us. I'm particularly interested in reading The Goldsworthy Trilogy and An Introduction to the Old Testament.
Thursday Night: Came home and wrote my bible study (with Jeffy's company and help). I had a much firmer understanding and direction this year compared to two years ago (my strand one leader made me redo my bible study because it 'wasn't good enough' :( sad). We split off to girls and guys and I presented my bible study to Celia and Theolynn. It was really good getting some comments and feedback. There were one or two things to improve in the questions, but overall I did a pretty good job. I'm glad I have this skill now!
It was now the leader's turn to present their take on Jer 23. Celia did a fantastic kid's talk which focussed on Jesus being the good shepherd who looks after His sheep. Whenever she mentioned 'bad shepherd' we all had to do a big 'booooo' and when she mentioned the 'good shepherd' we all shouted 'hooray'!!! It was really fun and kid friendly. Steve on the other hand did a sermon. He handed out his outline and pretty much read it out. It was pretty good (I've always been interested to see how pastors plan out their sermons and what their notes look like. Now I finally have a copy hehe)!!
To top our last strand group time together we had a few games of Articulate. We went around the circle and described as many words as we can in one minute. The categories we chose were random, object and nature. I finished with a score of 27 making me the winner yaaay! :) It was all that taboo practice I reckon haha. I sucked at guessing though - wow my group members are so sharp!
Last but not least, FOOOOOOOD. Wow the cooks cooked up some pretty fine meals! Spaghetti, wombok, beef brisket, carrot and potato, chicken wings, slow cooked pork in sweet bread, curry, beans, mushroom, RICE and more! Everybody was so grateful for this service - isn't it great that we can all serve God in so many ways?!
