National Training Event!

Some of us (Andrew, Daniel, George & Daniel) are going to be at the National Training Event (NTE) from Sat (5 Dec) to Wed (9 Dec) and then going on mission to Springwood in the Blue Mountains until the next Sat (12 Dec). So we're not going to see you for awhile!

BUT there's good news! The night talks at EPIC are open to the public. Sunday night is free, but $8 online and $10 at the door for each of the other nights. PLEASE TELL VON IF YOU WANT TO COME AND SHE'LL SIGN YOU UP. Make sure you have a lift, though.

Ok. That's it from me. Remember to tell your friends about the youth party on Sat 12 Dec. And I'll see you all sometime soon!

p.s. Thank you for a fantastic discussion last night, everyone who came. :)

Boy/Girl relationship talk - 28 November 2009 - Steve Prior

Here are Von's notes from the BGR last night. Add comments if you picked up on anything else in the talk that isn't in here.

The world's perspective:
+ a relationship moves towards sex: makes it special/different/exciting.
+ relationships often just stop there.
+ sometimes moves beyond --> love, commitment, life-long relationship, even marriage. But it doesn't have to! Even marriage can be backed out of.
+ relationships are FOR sex in our culture.
+ dating: a word used for the early stage of this relationship.
Definition of dating: A relationship for romantic intimacy without serious long-term commitment.
+ it can start quite young, the goal is always sex, even though you might not reach it.
+ elements: intimacy (physical, emotional), arousal, romance, no long-term thought/commitment.
+ no long term means that there is only a short term goal: sex.

What about dating for Christians?
We hope and trust in Jesus as our King and Saviour, live life as we were meant to live. (Col 3:17)
+ there is no ONE clear Christian attitude - Why not? Dating is not in the Bible. Arranged marriages were more common. Therefore, it is not a Bible issue, but an issue of Christian ethics.

What does the world think of the Christian view of dating? It's boring, you're missing out, don't really get to know the other person, etc.

Three main areas of guy/girl relationships in the Bible:
1. MARRIAGE
+ God created, everything was good. He created man, and He said that it's not good for man to be alone. (Gen 2:18)
+ to become one - base and point of marriage. (Gen 2:18-25)
+ What is marriage for? GOD - His praise and glory.
- purpose of the world: everything focussed on God. Especially on Sabbath: holy - set apart and foccused on God.
- Gen 1:28 - man has the special role to fill the earth. He can't do it by himself, and needs a helper. Fill and subdue means to allow everything to praise and glorify.
- sex fits in here (Gen 2:24). The purpose of sex is for marriage, although it does other things too. To serve, help, support things that are important to marriage.

2. FAMILY
+ Gen 4:22, 5:4 - family is second biggest category of guy/girl relationships because it is seen all through the Old Testament.
+ 1 Tim 5:1-2, Gal 6:10, Rom 16:1 - In the New Testament (after Jesus), Christians are family (Matt 12:49-50)
+ purpose of blood family - to fill the earth and subdue it, to praise and glorify God.
+ purpose of spiritual family - the unity/bond is stronger than with your blood family.
+ Gal 3:26-28, 4:21 - because the family is connected with God's promises. Christian bond: one/united, forever.

3. FRIENDSHIP
+ John 11:1-5 - Jesus has love for Lazarus, Mary, Martha - not yet Christian because He hasn't died yet, so not spiritual family. Love for purpose of seeing them saved.
+ separate from marriage and family - this is where non-Christians come in.
+ purpose: for God's praise and glory, so they can come to be saved.
+ clear guidelines and principles for relating between guys/girls.
+ purpose of everything: to praise and glorify God, comes back to Col 3:17.

Christians and dating
Clear guiding principles:
1. If good, then can only fit in one of the three areas: family.
+ only with another Christian. Deut 7:1-4
+ clear boundaries needed if we are to be holy - certain people must be set apart. God needs a people completely focussed on Him, there should not be anything that turns you away. Absolute importance of holiness and being focussed on God.
+ 2 Cor 6:14-15 Why look at/towards something that is purposeful if you have different hopes/dreams/goals?
+ 1 Cor 7:39 He must belong to the Lord - advice for women who got to choose a husband.
+ MUST be a family thing - absolute purity. Should involve anything you'd do with a brother/sisters and NOTHING else, because this bond is stronger than anything on earth. This means no emotional/spiritual intimacy - it is not wise to do this a lot or constantly. There should be no exclusivity, no romantic intimacy.

2. Must also be looking towards marriage
+ It is awkward for a brother/sister to move to marriage. Often we soften the brother/sister relationship but there are better ways.
1. Arranged marriage
2. Allow romantic interest to develop, but not intimacy - finding out about a person in different circumstances/situations to see if you can praise and glorify God together in marriage.

Therefore, Christians CAN date, but not as the world and our culture defines it, because we have God's proper design.
Adjusted definition of dating: A relationship for romantic interest with a view to serious long-term commitment.
+ 1 Peter 1:13-19: so be holy in all you do.
+ 1 Peter 2:11-12: we are to go against culture.

Dating a non-Christian is bad because it means we're not completely focussed on God -- PULL OUT! (And explain to them why it is that you're pulling out of the relationship.)

G...G...G...Genesis! Contuined!!

Lol i just got double pronged by andrew and danny in starcraft... So i have some time to write something.

Thanks to great msn discusssion with sherman dot tim dc gg and danny (anyone i miss?), I learnt something about genesis 4.

In the end, we're all a bunch of Cains. Jealous of ppl who seem to have God's favour and not bringing our hearts and everything to God. We may not be murderers but we're pretty close.

But like Cain, we are chosen and marked by God. Marked to have God's protection from death. Even if we did kill the one God was well pleased with who was... JESUS!

Whether or not Cain learnt his lesson and trusted in God is matter of debate. (WHAT DO U GUYS THINK?!?!)

But we know regardless of Cain, God still loved his creation and through Seth (the other baby of Eve and Adam), mankind gets a 3rd chacne. And Later on through Noah, we get probably a millionth chance and that keeps going to a number-I-can't-put-on-my-laptop-cos-it's-far-too-big-th chance through Israel,Judah and finally us. And he's not jsut going to be keep giving us chacnes.

NO! Even better he's going to DIE FOR US. DIE FOR US so that death and sin have no control over us and we'll truely be freeeeeee!!

Crossroads tomorrow night!

Where: Von/Dot's house - 215 La Perouse St.
When: 5:30 for dinner.

Where: Crossroads Christian Church @ ANU Manning Clark Lecture Theatres, Theatre 1
When: 6:30

Where: Von/Dot's house
When: around 8:30pm
Why: to chat about what we learnt tonight at BGR.

Tell us if you're coming, if you can. If you can't, just rock up!

40 Hour Famine news.

We were the top fundraising church in the ACT this year. Congratulations, everyone!

ACT
Church

• Canberra Austral-Asia Christian Church

School

• Merici College
• Burgmann Anglican School
• Narrabundah College

Source

a) How did they get our name wrong?
b) How did Burgmann beat Bundah?!

Outreach discussion

Hey guys,

Some of us were talking about getting more serious about evangelising, so this Saturday before BGR, we're going to have our first discussion.

So, details.
When: 6pm, Saturday 28/11
Where: Church
Bring: $5 for pizza.

Basically all the drivers are going, so if you don't want to come, you'll probably have to find your own transport to Tehillah.

Either way, contact your driver to make sure everyone's on the same page.

Hope to see you theeerrrre.
Dot

p.s. Sorry about the last minute-ness. George is scarily unorganised.

Call + Response

I'm currently organising for our church to screen a film/documentary called Call+Response.

So keep the night of the 13th of December free, and I'll keep you guys updated.

Ta!

youtube surfing is the best

as much as i love seb's funny mousemanrobot suit thing....^^

This is so cool

Ok, so this isn't actual related in any way to Tehillah. BUT, I thought it was sooooooo cool that I just HAD to share it with ma homies (you people).



BONTA-KUN!!!!!!!

G...G...G...Genesis!

Read Genesis 4:1-16!!!! DO IT and put here wat u think!!!!!!!!

Admin stuff

To everyone who just realised we have a blog, welcome!

Remember, if you want to post:
1. Send your post via email to tehillah-caacc.tehillah[at]blogger.com, or get a Google account.
2. Sign off with your name to ensure your post doesn't get deleted by yours truly.


Happy posting!

p.s. Happy birthday Natalie, Naomi, and Hsu Lynn!

Here's a present for you all:

No exams= no excue not to prepare

1 Corinthians – Study 11

1 Corinthians 14

Discussion

1. If you were a superhero, what would your superpower be?

This is such a hard choice for me- I would probably want to be like the Flash, and be able to move really quickly. That way I wouldn’t be late to anything? (ed. I think I spent the majority of my time on this question.)

Read 1 Cor 14:1-25

2. Explain what the gift of prophecy is?

The importance of understanding what prophecy is (especially in 1 Cor 14) is because of its apparent similarity to the other gift Paul is comparing it to in the passage; tongues. As a basic definition, prophecy could be said to be a gift bestowed by the Holy Spirit through which God speaks through the giftee. If we apply this definition to tongues however, we find that there is little to distinguish prophecy from tongues- both gifts use the giftee as a mouthpiece for God.

In order to distinguish between the 2 gifts then, we must look at the effect that each gift creates, according to Paul. Prophecy is spoken for people’s ‘strengthening, encouragement and comfort (‘v3’). By contrast, the gift of tongues without the accompaniment of interpretation does ‘not speak to other people but to God’ (v2). Immediately, it becomes apparent prophecy and tongues possess a key distinction in who they reach out to. The gift of tongues exclusively is shared only by the speaker and God, while prophecy has a communal effect.

Paul’s distinction fits in neatly with my own common understanding and experience (through the wonders of mass communication) of both spiritual gifts. The stereotype of the Christian overtaken by the gift of tongues during a church service is often characterised by minimal comprehension by the people around them, beyond that fact that it was divinely inspired. Yet prophecy throughout the old testament was delivered upfront to its intended audience (Elijah and Ahab, Samuel) as a public proclamation of God’s glory or foretell future blessings.

3. Which gift is greater: prophecy or tongues? Why?

In comparing tongues and prophecy, Paul was concerned that the apparent importance the Corinthians had placed on tongues was taking attention away from the edification of the Church (v4, 5,12). According to this criteria, Paul places a greater deal of importance on prophecy for its ability to be received throughout the Church. By contrast, prophecy without the accompaniment of interpretation isolates everyone by the giftee from enjoying its effect (v17).

The short answer is that the value of spiritual gifts is not to be placed on a hierarchy- they all come from the Holy Spirit, and have their varied but equally important uses. What Paul was warning against was the priority that the Corinthians seemed to be placing on the ‘flashier’ gift of tongues in contrast to the more subtle gift of prophecy.

Recap

4. What did we learn about spiritual gifts from:

- chapter 12?

- chapter 13?

( You guys can do this part yourself- don’t be lazy.)

5. How else is prophesying more beneficial than tongues? (vv22-25)

Paul once against sets up 2 contrasting pictures of a congregation encountered an enquirer, where in the first example the congregation is speaking in tongues an in the other, prophesying. While the enquirer may misunderstand the gift of tongues as the sign of apparent irrationality, when confronted with the gift of prophecy there is no choice but to acknowledge God’s presence amongst the congregation (v25).

How much would this help the image of Christianity today, if non-believers instead of picturing images of people struck down by the gift of tongues, could see the purposeful communication of God’s design in churches?

Read 1 Cor 14:26-33

6. Go through each of the instructions Paul gives and explain the reason you think Paul is giving them.

· V26 ; Above all, Paul tells the Corinthians to direct worship towards the edification of the Church.

· V27- 28 ; Tongues should be limited to 2 or 3 during each service, to be accompanied by an interpreter. No interpreter = no public display of tongues.

· V29 – Again, 2 or 3 prophets during each service. Prophecies are to be scrutinised by the ‘others’ (unclear whether Paul is talking about the other 1 or 2 prophets, or the maximum number of prophets within the congregation at the time)

· V30-33; God has left the giftee in control of the their gift of prophecy- at any point if another prophet comes up with a revelation, they should be allowed to give voice to it.

To paraphrase, Paul’s instructions and guide that the prophet is control of their gift and that God is a God of peace seem to suggest against incomprehensible noise and hour long prophecies.

Recap

In Study 8, on 1 Cor 11:1-16, we looked at what ‘headship’ means. We looked at some passages to help our understanding, including:

(ditto; see above)

Read 1 Cor 14:33-40

7. In light of what we’ve learnt about headship, explain Paul’s reasoning for what he says about women here.

Paul supports his instruction that women are to remain silent during service because of its accordance to ‘the law’ (v34). The reason for the adherence to the law here is once again to build up the body of the Church. While there may be others, 2 ways this might come about might be through

1) Example; going back to 1 Cor 9: 19-23, Paul becomes all things to all men, that the gospel may be shared to all people. Particularly within the context of our modern day assertion of personal rights and privileges, the humility of Christian sisters displayed during service can be a powerful public demonstration of our devotion to share the Gospel with enquirers.

2) Order during Worship; Just as there is no need for everyone to deliver a personal message during service, the adherence to the law allows worship to be conducted with the number of people necessary for the orderly running of worship. If everyone were to insist on their own personal right to speak during service, out of so many voices how would any clarity be preserved?

Paul doesn’t exclude a woman’s contribution from the service (v35). Rather, their demonstration of humility for the edification of the Church is no less important than any other effort.

8. What is Paul’s ultimate purpose for the instructions that he’s giving?

Once again, the number of times I have heard people dismissing Christianity because it is ‘irrational,’ ‘illogical’ or ‘incomprehensible’ seem to stem from problems that the Corinthians were having also. There is little reason for enquiring non-believers to find any value in a service is Christians themselves are having a hard time following what’s going on because of a lack of organisation.

At the same time, Paul’s instruction of organisation is not meant to cut people out from actively participating during service. A body is only made up by its varied yet uniquely necessary parts. Regardless of the gift, if its effect is to strengthen the Church, then it is of special value.

Application

9. List ways how you can edify the body of Christ when it meets on to worship together.

Use your imagination.

Spend some time in prayer (Always a good suggestion).

Sources- http://www.pbc.org/files/messages/8325/4481.html, http://bible.org/seriespage/spiritual-gifts-part-4-measure-gift-1-cor-141-25

when Von Crys like a man =]

Title has nothing to do with what I'm about to post up XD



Just watched I-heart revolution Movie "We're all in this together"

& it makes me wonder are we really *together*

Do we take up our cross to follow God and to love people? or are we just sitting on the fence?
1 Person can't obviously change the whole world.. but you can do something =] & Church is just a bunch of Sinners coming together, but also a place for refuge & a place to know God.
Unfortunately.. people feel that Church are a bunch of ideas, a certain way of doing things.. 'If you follow these Idea's and these Rules you are expected'
That's terrible.. that's not at all how it is.. We should get out of *four walls* so we may show God's Love to others.. -It's hard isn't it?

Imagine poeple that never heard the words "I love you deeply because Jesus does" what would that be like. It's love they will find, definetly not relgion.

i-heart revolution -Causes we see wrong with the world

The movie shows a lot of Human failures.. a lot of Human ideas, how we live in this world. How the world has injustice & indifference..
But I love how it points it back to God.. back to the Cross back To Jesus.. How Jesus showed his Love & took the Greatest act of injustice of humanity.
Interesting statemant ?

But I love this movie.. I think young people can relate to it very well, especially our youth of Today =]

Gives us a sense of purpose.

i-heart revolution -What this is all about

Must See Video

HOld your tears =)



had 9 million views on youtube

To Write Love on Her Arms!

Ok, stealing first place on the blog. Sorry, Gelorge!

Everyone go check this site: http://www.twloha.com/vision/ and write LOVE on your arm tomorrow in support of people struggling with depression/suicidal thoughts/addiction/self-injury.

See you Saturday with your PARENTS and FOOD!

edited by dot: I seem to be editing every post these days. Fun for me! :D

This is a drawing my friend did for promo. Sorry about the lateness.

INSERT FOOD HERE

JUST DO IT

edited by dot: I've enabled anonymous comments so even if you're not a member, you can add a comment to let GEORGE know what you're bringing. Ta.

Oh gosh ppl replied to me on MSN and other stuff wat they are bringing ... but yeah i forgot ^^

so farrrrr

HUANG FAMILY - SAUSAGES + CHICKEN WINGS (Eh i dont know wat huangs have in store to be honest )
WONG with SHERMANATOR FAMILY - POTATOTE SALAD + MORE CHAR SIU (JUST SHREMANS PORK ^^)
KWAN with MARCUS - SALAD + MEAT OF SOME SORT ^^
WONG FMAILY with GOKU AND KAT - SATAY BEEF THINGY
TINGS (or Just Joycelyn :S) - VEGATABLE SAUSAGES + MARSHMELLOWS
BOEP'S FAMILY - SALAD + SMORES
TSUI - FRANKFURT SAUSAGES

OW FAMILY - FIVE NOODLES

LY FAMILY - PORK RIBS


i love the amount of prok we are bringing ^^

The i-Heart revolution

Hey whats up guys,

I totally want to check this movie out, hope you guys are interested?

http://www.hoyts.com.au/Movies/Events/Hillsong.aspx

edited by dot: CLICKY LINK. :D

Brief Synopsis

Hillsong United began in suburban Sydney, Australia, as a bunch of teenagers playing music in a local church youth band. Over a decade later they find themselves traveling the world playing to crowds numbering in the tens of thousands representing different nations, different cultures, and different challenges.

As United crisscross the globe they are confronted and ultimately overwhelmed by the stories of remarkable individuals facing injustice and the uncomfortable paradox of being united in worship yet divided in circumstance. If their entire focus is directed only to what happens on stage, then maybe they have missed the point altogether.

Filmed over a period of 2 years, The I Heart Revolution: We’re all in this Together follows the worship band, Hillsong United, as they travel across 6 continents 42 nations and 93 cities in a cross-cultural journey of music, animation, interviews and live action documentary as they realise every story of hope, love, loss and sacrifice ultimately points to the one story.

`Andrew

HK BBQ

Just some promo for HK BBQ in two weeks. I tried to find a funny photo for HONG KONG BBQ but nothing was funny. So I tried burning asian food, hong kong food on fire, hong kong on fire, asians on fire and then I reliased I prob should have stopped. But i thought this was funny ^^Anyway so please come and rememeber to bring family and friends ^^ And by that I mean the old ppl living in your house.

TIME ? 1800HR WHERE? CHURCH DATE? 14th of NOVEMBER