Sivin Kit’s Garden

Today is a mixture of all sorts of feelings and thoughts.

I just got news that Early Thursday morning, October 30, we lost a friend, a father, an inspiration. Co-founder and owner of Youth Specialties (YS), Mike Yaconelli, was in a fatal car accident in northern California late Wednesday evening. Ihad been blessed tremendously by his articles and especially his book Dangerous Wonder which taught me that child-like faith is to Jump first, Fear later! (something we forget so easily!)

Malaysia’s 78 year old Prime Minister for the past 22 years will be stepping down today. A man full of vision, focus, paradox and even controversy (especially with recent remarks on the Jews in his OIC speech and even advice to the Jews!) too needs to steps aside and allow history to unfold in a new way for us in Malaysia. Personally, I don’t know what to say. I guess, I’ll ride on what My young friend Wai Nyan’s has posted a personal tribute for him.

It all started 486 years ago when Luther nailed his Ninety-Five Theses on the door of the Castle Church on October 31st, 1517. Reformation Day is to remember the spark that has changed the course of Christian history … in fact, world history (For more check out Project Wittenberg , he’s even got a movie and a new book out this year!) Like the song goes, “It only takes a spark to get a fire going!”

Was drawn to the questions (in bold) posed by Fred Peatross in his blog on Church. In many ways, the fact remains that I and those of us in BLC are part of an organization (humanly speaking) but we must never be reduced to only that!

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The church of Jesus Christ is a mystery. It’s a mystery in part because of its unique spiritual-physical genetic structure. Yet throughout history, church leaders and theologians have often reduced the wondrous mystery of the church to more easily grasped human-size models—the church as a building, a hierarchy, or an institution. The New Testament church gets lost in such approaches.

Think of the church as a complex organism and then ask:

Where is God in this spiritual organism?
Where would one place the pastor and other leaders?
Where do all the members of the body fit in?
Where does this organism fit in the larger society in which you live?

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We managed to practice 6 songs yesterday for this celebration. It’s been quite a while since I’ve lead worship in such a big context. I enjoy working with the BLC Worship Band (both musicians & vocals) set up for this celebration. With a whole line up of various presentations from different congregations tommorrow, I hope apart from enjoying ourselves we’ll be drawn to honour GOD and appreciate His gracious work in and through Luther from 486 years ago and the Lutheran church the last 50 years. There’s still a long way to go, much more to do.

I thought Gareth looks a bit like Luther in his Monk Hair-style

I came back tonight delighted that the Spirit (I believe) opened up an opportunity for conversation and prayer. Sometimes, when you least expect him to work. He pops up and moves in his own way. The art for us to be ready to respond and act when that happens.

Yesterday morning when I decided to read through the book of Malachi using Eugene Peterson’s The Message (my current favorite Bible to read stuff in one sitting!) Then load of passages just came of the page and started re-shaping me again! I love that when it happens …

Then this morning, I thought of getting a leather bound of the Message at the NavPress bookstore here. I was halted (I’m sure May Chin would be happy to read this) and they said come later in December during the sales time. The extra bonus was that I found copies of Renovation of the Heart (hardcover) priced at RM49 (previously RM95) … it’s like I should bring a few for BLC pilgrims to consider getting the book at this great buy (at least BLC library will surely get one)! But more important is this whole discussion on Renovation of the heart is relevant to us here and now.

Read an article due in Mustard Seed and was blessed at how God may use a simple Renovation of our premises to achieve his main agenda in our lives - the stuff that really matters. Surprised that GOD will do this? no … Surprised on how he chose to do this? yes …

Keep on Surprising us HOLY SPIRIT …

Sneezing & coughing … since I stepped down from the bus after the Pulau Besar camp. Physically, pretty worn out partly because I’m not used to long journeys like this. But, we had a good time in the 9th Mile Lutheran Church Youth camp. I learnt a lot and discovered more about the youth & young adults in the camp. And these guys and gals can really play! My prayer is that they’ve begun the process of discovering GOD’s purpose in their lives … at least begin “Seeing” it … happening!

After coming back - just imagine, before I could seriously get some rest I attended one 11am meeting for the Reformation Celebration this Friday and the LCMS education meeting at 2pm (phew! with tissues, hankercheifs, vicks etc.!)

So, when I managed to read Winn’s blog & Eric’s blog about their two days with Eugene and Jan Peterson - what a contrast with my last few days. Somehow reading what they posted “nourished” me when I’m so physically weak. Here are some parts of their Q & A with Peterson that “struck” me:

From Winn__
… For him the Holy Spirit creates the church, not us. We should be careful not to develop strategies to beef up our own significance. Size is not what brings true significance, influence is….

The last morning he suggested that followers of Jesus should be aggressive in their attentiveness to God and apathetic to what others say about their attentiveness. Aggressive attentiveness and apathy should be seen as spiritual disciplines.

From Eric __

living is hard
-there is a lot to know
-people are messing it up not because there stupid, not because they are dumb, but becasue they are impatient.

How would you do a small group?
ask them to commit to studying becauses conversation implies that ther is no truth or authority. but, there is stuff to know, scriptures to understand. … how else is a gathering going to reach past church and get into kindgdom?

Story
-story is the heart of language,
-we don’t have to figure them out, thats the holyspirits job, to teach people, not ours, we just present the story and move on.
-we can add definition later if they want more

Eric added extra stuff … Today. This really “struck” me!

a man dying in 3 years called eugene and asked him “who should i be reading” eugenes response that he wanted to give was “you should have been asking this question 20 years ago”

wow! this is the first time i’m going for a camp at 10pm and sitting in a bus through the night. then we’ll hop on a boat to Pulau Besar. thanks to 9th mile lutheran church youth ministry, i.e. oasis ministry, this will be on my memory list. Lord, thanks … & take care of us along the journey

thankful that the outline is worked through and there’s a mixture of different ingredients for the 18-23 year olds, more college than youth actually. Lord, thanks again …

will miss May Chin & Gareth a lot … i’m even feeling it now. will miss the BLC pilgrims as well … Lord, be with us!
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According to my techno-mahaguru Kiffer Fong, I should inform everyone that this Garden’s Url currently is http://sivinkit.doubleukay.com/ (the http://kifferfong.cjb.net/sivinkit/ will be phased out soon!) Please make the necessary updates.

I was just saving some emails from two mentors whom I respect tremendously that really encouraged me … and found some statements that helped me along the journey. I thought of posting some which really meant a lot to me …

On my present season in life …
” every life has seasons in them; even seasons where one is focused mostly on their family. You will be fine, a new season is just around the corner…but never let it make your family second…” ~ April 2003

On engaging my own Malaysian Context (which got me reading Thiselton),
“Thiselton made clear (The Two Horizons, Erdmans 1980) that our first task is to study the first environment of the Biblical Canon, and every group of Christians of every country should engage in that. The second task is to see how the Scriptures could be relevant to our second environment. The post-colonial environment is hugely different, and that means the theological task has changed radically. The trouble is that many of our evangelical interpreters have never engaged with the second environment of churches all over the world, so what they wrote is relevant to western Christianity, but often unhelpful (if not misleading) for the growing churches in China, Malyasia, Indonesia, India, Africa, and South America.
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