Well, we're now in the middle(-ish) of Chinese New Year so Happy Chinese New Year to all of you. As you might have imagined, I've been busily sutffing my face and ultimately my tummy with all sorts of goodies but I won't list them to make you envious or anything...in the hopes that those of you back in Singapore and places in the East won't email me with your longer lists of glorious food. =0)
Interestingly enough, the past weekend seems that have centered around the theme of evangelism and missions... and by that I mean like a recurring topic more than a routine OM work. The Bible study that my family and I went to on Saturday was looking at Acts chapter 2 and about 'The Mission of the Church', obviously looking at how the early church began and was founded. The today (Sunday), the message preached from the pulpit was also about having the Boldness to witness and BE a witness for Christ...looking at many verses but also centered a lot on Acts chapters 1, 8 and some of the 'teens'. In fact, I know that this will continue since apparantly one of the next Bible studies that we are going to (OCF- Tuesday and Friday) is also going to be about evanglism so this ought to be a very exciting week indeed!
As you will no doubt have guessed, I have LOADS to say and could go on forever but I wanted to add some other things so I'll hold my tongue this once (and perhaps only this once. *grin*) so I can relay some of the thoughts I had yesterday at the Bible study.
I happened the be the youngest one there since the majority of the people were married couples with children who were probably mostly grown-up and independent so it was especially interesting to hear what they had to say when we started to discuss issues that the church had or is having in terms of the multigenerational body we have. That's not what I wanted to say though. What I wanted to note was that when we talked about how the early church had a different understanding of the word "fellowship". The question that was asked, I think, was 'Do you think that the church today has varied from the foundations of the original early church? In what way and how has this affected the church today?' I guess I'll leave it for you to go and investigate (remember, we were looking specifically at Acts 2 but please feel free to explore other parts of the Bible for reference). I wonder, if the church has, and I'm sure it has in some way or another, deviated from some of the basic foundations that we should have. Perhaps even as individuals in the body of Christ, have we missed the main point? What made the apostles then so effective that we are missing since they were only ordinary men? Surely God is still the same God and the Holy Spirit has definitely been made available to us... I wonder if it is because we are not taking advantage of that free gift? I thought that these were a few good questions that came up...
Anyway, those were jsut some of my thoughts that I thought I would share with you. It's always good to get those little grey cells (as some people call them) working... and working to our benefit rather than idleness. Let us be encouraged together and press onwards towards the goal...
Because He is WORTH it,
Debbie
