I am retiring this blog. Wow, it has been more than 7 years since my first posting. Thanks so much for FOCUS ultra geek Scott for providing this excellent service at his own time and expenses.
Why am I retiring this blog? Well simply because I have blogs on my website and I have been blogging there more than I have here. So I have exported all posts here to my own site and will continue writing on : felix.tjandrawibawa.org/blog
So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish
We were talking about evangelism at the leaders meeting few days ago. I remember a simple approach on explaining the gospel to someone. This is taken from Six Steps To Talking About Jesus (excellent course by the way, recommend this resource to your bible study leaders).
Basically we read only 1 passage, the passage is from Ephesians 2:1-10 (NKJV):
1 And you He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins, 2 in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience, 3 among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as the others.
4 But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, 5 even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), 6 and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, 7 that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. 8 For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, 9 not of works, lest anyone should boast. 10 For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.
And then you explain the passage by using 4 R’s:
Some points from the talk by Mark Driscoll.
When reading the narrative, Christians need to realize that they should identify themselves as the Samaritan woman.
The Samaritan woman idolizing something (can’t remember what, maybe stable relationship?) that’s why she offer herself to the 5 husbands.
Jesus offers living water to the Samaritan woman. Living water is a metaphor of the Holy Spirit. The book of John contains few metaphors for the Holy Spirit.
The subject of conversation now turns to worship (can’t remember the explanation from Mark as to why the woman changes the conversation from discussing her situation to worship).
Worship = giving glory + sacrifice
Worship is both gathered (with other people, at church for example) and scattered (at work for example). Scattered nature of worship (everywhere & everytime) means in a sense, Chritians are in full time ministry.
Beware of your functional saviour (the one that you worship) as you WILL ultimately offer sacrifice to him/her/it. Some functional saviour can be: career, spouse, children etc2. Christians are to worship God and offer ourselves to God (Romans 12).
In conclusion, Christians need to ask themselves:
Thinking of blogging of things that I learned from Engange 08, found out that it’s actually a big task 
Rather than waiting for days to get something written, I might just start with something small, hopefully it will trigger other posts (not necessarily from me)
A rather unimportant thing that I heard from Don Carson’s talk (unimportant in comparison to the rest of his talk) is how “interesting” two of his students were.
Sterling Christian one of the graduates in Master of Divinity from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School is the holder of Dance Dance Revolution (DDR) Guinness World Records. What’s interesting about this is, his combining this unusual skills with evangelism (reading from his online resume).
The other guy apparently holds record for most weight a guy can bench press. Now maybe it’ll take more imagination to combine the ability to bench press with evangelism.. but who knows 
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Now these two guys are no doubt impressive, but our identity as believer is even more impressive as Don explains from Matthew chapter 11.
BTW, I am still waiting for my DDR Supernova, I think it got lost in the mail… sigh.
Our Friday group has been looking at the topic of work for the past 2 weeks, it’s been thought provoking and challenging for me personally.
Came across a passage which I should have familiar with in Colossians 3:22-25
22Slaves, obey your earthly masters in everything; and do it, not only when their eye is on you and to win their favor, but with sincerity of heart and reverence for the Lord. 23Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men, 24since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving. 25Anyone who does wrong will be repaid for his wrong, and there is no favoritism.
However, I realized that I am actually seldom (if ever) think of work in this way. Especially if you feel that your work environment is less than your ideal. For sure I will still uphold my work ethics and integrity as a Christians, but often I don’t know what’s the reason behind that except that it’s what expected of me as Christians.
The passage seems to demand something more, it demands your heart and your attitude and that’s harder, way harder than just being a “good worker”. You can still be an honest and hardworking worker but resent your work and hold grudges all the times.
And to think that this passage was originally directed for Christian slaves, I honestly don’t know how they do it.
Am I sinning for not consciously thinking that I am serving Lord Christ in my daily work?
How can the inheritance be a motivator in my daily work?