My Dream Church

I just want to praise the Lord for his goodness and patience. I am enjoying working with Him! And yes, I have hopes and dreams for our church too. I dream of a church that is:

1. Grace-Centered. Don’t you love to be in a church where God’s love is ingrained in its very soul, life and culture? God’s love for you and me will never change, will never fail, and will never end. He came in the flesh, lived in this stinking planet, climb Mt. Calvary , and died for you and me on the cross. By His sacrifice He forgave all of our sins – past, present, future – and declared us righteous in his eyes. That is grace! If God did all that for you and me, shouldn’t we do the same?

I dream of a church which is grace-borne, grace-driven, grace-centered, grace-filled. A church that is focused on God’s love , living-out his grace and busy sharing His grace rather than just maintaining a set of standards. A church that is open for all sinners whether they dress, talk, and sing like us or not. A church that is passionate for Jesus. I long for a grace-revolution in our churches. Churches that will be known as loving churches not just churches with high standards. There’s nothing we can do that will stop God from loving us nor is there anything we can do that will make Him love us more. When our church does the same in loving sinners unconditionally, churches will grow.

2. Worship-Focused. Worship is at the very heart of the Adventist message. Yet it seems that we are far more interested in inviting people to worship on the right day than worshiping God with the right heart and spirit. Steve Pruitt puts it this way “I personally believe that worship should be the first priority of every church. Worship is meant for God and our most important ministry is to minister to him. Therefore, it is my opinion that most of our money, energy and time should be spent on the worship ministry.” We need to put worship at the very center of our church life and personal lives. Worship should be the ultimate goal of every ministry in the church including teaching, preaching, evangelism etc. This includes improving our church services that center on interactive relationships and service.

3. Spiritually-Growing. We are discipling and empowering believers to become God’s ministers. We aim for a thriving community of believers who are growing personally. Our deepest desire should be to produce disciples who have a passion for Jesus and yearn to worship him in spirit and truth. Instead of maintaining the traditional information-centered Sabbath-school classes we must strived for application-centered small group classes.

4. Culturally-Relevant. No matter how good the Good News is, it can’t be appreciated unless we communicate it to people in language they understand. We are to carry God’s message using the medium relevant to the target group we are trying to reach. Methods that are obsolete need to be reevaluated. God’s church is dynamic. We need to reach sinners through culturally-relevant forms and means of transmitting God’s message. We need to take a careful look at our music traditions. It took about a hundred years for the Christian church to accept hymns. Now the church is facing a serious struggle in accepting worship and praise choruses as a medium of worship expression. The new generation want to be challenged intellectually. They are interested in knowing the practicality of our doctrines and the connection to Christ. We need to make the gospel relevant to each generation of believers from cradle roll to pathfinders, from early teens to youth. As of now there is no church program for young adults.

5. Community-Oriented. People come to know Christ not through the beliefs we profess but through the love we express. Our churches need to lead in the forefront of community services. As the popular slogan goes, “People don’t care how much you know unless they know how much you care.” God’s church is a caring church. It is a loving church. Too often we do community work when we have a hidden agenda of converting them rather than simply loving them.

6. Child-Friendly . Our children are God’s most precious gifts. How they are trained and nurtured today will determine the future of God’s church. The church is always one generation away from extinction. Win your children for Jesus today, then you change the world tomorrow. Our churches need to have child-friendly atmosphere conducive to spiritual growth. They need to sense God loves them just the way they are and wants them to grow more and become like Jesus.

6. Evangelism-Directed. We need to put a proper balance between event-oriented evangelism and process-oriented evangelism. Our church is on the right track. We are passionate about our mission in reaching the lost. But we have concentrated too much on expensive , highly-emotional, event-oriented evangelism like the public crusades. We need to put people in the process of discovery, growth, and small group interaction. We need to put them in a church environment conducive to seekers of God’s truth.

The Lord bless his church as his vessel overflowing with grace!

Come, Follow Me!

“Walking along the beach of Lake Galilee, Jesus saw two brothers: Simon (later called Peter) and Andrew. They were fishing, throwing their nets into the lake. It was their regular work. Jesus said to them, "Come with me. I'll make a new kind of fisherman out of you. I'll show you how to catch men and women instead of perch and bass." They didn't ask questions, but simply dropped their nets and followed. Matthew 4:18-20 (The Message)

Jesus’ call to discipleship doesn’t come first before the wondrous cross-saving experience. Before we can become disciples, we need to hear first the invitation to become citizens of the Kingdom of Grace.

Jesus doesn’t force us to become new born-again Christians. The new-birth experience is the work of the Holy Spirit. God doesn’t say, “Follow me.” Instead he tenderly calls us, “Come, follow me.” He invites us first. He bids us first to come before we can follow. Come first to Jesus and He will teach you how to follow. It is so difficult to follow if you have not yet come to Him. Only He can make you follow.

Notice too that when He bade his disciples to come and follow, there were no long arguments of persuasion and rationalism. Jesus simply offered them, “Come, follow me.” The simplicity of this call distinguishes Jesus from highly emotional preachers. When God calls, the Spirit is at work.

Often when we offer the invitation to accept God to others we become discouraged when they respond negatively. Whether an individual responds or not, the Christian instrument is just a mouthpiece of God. He speaks for God but the Spirit calls and moves the heart.

We will always hear God inviting us. When he says, “Come,” let’s leave our fishing nets behind and follow him all the way.

Even unto the cross.

Why I am Switching to Google Chrome Killer Web Browser

It's faster, simpler, more stable and secure than any web browser I have used. And it's it's still in beta. So far it has not crashed on me yet like my favorite Firefox 3.0. Although Google Chrome  is not available for the Mac OS X platform I am definitely switching to this killer browser that has been engineered from the future.

You would be surprised as well to know that installation takes only seconds. So download it now and get to test it for yourself and I am sure you will think twice before using your current web browser again whether it's Firefox, Internet Explorer, and even Mac's Safari.

Copy and paste this url http://code.google.com/apis/v8/run.html  on your current web browsers to benchmark your web browsers' speed. After installing Google Chrome, test and compare and you'll find out that Google Chrome, which is heavily optimized for Javascript,  leave all other browsers in the dust.

How To Find A Good Book

Ok I confess - I am a bookworm! So what?

For booklovers in the Philippines who are asking how to find a good book, my short answer is simply know where to find it.

...computers - Gilmore
ukay-ukay - Baguio or Tagaytay...
clothes and vegetables - Divisoria

...Books? Where else?


See you there!

Pastor Ardie

How To Get What You Want

by: Charla Candy
from Nashville, Tennessee
Guest Devotional Writer

“Delight thyself also in the Lord, and he shall give you the desires of your heart.” Psalm 37:4

When I was in junior high, I used to pray at night for God to bring me a boyfriend. When I would decide to like a certain boy and it looked like he might not like me back, I would pray really hard for God to make that boy like me!

I was boy crazy, or what some may call, a teenage girl. I remember thinking that if I had a boyfriend, my life would be perfect.

Well years went by and my prayers weren’t being answered. I would spend long hours in front of the mirror, making myself look my best. I would try to act fun at school and talk to all the right/popular people so my crush would notice me.

After all my efforts, I still wasn’t having any luck. “What’s wrong with me?” I would cry to God.

“Why don’t I have a boyfriend.” I wondered why I had prayed so hard and hadn’t got my boyfriend.

Finally in my later years of highschool things started to look up and I had a few boyfriends and then I began to pray to God for a “cool” boyfriend and a “hot” boyfriend.

Then later on I found that “cool” boyfriends weren’t always nice and “hot” boyfriends weren’t always smart. It seemed like the search would never end. Why couldn’t God give me the right boyfriend.

Then I began reading my Bible. Hoping maybe that would help me get the right boyfriend, I came across a verse that changed my whole outlook. Psalm 37:4 says, “Delight in the ways of the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart.”

I realized that I was focusing all my efforts on the wrong thing. Instead of begging God for a boyfriend, I needed to delight myself in the ways of the Lord. I needed to focus more on God and helping others.

I began studying the ways of the Lord and as I am getting to know Him, my desires have changed from getting a boyfriend to living a life sharing love and kindness with friends, family, and even strangers.

This sinful world makes us believe that petty things are so important. Like the cars you drive, the people you date, where you live, who you know, and how much money you make. But even acquiring all these things will never-ever bring true happiness and will always leave you wanting more.

God promises to give you the desires of your heart, you just have to delight in his ways.