andrewqianwong

Redeeming love has been my theme and shall be till I die - William Cowper Australia, 22 Radically transformed by the Gospel of Jesus “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me." - Mark 8:34

[andrewqianwong]

Here's what our youth group attended on the weekend. I think I'm struck with how the body of Christ really works together for a purpose. I remember seeing and recognising people I knew from other conferences. I just saw how there were people who had different gifts, like the dancers, the musicians, the ushers, to the preachers. People I knew personally but have never seen them serve all together for a purpose. I believe through their gifts God was glorified through it all. Still grateful that the body of Christ works together to glorify the head, which is Christ.

[andrewqianwong]

relationship with..

You know being in a relationship you would think simple things like paying attention to them and showing that you care for the other person is something that doesn't need to be said. I get this wrong sometimes, I'm just not exactly showing that I care about what you're saying to me. It must be really annoying for you and I'm sorry if I have done that to anyone. But with God.. Why wouldn't I treat God with more love and care for Him? Sometimes I think that God is overseas and occasionally I'll Skype call him because He's so far from me. I've got it all wrong, Jesus has already paid for my sins. I now enter a relationship with Him as I trust Him.. Why wouldn't I share ever moment with Him?

[andrewqianwong]

prayer.

Father my Lord, my saviour I give thanks for giving me life and breathe to live You are gracious in all your ways You pour out your love to your children You give mercy to me for I am a sinner Yet you love me because you are the definition of love Continue to work in my heart to be more like Jesus Though trails and persecutions may come my way I look to you Lord You are the one that never fails You restore my life again I will be complete in you

[andrewqianwong]

let's give this another shot

It’s 2015 and I’m going to give this blog space another shot and I also need a place to write my reflections and prayers. I’ll write whatever as I go through the bible, ministry and work/study life too. This will be dedicated to you God to my Lord Jesus as I write to an audience of 1. Soli Deo Gloria.

[andrewqianwong]

amazing night a youth group.

Tonight was the third bible study of the year. Although this night was a bit special from our other two intro bible studies. There were many factors that contribute to it.

The first bible study we had 12 people come along, the second we had 13 and tonight we have 14.. This is probably irrelevant as to why tonight seemed so amazing.. but hopefully this trend will continue next week to 15. Anyways apart from deciding to do music every week and everyone is studying the same material I think somehow Vince Au hit the sweet spot. Having each bible study group to come up with a team name + competing against one another to earn points is ingenious. I wonder where it will take us for the coming year. From what I can see, everyone connected with one another very well. It was fun to see how these teens interacted with one another and I just want to give props to Vince Au my brother in Christ. God's using you for his glory. 

[andrewqianwong]

mentor.

Recently I got someone a lot older and mature in faith to mentor me. Someone that I respect, a man of godly character and man who is gentle and loving to all. I'm very grateful to have him and I'm looking forward to meeting up with him!

[andrewqianwong]

2013 reflection.

Yesterday I reflected on the blessings and all the great experiences that I have spent over last year of 2013. I have had some really great memories with so many lovely people and have see God at work in my life too.  I feel so blessed with all the things that God has taught me and the wonderful people that I got to spend time with last year.  I'm especially grateful for spending time with my parents and remembering the times we had together. Also remembering the many gatherings with God's family which has made it an awesome twenty13. 

[andrewqianwong]

youth ministry advice.

Here are some wisdom from a youth pastor and his wife to me: 1. Youth Ministry is hard nut to crack From their experience you're dealing with a different generation where you may not see any fruit. You will constantly tell the youth about the Gospel for months and you may not see any effect whatsoever.  2. Change of heart is important. You have to have a changed heart, a heart that is yearning for the youth to be saved. If you start going through the motions people can see right through you. You must first ask God to change your heart for the youth. 3. Prayer is key You need to pray, no matter the circumstance. Your dependence is on God and everything that happens or succeeds is because of God. 

4. A way with dealing with burning out. Deal with your conflicts first, address them first because they will get in the way. E.g When the youth pastor and his wife have a quarrel first seek reconciliation before going to Youth group or it will hinder your ministry. Any other conflict with someone else or with God deal with it first or else you're not there for the youth. 5. Grow spiritually Have something that will keep you going Spiritually because you can't run on empty. For the youth pastor is journalling, he would take a Sabbath/time out to just journal and reflect. His wife on the other hand will pray, which helps her to yearn for God and to yearn to read God's Word.  

[andrewqianwong]

door knocking pt2.

So when we went door knocking the other day we met a lot of people who were actually quite friendly who said hello. No one really aggressive nor was anyone rude. There was about four people that I came across who said hello and thank you and goodbye. You could actually tell if they didn't want to talk to you or they were really protective just by standing behind their door screen. Although we had a few who actually knew about our Church down the street.   We had one particular person who was really open in talking to us. A retired man who was sitting outside relaxing at his front door. He said hello first and we went straight up to him to say hello back. We introduced ourselves and he warmly shook our hands and offered us a seat next to him. How lovely I thought. We begun talking about how he spends Christmas and told us it's really not anything to him at all. In fact he's Hindu and he believes in many Gods.  We got to talk about various things. Mostly about his life, talked about what his did in the past, what he did recently and what are his plans in the future. He's had a very hard life, especially with moving to Australia with no money, his mother passing away and him having heart attacks in the past. Even collapsing and going into a coma for a week. He believes God has blessed him with many things.  What's interesting is that God to him is Mother Nature. Things that we can see. Like fire it can be good and it can be horrible. Water or wind which have the same effect. God to him means that other people all can believe in God no matter the form, so me believing in Jesus who claimed to be God is no different to him as he believes in Mother Nature.  

Although I couldn't possibly agree with him. Although I was pleased that we could talk so openly. We didn't really talk about the Gospel, only vaguely talking about Jesus. But hopefully we'll go back there once again and get to have another good conversation. 

[andrewqianwong]

door knocking.

Today is my first time door knocking in Canberra. To be honest, it's probably something I should do more often. See in the past I've always been fearful of door knocking or evangelising in my local neighbourhood because I'll probably bump into them again.  Today we went around under my church's name to advertise about Christmas. It feels great to be a presence in the our suburb after 10 years! I feel the only thing we've done is welcome people who've wondered into our Church or prayed for the embassy's at a distance. It's a breakthrough! But I give credit for another bible study group who actually held a trivia night event and dropped an invitation to everyone in the suburb.  I'm just glad we did something and got to meet people who probably see us going to Church every Sunday. 

[andrewqianwong]

where I really stand.

It's a good reminder to remember that I'm a weak and finite human being with flaws and imperfections but to know that I have a strong and infinite God with no flaws and stands perfect in my place on the cross. Sometimes it's hard to remember but have to put that into perspective everyday.  

[andrewqianwong]

Matthew 20:1-16.

Matthew 20:1-16 The parable of the vineyard workers.

This passage is all about our generous Father in heaven. The idea of what merit should be is completely belittled by the grace of God. We expect our Father to be fair, yet the passage shows us our Father is fair and in fact very generous.

See there were some people in the market place looking for work. There were four groups of people, 1 group who started work at 9am, another group at 12pm, another group at 3pm and the last group who started work at 5pm.

Their wages were all one denarius, whether you worked for 1 hour to the others who started work at 9am, no matter what it's one denarius. For those who didn't feel was unfair, felt they should be paid more due to working longer.

For us we can be like these men, thinking that it's by our good works we can be saved, it's by our merits and what we do can help us enter the kingdom of heaven. Our standard is clearly not God's and God shows his generosity by rewarding his servants all equally, not based on merit but on grace. Regardless of what we have done, it's not by our merit or good works that we may enter into the kingdom of heaven but it's by the grace of Jesus. Jesus who took our place of sin and death at the cross. By doing so we are set free from trusting in ourselves for our salvation and we live under grace knowing we have a gracious and generous Father where he welcomes us into the kingdom of heaven through Jesus.

[andrewqianwong]

final mission update for young.

So we've finished up our work here in mission. I give thanks for all the billets who put up with us, gave us a place to stay for all 17 of us. Gave us food to eat, breakfast, lunch and dinner which is a great testimony for living in Christian community. I'm thankful for the two Churches that allowed us to work with them, the Baptist Church and the Presbyterian Church which is an absolute joy. They entrusted James to oversee the teaching of our part, which becomes a great privileged for us and an honour to uphold.  I'm glad to say that it's been great to lead bible study and to preach God's word once again. I fear that I may preach hypocrisy, so I pray that I may live out God's word in my life. Only critique for me about preaching today was having too much content which is good to know for future sermons. I hope I can preach at the Presbyterian Church, because the Pastor Tim may like some breaks from preaching next year and hopefully I get to have another opportunity to continue developing my gift.  I do want to say it's been a great privilege to observe Christian families live out the Gospel and truly it's a precious gift to see the word of God thoroughly taught in these families. I'm also challenged to live out this faith of mine back at home in Canberra which has spurred me to love God more. I'm thankful for the team that I got to serve with, I've been encouraged by their efforts and picking up the slack where I have been lacking. I've also very thankful for James Stone for the success of this mission trip because of his organisation skills and leadership plus the bible teaching that he provided for with. It's been an honour to serve alongside with him for the last time and to really learn under his wing. 

Above all, I'm thankful for God for giving this opportunity for us to share in the love and fellowship with other brothers and sisters whom we don't really know. In fact I'm thankful for all the conversations that we had and the rich opportunity to be able to tell people about the good news of Jesus in some shape or another. I'm thankful the God who has placed Louis (a guy at the youth group) to come and trust in Jesus and is willing to get baptised for his faith. I also praise God for all the other conversations we had, like Theo who is a backpacker who heard God's word tonight or Mark/Robo who heard about Jesus when we walked up to them. Perhaps Alfred and Brendan who works at Garry's meats and who heard about Garry's faith in Jesus last night at the Men and Meat. Or the kids who we reach out to through kids club, school presentations or Arvo Church kids service. God has been working hard by using us to bring the message of Christ to a few. I'm thankful for Jesus who has been working in us to help us grow in our faith. Amen Tomorrow I head back to Canberra, I'll probably get cherries along the way. I'll give a hug to my billets and the kids that I got to live with. 

[andrewqianwong]

mission and godliness.

So I've notice a trend, every time when I've been away on any short term mission I live out my life in an godly manner. Like not wanting to sin, not desiring other things apart from God, being focused in prayer or in the word. I find it rather helpful being on mission because of all the benefits with exercising my faith and putting it into practice because it really grows my godliness and character.  Just a thought and it's always a thought every time after a mission trip. Why don't I put these things into practice when I'm at home? 

[andrewqianwong]

an update on young mission.

So far we have been running bible studies, testimonies, doing Christmas shows at schools, visiting an age care facility/ a dementia ward, door knocking/advertising, Women's event and Youth Group. We have just done Kids club and tonight we have our Men's event. We're pretty exhausted too, so prayer is needed for our dependence on Jesus for energy levels and concentration. We also get a break today down at the pool so looking forward to rest. 

Tomorrow is our final day for mission, we'll be preaching, continuing in giving testimonies and Sunday School. I'm looking forward to preaching myself, which I'll be giving a talk on Acts 10. Also I'm looking forward to having lunch and dinner with the two Churches that we've been working with for the past three days.  We'll head back on Monday and we'll probably get some cherries before we leave, since we are in Australia's cherry capital.

[andrewqianwong]

tithing is an act of faith.

It seems to me  that I've been able to share in the blessings of tithing although I have to admit that I give very little in my view. I hope to increase the percentage in giving soon. When I stopped blogging my dependence on God was shaken and I was left trusting more of myself than God. During this time I still tithe though, because I knew that I could trust my money to God even though I earned very little. 

I just want to say that through this time, I've been blessed with God's providence and I continue to see God providing. Also to put it out there I don't believe in Tithing 10% as a direct command in the New Testament, but that's probably for another time. Really I want to give my appreciation/praise to God who provides!

[andrewqianwong]

tonight at youth group.

Tonight was pretty hectic. I've never experience doing youth group out on a farm before either. Unfortunately the two teens who were at the skate park didn't come along. Pray that they may come tomorrow night. The rest of the teens were all boys, only 1 church kid, the others were all unchurched. There were 8 boys all up and no girls.  We played mat ball, which apparently is all they love to do. It's basically get the ball on the mat with two mats and two teams. There is no other rules, so there was heaps of shovin' and pushin'. I even scratched my shoulder along the ground as I got physical and we lost too.  We then ran our games, which were a bit messy yet a competition between two teams. Then we went inside for food and drink. Our team did a bit of prep and moved two cars for lights. We had a testimony, followed by a drama, "Everything" by Lifehouse. Then had a talk, which was about looking to Jesus with the theme of endurance tying into the games that we played before and the Everything drama.  We followed it up with a discussion group and we ended with playing 44 home. Was a great night apart from me standing on a fence and breaking it during 44 home and scraping my arm which has now stopped bleeding. Other than that I wish we had more of an opportunity to get to know the boys, although it's also encouraging to see Damien who is really good at relating to the boys in such a short amount of time. I thankful that tonight went well even though we're slowly running out of fuel. Praise God.