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[Passion DC 2008] Why does Chris Luk want to be a Fruitcake?!

Fri, 07 Mar 2008 21:50:14 GMT

Hello everyone,

Some of you have asked me how Passion Regionals 2008 [USA]: Washington DC (February 22-23, 2008) <http://www.268generation.com/regionals07/> went, some of you have heard my shortened spiel, others have heard the whole thing, and some of you, I'm only assuming, that you would want to hear about what amazing things God did there in a short 27 hours! (Want to read the short and sweet version? Go to http://www.268blog.blogspot.com )

Grab your beverage of choice, grab a comfortable chair, and a pillow because this is going to be long!

First off, this is by no means a review, a "put-up" nor a "put-down" about this conference nor other conferences, I just hope to effectively convey and share how I experienced God while I was there. I am not going to be able to summarize anything of what God did this weekend and do it any justice. He's just too amazing for that. I do hope, however, to provide you with some resources and hopefully encourage you along the way :D

One of the things I've always enjoyed about Passion Conferences <http://www.268generation.com/> is how ridiculously Christ-centered they are. This is the fourth Passion gathering that I have attended and every single time it happens, it's always about one mission and one verse. Life is short, so live for what matters most:

"Yes Lord, walking in the way of Your truth we wait eagerly for You, for Your name and renown are the desire of our souls." -- Isaiah 26:8
A Glimpse of Passion: http://youtube.com/watch?v=q-SBEvOSepA

Many people initially think that Passion is just always a big concert. Sure, Passion might be known best for their large numbers of Christian CD sales, but when you finally attend a Passion Conference, you realize how un-concert-like it really is and how Christ-focused every second of it is. I always love how "un-hyped" the atmosphere gets when it starts. Sure, everyone is crammed like sardines outside in the cold and everyone runs in to get as close as they can to the stage to be in the "praise pit", but then you see the countdown starting, and THEN you see groups of people huddling together praying together for the Holy Spirit to come and move powerfully, the video montage plays, and it says things like:

... To lift up the Holy One:
His name is Jesus!

His name,
His fame,
Is what Passion is all about:
Are you with us?

But we are not here as many but as one:
Let's rise up as one:
Let's believe in this Holy One!

Could there be a day? When His name is the brightest,
And our campuses know His fame?

We believe it is possible,
We believe it is coming,
We believe it is time,
He's here.

He is ...
Everything bight and good,
Lasting and true,
Everything new,

He is ...
Price payer,
Shame bearer,
Grave ender,
Breach repairer,
Crown wearer,
Re-arranger,
Hope's anchor,
World changer,
Church builder,
Always sustainer,
Freeing,
Loving,
Never ending,
He is here.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=bAZ3fcM8qJE

Then next thing you know, you're proclaiming "Our God is a God who saves". How true is that? Our God is a God who SAVES! We are lead into a song taken from Psalm 68: "Let God arise, let his enemies be scattered" -- that is the power that our God has! Then we continue to proclaim "Saviour, He can move the mountains, Our God is mighty to save, He is mighty to save! Forever, author of salvation, He rose and conquered the grave; Jesus conquered the grave!" What a way to start. Proclaiming the truth about Jesus Christ at the top of our lungs with the focus not being on "famous people". Francis Chan jokes about this later, "If only Chris Tomlin was leading me in worship, then I could REALLY worship!" What a lie. Focus your mind's attention and heart's affection upon the Lord for who He is and what He has done and you can freely worship Him :D

Chorus:
We will sing, sing, sing!
And make music with the heavens!
We will sing, sing, sing!
Grateful that You hear us
When we shout your praise!
Lift high the name of Jesus!

What's not to love about You?
Heaven and earth adore You,
Kings and kingdoms bow down,
Son of God, You are the One,
You are the One we're living for,

Chorus

You are the love that frees us,
You are the light that leads us,
Like a fire burning,
Son of God, You are the one.

Chorus

http://youtube.com/watch?v=8FsO0AA7PRk

Cool, eh? A song written about singing and joining with the heaven's anthem for Jesus' name above all things :) I like it! So that's what university/college students end up doing when they realize that their lives are short and that Jesus is the only thing worth living for and proclaiming. I'm pretty sure that this video was taken at the last main session at Passion DC (the video skips a bit). I remember hearing people talking about how the risers/bleachers/seats were shaking from all the people undignified-ly dancing :p Wonderful :)

If you were there, trust me, there's no way you could have danced and celebrated there thinking "Chris Tomlin is still single, isn't he?" No way! You'd be there screaming, "Thank you GOD that your arms are not too short to save, that you are a real and personal God that has saved us from death and given us life!"   Undignified worship of the Lord Jesus Christ who is worthy of it all.   I'm pretty sure that Priscilla really enjoyed it also <http://wholyyours.blogspot.com/>
Which goes to say, if you just need to dance before the Lord because of the overflow of your forgiven heart or because you want to declare the truth in the words that you are singing to Him, DO IT!   If you feel your church or fellowship is "dead", BE the change!

Anyhow! When Louie Giglio walks out and just introduces the mini-conference saying that we aren't here for anyone "famous", or to be the start of something, but rather to seek Jesus Christ above all things and to merely join in and be a speck in what God is already doing in the city, just wow. We are here to have an encounter with God and something will happen only if we encounter God (not if we encounter "famous people"). Nothing is going to happen -- nothing is going to change unless we have an authentic face-to-face encounter with the Creator of the universe.

The next thing we did was to get into prayer triangles. "And though a man might prevail against one who is alone, two will withstand him—a threefold cord is not quickly broken." -- Ecclesiastes 4:12.
So here's the idea: one person prays, the other two agree, this cord of three in agreement is much stronger than just a cord of one. It's just plain cool to see an army of so many join together agreeing with one voice and seeking Jesus Christ all at the same time. It's times like this when there's a spark in your head that realizes that Jesus is building His church all over the world and that you are NOT alone. There ARE others out there your age that love Jesus Christ and want His fame to be the brightest thing in the whole world.

There were lots of prayer sessions where we prayed for lots of things including our own home city, our own campus, cities around the world that God has placed on your heart, for (Kampala,) Uganda London, Paris, China, and Hong Kong specifically :D, for the campus and students where the conference was held (where only 300 out of 30,000 students love Jesus), and so much more. It was great to be able to see a student from mainland China who loves Jesus, who is not afraid to stand for her faith in a place like China, and also a young couple from Hong Kong who love prayer :D Lei <lyang13@hotmail.com> will tell you much more about them if you ask him! Lei got their contact information, prayed for them, and got prayed over by them! But that's just not fair since he knows Mandarin :p
I know Benson wants to head over to Hong Kong and drag the rest of his loving relatives to the upcoming Passion Conference when Passion finally lands there. <http://www.268generation.com/worldtour/>

HONG KONG AND VANCOUVER:

Here's my shameless plug. When Passion comes to your city, whether it be Vancouver, BC (October 6, 2008) or to Hong Kong (October 16, 2008), go! Don't go just to see what the "hype" is about. There is no hype ... there's just God. G-O-D period. Go, join, and seek Jesus Christ first and foremost and just let Him speak to you and be saturated in His presence. Go and just experience a snapshot of what God is ALREADY doing in your city. Your city isn't taken over by darkness, there's just not enough LIGHT. Go and be encouraged! There are other LIGHTS shining for Jesus in your city. You are not alone. SHINE. Be the light. Passion isn't going to bring revival to your city, only the Holy Spirit can do that, but this is one opportunity where your city can seek the Lord together as one voice and one body to do it! Who knows, you might actually see some of us from Toronto fly over to your city and join you lifting up the name of Jesus Christ! :D (Priscilla's up for it, I know that! :p)

Do Something NOW!!!     :D    :D    :D
Something both Priscilla and I were really looking forward to (and I mean REALLY looking forward to) was the Do Something Now campaign.   Last year, at Passion 2007 when it all started, Louie was saying that if people that follow Jesus Christ are gathered together in one place (especially 23,000 of them), the city should know that something different is happening in their city, that people that love the Lord are present and are making a difference in the world. We talk about it all the time how when we are in the presence of God, we can feel it, we are changed, and we leave different. Same thing, when people of God are present, when we leave, the world should be different. As Dr. Voddie Baucham says, "leave the world a better place than when you got here".   (You know I can't write anything without quoting Voddie).

This year, I came READY to give and do something to change the world! Thanks to Uncle David, Auntie Emily, Uncle Hin, Auntie Astrid, and Auntie Betty (and all my other American relatives) for their continual donations in forms of Chinese New Year Red Pocket Money of American currency. Just to let you know that your money was diverted to something much more amazing than I could have ever dreamed :)
When we Christ-followers work together, we are a mighty force.

So at previous Passion gatherings, there were many opportunities that you could help out with to change the world for the better right NOW. When you approach many inter-city homeless shelters, the two major items they always need more of are towels and socks. Towels can be used as a variety of things such as a blanket, a jacket, a mattress, or actually as a towel. Similarly, socks can be used to keep hands and feet warm. So why not show people in the city that people of God love them and that Jesus loves them enough to provide for them?
So this year I went READY! I went to Walmart and bought a whack-load of towels and a huge pack of socks that filled two-thirds of my traveling duffel bag. I don't say this to make myself seem "better" than others, rather I tell you that because I was soooooo excited to see how God is going to use something so simple help better the Virginia/DC community :) There's surprisingly a lot of infrastructure related to homelessness in the Washington DC area alone.

Today, Passion DC really begins. God has touched our lives in ways only He can. Now, it's time to live the life. We will not be the same, and the world has changed. Students this weekend are sending 11,117 pairs of socks and 2920 towels to the shelters of Metro DC! Plus, they gave $42201 to build 14 wells in Africa AND $36,217 for Passion Kampala. Amazing! By the way, if you didn't notice (and haven't already cut yours off), if you turn your DC wristband inside out Passion Kampala is printed on the other side...hopefully a reminder to pray for this event from now until May.

From www.268blog.com

Cool, eh? All that from "poor" college students :) That's a lot of towels and socks. You should see what a big pile of towels and socks looks like. It's really quite beautiful :)
Kampala is in Uganda, in case you didn't know. Passion will be flying to Uganda, even with all this unrest, to preach the name of Jesus, His saving grace, forgiveness, freedom, and how He can give life.

The goal was 3,000 towels by the end of the conference. By the afternoon session, there were only about 2,000 towels present. So people went out after the afternoon session and bought towels like CRAZY! It was amazing :D

"This was awesome! My new friends from The Loft went to K-Mart to buy more towels. They contacted the manager about getting a discount for buying tons of towels and if they get more than 10, they could get 15% off. Well, they started pooling their money and then more Passion attendees showed up and wanted to pool also. They ended up getting someone to go to the front to have them make an announcment [sic]. They paged the entire store for all Passion attendees to go to the home decor section. Andrew told me that another 20 people showed up and they cleared the entire aisle of towels! lol! Now, I'm at the lobby waiting for the evening session to open when all of a sudden, there's just this line of people with towels coming in! I was in shock and blown away, lol! I hope the receipt makes it to Louie. That reaffirms even more to me that God is ready getting this generation moving for His glory!"

So in slightly more detail here is the KMart story...Our group was compelled to go to pick up more towels to help meet the goal. So we called Rite-Aid and they had been cleaned out of towels! (I wonder who could have done that?) So we went over to a KMart and actually went to the manager asking if there was any way that we could get a discount if we bought enough towels. He took us to a towel section in Home Decor and said he would give us %15 off if we bought at least 10. So our group of 8 started to pool money together and then some more people attending Passion came around the corner and they contritbuted [sic] money as well then we prayed that somehow God would provide more money...we felt like we could give more. We sent someone up to the front to announce on the PA system that anyone in the store from the Passion Conference should go to the Home Decor section. We had 20 more people show up and we gathered enough money to clear out all 103 towels left! PRAISE GOD!!!

Comments taken from www.268blog.com

There was also a church group that called their church to help them buy a truck-load of towels. Sure enough, their church stocked up a whole van of towels ready to give. I remember standing in line to get in for the main session, next thing you know, a red truck pulls up to the entrance and you see an army of university/college students run in through the side entrance to drop off all the towels they just bought, then run back outside to get back in line (and park the truck) :p

As you read above, over $42,000 was given for Blood Water Mission to provide water wells for African villages. Each well can provide water for a village of 700 to 1000 people for their lifetime. Exciting times. Did you know that the primary cause of death in Africa isn't HIV/AIDS, it's actually water-borne disease. Clean and accessible water is life.

Some of the organizations I really enjoyed partnering with at previous Passion Conferences was OneVerse and Bibles Unbound. OneVerse <http://www.oneverse.org/> is just a genius idea. See this at a SCAC near you! :p (Priscilla at Scarborough Chinese Alliance Church).
One Verse is simply this, there are still about 2,200 people groups that do not have a Bible available in their native language. OneVerse's mission is to provide those people with an accurate translation of the Word of God. At roughly $24 a verse, you can help create Bibles for people who do not have access to the Word of God. I thought this was just the most amazing idea of all time. Imagine not being able to read the Bible.

Bibles Unbound was great because it didn't require any money on our part (although if you were to do Bibles Unbound with your church or fellowship or group, you will have to pay for the postage). The concept was simply this, they give you a Bible in a language, (say Chinese,) an envelope, an address sticker, and a bookmark. The Chinese Bible, the envelope, and address you put together and mail it off. The bookmark, you keep. The bookmark tells you which city and province in China the Bible is going to and the name of the person it is sent to. Your "deal" is that you will pray for this person for one year, praying that the Holy Spirit will reveal truth to them and that God's Word will do what it was sent to do and not return void. (Isaiah 55:11). Kitty and I had the opportunity to do this together last year.

There you have it. You can change the world NOW. Some things might take some money, other things (such as prayer and diligence) won't take any money at all, just your time and discipline (which for some might be a bigger sacrifice than money). Towels and socks are very affordable. Don't think that you as one person can't change the world. You can. Especially since the Holy Spirit is inside of you. Have an encounter with your Creator.

Onto what I learned!

Main Session One - Life is short, live for what matters ... Fruitcake (Louie Giglio): http://www.gigasize.com/get.php?d=x0b6syw1l6d
Main Session Two - The Holy Spirit (Francis Chan! YAY!): http://www.gigasize.com/get.php?d=sv3v3tzc2vb
Main Session Three - God is most glorified in your suffering (Louie Giglio): A similar "version" available here (we have yet to get the Passion DC version): http://northpointministries.org/player/FLVPlayer/FLVPlayer.swf?skinName=http://northpointministries.org/player/FLVPlayer/clearSkin_3&serverName=cp20979.edgefcs.net&fallbackServerName=&appName=ondemand&streamName=fcs.northpointcc/npcc/Sunday_Sermons/Hope/Part1,50,fcs.northpointcc/npcc/Sunday_Sermons/Hope/Part1,150,fcs.northpointcc/npcc/Sunday_Sermons/Hope/Part1&isLive=false&bufferTime=2&autoPlay=true&autoRewind=true&isFullScreen=false

Above are links to the messages for you to use as resources, enjoy, and learn from. One thing we thought would be really nice is if you decide to listen/watch these message, just donate $5 to Passion Conferences since it is rightfully their property and it would be nice to not steal their God-given resources <https://web.memberclicks.com/mc/quickForm/viewForm.do?orgId=268gen2&formId=28478>.
Although I would highly recommend that you check them out regardless :D

At the end of every main session, there was a time for silent meditation, to just allow the Lord to speak to you; stillness so that you could personally seek your loving Father, to approach the cross, to write down your cries and prayers to the Lord, for intercessors to pray over you. I really enjoyed this time too, just listening for His voice and for how He wants you to respond. No, this wasn't some 15 seconds of silence, this was a blissful 10 to 15 some-odd minutes of glorious silence listening to your Father.

I don't hope to summarize what they talked about, rather, you listen to it and see what the Lord says to you personally :D I hope to write about a few things that struck me and that I learned.

Life is short, live for what matters ... Fruit cake:
After listening to this talk, you just WANT to be a Fruit cake. So, listen to it :D

One of my favourite lines:

"And I don't need to know where,
I don't need to know what,
I don't need to know when,
I just need to know one thing:
Are you going with me, Jesus?"
He'll say, "Oh yea."
"Okay, yes."
And your parents are going to go:
"What are you going to do?"
"Don't know."
"When are you thinking of doing this?"
"Don't know that yet."
"Where do you think you're going?"
"Don't know. I don't know. But I know who I'm going with, I'm going with Jesus Christ. Wherever He goes, I'm going with Him. If He goes to the ends of the earth, I'm going."

If Jesus is the King of a kingdom, then the only thing we can say is "Yes, Lord". Not, "Maybe, Lord" or "No, Lord", or "Maybe later, Lord". It's just, "Yes, Lord". When a king tells you to do something, you do it.   (Isaiah 26:8).

That's what I got in my time with the Lord. "Make me a fruit cake". I always love hearing stories of people coming to realize that Jesus Christ is REAL and He truly is a Saviour who can save you no matter who you are. Be light in this world. People will notice it. They will laugh and scoff at you at first, but they will want to know why you have "no life" :)
Christa is a real person! She is now married to Jeremy. I talked to her on Facebook :)

You might feel like the only one in your campus, in your workplace, in your home that loves Jesus Christ, but keep truckin'. You are not alone :) There are other fruit cakes around to support you :)
Don't give up praying for your non-Christian friends even if it seems like they're not receptive or interested in what you have to say.
There's new life in this song to me now :D

Everyone needs compassion:
A love that's never failing;
Let mercy fall on me.
Everyone needs forgiveness;
A kindness of a Savior:
The hope of nations.

Chorus:
Saviour,
He can move the mountains:
My God is Mighty to save!
He is Mighty to save!
Forever,
Author of salvation:
He rose and conquered the grave!
Jesus conquered the grave!

So take me as You find me,
All my fears and failures;
Fill my life again.
I give my life to follow;
Everything I believe in,
Now I surrender.

Chorus

Shine your light and let the whole world see!
We're singing for the glory of the risen King:
Jesus!

"If we are out of our mind, it is for the sake of God; if we are in our right mind, it is for you. For Christ's love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again. So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men's sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ's ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ's behalf: Be reconciled to God. God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God." -- 2 Corinthians 5: 13-21

Tear-jerking happiness and joy.

The Holy Spirit:
This message probably the most hard-hitting one :D Be weird in the right ways. So many Christians are weird in the wrong ways. Sometimes we're not weird enough :p When the Holy Spirit convicts you, be obedient and just do it. "I've found a treasure so amazing that my life doesn't even matter anymore."   Now the kicker is to do something with my and your life. Matthew 5:16 "In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven." How many times in life have you done good deeds and the praise bypasses you and they give glory to the Father directly?   I thought about how things have been going on in (The University of Western Ontario's) Asian Christian Fellowship this year.

Have you ever made statements like, "I love God so much, I'm going to spend my life proving to God that I love Him"? That's not the way it is, it's not about you, Chris, it's about how much He loves you.
"And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, "Abba! Father!" So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God." - Galatians 4: 6-7
Francis jokes about how his testimony "sucks" and that's usually what I end up joking about too. No so-called radical and exciting transformation. We know that God will forgive the sinner that didn't know better, but then what if we already become a Christian, we have the Holy Spirit, and we teach people, and then we screw up and caught up in sin?! That's probably most of us! We already know the Truth, we know who God is, we have the Holy Spirit within us guiding us and cleansing us, but we still fall?!

How sure are you that God loves you? I really enjoyed this part. Be certain that God loves you. Just know it. "Formerly, when you did not know God, you were slaves to those who by nature are not gods. But now that you know God—or rather are known by God ..." - Galatians 4: 8-9.
Just think! If you could go to Heaven now and ask God, "Do you know Chris Luk?" The Father above would say, "I know Chris! D'Uh! He's my son :D I love that guy!" Isn't that CRAZY?! Father God above sitting upon His throne, loves you, knows you, and calls you His son. 100%.   Now YOU know it. Wrestle with that. He knows you, He loves you, He knows your name. Be sure of it. Be convinced. I am so loved by God :) He's just crazy about me because He's just that good! He's one who doesn't call me His slave, He calls me a son :)

Open the Bible for yourself. Open the book and ask, "God, reveal truth to me". Don't just let people feed you theology. Don't have "heads that feed you information". Believe in the Holy Spirit and that He can reveal truth to you. Was a lot of your theology fed to you? Read scripture for yourself. If you were stuck on an island with only the Bible, what would you come away with? If you had never been to church and you never met a Christian, what would you expect to see when you finally saw a church or met a Christian? Would it be the church that we go to today? Everyone was radical and insane for Jesus in the Bible. "God, give me this Holy Spirit that you're talking about" -- that's what you would get out of reading this whole Bible.

I laughed at this part :D "Imagine if you were a disciple ... it was so much easier to be a disciple! They had Jesus next to them, how do you screw up with Jesus walking next to you? ... How hard would it be to witness? There's Jesus. That's so lame! Of course I could've been a disciple." :p Go make disciples and all that, but wait for the Holy Spirit first. Could you imagine the anticipation that they had for this Holy Spirit to come? The promise of Jesus coming like a rushing wind and as fire. (Another funny part :p) Francis speaking Chinese :D I learned a bit of Chinese :D When something this crazy happens, people knows it's from God. It couldn't have just been human, it was supernatural. There's no way that they could've learned "Chinese" in 2 seconds and preach the gospel effectively to those in the surrounding area. God got the glory right away, not the disciples. Cool, eh?

Shouldn't there be a major difference between someone who doesn't have the Holy Spirit and a person who has the Spirit of the Living God inside of them?! What about people that don't know Jesus that actually have a huge amount of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness (the Fruits of the Spirit)? AND more so than "Christians"?! You're a temple of the Holy Spirit. You should have a love, joy, peace, patience, kindness like no one else on this earth. Otherwise, if you tell them "I have the Holy Spirit within me", they will think you are LYING! People come with an immense expectation from you if you have the Holy Spirit within you. Doesn't that not make any sense in our current day church? Especially when we do things with our own power. Was the Holy Spirit even there?

Funniest thing of all time :D "Can you imagine what goes through your mind if you're a caterpillar?" <http://youtube.com/watch?v=D3H_-mHKIsM> Back to 2 Corinthians 5 from above.
You're not a "normal" human being anymore. You're a new creation. The old has gone and the new has come.

It doesn't matter if you're the only one, you have God inside of you. He can use you to transform lives.

"What father among you, if his son asks for a fish, will instead of a fish give him a serpent; or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!" -- Luke 11: 11-13. Do you really think that God's going to give you a dumb spirit or that God's not going to hold onto His promise of putting His Holy Spirit within you?

How cool is this? A guy made a vlog about it :D http://youtube.com/watch?v=xfgrHadYaPA

God is most glorified in your suffering:
I say this with the most humble sensitivity that I can. I saw this talk for the first time about a month before my grandmother passed away. I suppose it was God's message for me to "brace for it".   It was perfect. I hadn't cried watching a sermon in a while. Louie talks about Jacob, Ashley's brother (yes, they are real people, they actually do exist!), who loves intercessory prayer, has seen God heal so many other people, but when Jacob asks for his own sister to be healed, God doesn't grant him his wish. This one time that Jacob prays as hard as he ever has, for God to do something for the first time just for him, God didn't say "yes". Instead, God let his sister die. Jacob wrestled with this. How could God ignore his pleas? How could God ignore us? How can we believe anything that He has ever said to us? Before we've made a mess of our lives, God made a mess out of His Son's life. Be a light in times of darkness. He is the light and He is in you. Focus on the cross, you will KNOW that He loves you. He really, really, really does.
Another great message. Big tear-jerker with no "pretty bow" at the end of the talk. Knowing and living Christ for only 5 months is real life. Life is short, live for what matters.

God of this City: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d61LamkXfwk>
An amazing song with an amazing beginning:
<http://www.crossrhythms.co.uk/articles/music/Bluetree__Rock_worshippers_and_one_of_the_Greater_Things_to_emerge_from_N_Ireland/29468/p1/>

One of the key tracks on the album is "God Of This City" from which the phrase 'Greater Things' which gives the album its title is taken. I ask Aaron about the song and as he recalls the circumstances his voice breaks and he begins to cry, still moved by the events he's describing. "There's a couple from Carrickfergus, Ian and Leslie, and they moved out to Thailand to a place called Pattaya. We got asked to go and be part of an event called Pattaya Praise. Pattaya is a seaside town/resort place, and physically, it looks to be like the darkest place you'll ever go to. And spiritually, it is THE darkest place we have ever been to. You just feel the evil. You just feel the enemy all over that place. It's a very small place; in Northern Ireland we have a coastal town called Bangor and it's very much like that. But in that small area there are 30,000 prostitutes and that figure excludes kids and excludes anything that's outside of the range of, say 18-30, and who are female. You probably hear of ladyboys and all those kinds of things? It's got a ladyboy community and all this kind of stuff, and 90 or 95 percent of Thailand's income comes from the sex industry."

...

Aaron explains what happened next. "There was a bar called The Climax Bar - on a street that's about 10 metres wide, it's a kilometre long and it's filled with everything you can physically imagine. And I promise you, as a red-blooded male, to keep your head in the right place you've got to look down at the ground and walk down that street and pray because it is just so in your face. People hit you with menus about everything, flashing lights, just everything you can imagine goes on in that place. You see kids as young as eight, nine, 10, just selling themselves, you know?! You see 60-year-old guys walking down the street with two 13 or 14-year-old girls. Forget about the Christian thing, you just get raging! You properly get raging when you see that happening, you know?!"

He pauses to compose himself and continues, "But we got the chance to play in this bar, a two-hour worship set in this bar. I don't think the people in the bar spoke a word of English but we basically got to go in. The deal was that we play and we bring a following of people with us; so we're there, set up, really good gear! Amazing drums, the biggest drum kit you've ever seen in your life. I walk in and my dream amp is sitting there! Walk in and Rick's big Mesa Boogie stack sitting there! I was like, 'Woah!' So we all set up and there was like 20 Christians all standing in front of us, and the deal was we play, they buy lots of drinks, alright? I don't think the place has ever sold so much Coke in its whole life in one night!"

He laughs and describes the scene, "So all the Christians are all sugared off their heads on Coke.that's Coca-Cola by that way! The drink! And we got to play for two hours. And just the way the band set up, we like using loops, and at one point I just started singing out. I started singing "Greater Things", something along those lines, almost prophesying over the city. And without going into the band dynamics, slowly this groove emerged from this thing. And long story short; we walked out of that Climax Bar with pretty much a nailed song, as strange as that sounds. Then we were on the way home. We were all. . .it was that tumbleweed silence, you know? It was like, 'What actually just happened in that time?!' It was one of the most powerful worship experiences we've ever had. I actually remember looking out, and you're looking down a wee alleyway, into the street, and it was just 50 or 60 probably British tourists and they're just sitting there listening going, 'What is this all about?' Coming from The Climax Bar which is pretty much a strip club. Just, here we are singing about Jesus in the middle of this. You've got a German guy who's completely wrote off, with a prostitute on each arm and he is just like your Number One Fan! It was one of the most random experiences but it was a God thing, God was there."

I'm so glad that God decided to birth this song into our world. What an amazing prophetic word ... greater things have yet to come and greater things are still to be done in this city.
Cities are not just places on a map. Cities are made of people. This song could be about the city you are in now, the city that the Lord has placed on your heart which might be on the other side of the world, the city might be your university campus, the city might be your hometown.

Pictures:
I uploaded a few pictures taken with my dad's point-and-shoot at http://chrisluk.myphotoalbum.com/
You can see images taken with my DSLR from Passion 2007 here: http://chrisluk.myphotoalbum.com/view_album.php?set_albumName=Passion07-AgenerationunitedforHisrenown

For His name and renown,
Christopher Luk

Passion07, ACF Winter Retreat, and Much More

Sat, 17 Feb 2007 23:20:16 GMT

So it's been a while since I've last blogged and it would sadly be impossible to recap it all.

First off, I definitely still need lots of prayer and support. There's still plenty of uncertainty kicking around: where am I going to live in the next school year, what will I be doing in school next year, do I have a summer job, when do I rewrite the MCAT, what does God have in store for me after graduation, am I leading in love, the Word, righteousness, selflessness, and intimacy better today than yesterday, better tomorrow than today, ACF exec for the next school year, where do I go to church, and plenty more questions. So thanks to everyone who has continually be praying for me, it is much appreciated.

I must confess that I haven't been doing my 'share' of support. I have been very complacent and 'satisfied'. I'm a dry well, but I don't want to be filled by Him either. I know I need Him, I have tasted and seen that the Lord is good. I need Him so badly, but I just don't want to let Him enter. I need to learn to love 'Pez' and not the container it is in.

"All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work." -- 2 Timothy 3:16 NASB

I want to be trained in righteousness, I want wisdom, I want adequacy, I want to be equipped to do every good work and so much more; so then why won't I invite Him in and give my whole mind, body, heart, and soul to Him? Do I REALLY want to know the will of God for my life? (Francis Chan, Passion07) If God was allowed to have complete control over my body, send it to wherever He wanted, to make it say whatever it is that He wants it to say -- if it was TOTALLY up to God to decide where I would go and what I would do, do I really want to know? Well ... no. It would freak me out. How stupid is that? God has the best intentions and most amazing mind-blowing things in store for us. Why don't I want to know? Why don't I want to be a part of the most amazing, never-ending story of God? Why won't I just let Him do what He wants with me and be obedient?

-------------------------

-- Passion07 --
A generation united for His renown (January 1st - 4th, 2007)

“Yes Lord, walking in the way of Your truth we wait eagerly for You, for Your name and renown are the desire of our souls.” -- Isaiah 26:8

All images available at http://chrisluk.myphotoalbum.com

There's a lot that happened within the 4 days of Passion07. If I have time, I hope to write more about it.

Louie's first talk was about being rescued because a price had been paid (in Colossians 1). We were reminded of the gospel, the reality, and the Truth of what happened. Even if we are in the kingdom of chaos, we were bought, ransomed, He came for us, a life was given for us. So that we could go from ashes to beauty -- ashes to life. A great reminder of who we are. Louie had a great analogy where he had an ugly (plant) bulb which then grew into a beautiful flower. Ask either Priscilla or myself, we'd be glad to send you this talk (or ALL the talks!).

"For He grew up before Him like a tender shoot,
         And like a root out of parched ground;
         He has no stately form or majesty
         That we should look upon Him,
         Nor appearance that we should be attracted to Him.
    He was despised and forsaken of men,
         A man of sorrows and acquainted with grief;
         And like one from whom men hide their face
         He was despised, and we did not esteem Him.
    Surely our griefs He Himself bore,
         And our sorrows He carried;
         Yet we ourselves esteemed Him stricken,
         Smitten of God, and afflicted.
    But He was pierced through for our transgressions,
         He was crushed for our iniquities;
         The chastening for our well-being fell upon Him,
         And by His scourging we are healed.
    All of us like sheep have gone astray,
         Each of us has turned to his own way;
         But the LORD has caused the iniquity of us all
         To fall on Him.
    He was oppressed and He was afflicted,
         Yet He did not open His mouth;
         Like a lamb that is led to slaughter,
         And like a sheep that is silent before its shearers,
         So He did not open His mouth." -- Isaiah 53:2-7 NASB

A beautiful passage of Scripture that prophesied the coming of Christ and His suffering that lead to our freedom.

The thing that probably rocked me the most was going to David Crowder's breakout session called "Everybody wants to go to heaven, but nobody wants to die". He was talking about how how his album, A Collision, is an album about the Christian viewpoint and appropriate response to death. Death isn't a calamity -- Jesus came to give us life. It just wacked me in the face. My grandmother isn't doing that well right now and she doesn't know Christ. So it's something that really struck me. So here I am listening to David's album hearing about what the band has experienced in their lives with death. Here I am realizing how deep this album truly is. David also shared a new song with us at Passion07 that blew my mind also. I wanted to share it with you all:

Oh the Glory of It All – David Crowder* Band

Verse 1:
At the start, He was there, He was there;
In the end, He’ll be there, He’ll be there.

PreChorus 1:
After all our hands have wrought, He forgives:

Chorus 1:
Oh the glory of it all is He came here,
For the rescue of us all that we may live
For the glory of it all, oh the glory of it all!

Verse 2:
All is lost, find Him there, find Him there;
After night, dawn is there, dawn is there.

PreChorus 2:
After all falls apart, He repairs, He repairs:

Chorus 2:
Oh the glory of it all is He came here
For the rescue of us all that we may live
For the glory of it all

Oh He is here for redemption from the fall,
That we may live, for the glory of it all,
Oh the glory of it all, the glory of it all, oh the glory of it all!

Bridge:
After night comes a light;
Dawn is here, dawn is here;
It’s a new day, it’s a new day;
Everything will change, things will never be the same
We will never be the same, we will never be the same,
We will never be the same, we will never be the same!

Chorus 3:
Oh the glory of it all is You came here!
For the rescue of us all that we may live!
For the glory of it all!

Oh You are here, redemption for us all,
That we may live, for the glory of it all,
Oh the glory of it all, the glory of it all,
Oh the glory of it all!

Something that Priscilla said when she was sharing about Passion07 at ACF the first night was her analogy that came from the Candlelight 'latenite' session. She described how if was quite windy that night and people's candle lights kept going out because a gust of wind would blow. But not to worry, there was always someone else close to you that would relight your candle. Nice! I thought about it and took the analogy even further: in the beginning, there was only one lit candle -- the Light of the World came -- Jesus came. There was darkness in the world because of sin, but Jesus came to shine His light and it started with only a few people, but then continued to grow throughout all the generations -- He transferred us from the dominion of darkness into the Kingdom of the Son in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. We are children of Light who are safely in the Kingdom of the Son, whom He loves.

All images available at http://chrisluk.myphotoalbum.com

Thanks to whoever took the above photographs (they weren't by me). (From left to right): First, the final 'latenite' session at Passion07 where all 24,000 of us walked to the field in silence and a single candle was lit which then spread to the rest of us. Beautiful. Second, bricks that were bought to help build the Freedom Center in Iraq to spread the love of Christ to those who have never heard of him -- freedom because Jesus paid it all. Thirdly, SHINE, one banner of graffiti art where students could write, draw, and express their cries, confessions, and thoughts to and for God. The names of major cities of the world and all the universities and colleges represented at Passion07 were on the banner also -- through it all, one word, SHINE. Fourthly, an image in the "Do Something Now" area where people could meditate, pray, write, and confess what has been holding them back. People could then pray with them and pray for them -- barriers, then breaking free. Fifthly, An image of something drawn on one of the graffiti art banners: Be Light.

-------------------------

-- ACF Winter Retreat 2007 --
Being Marked By Christ (January 19th - 21st, 2007)

All images available at http://chrisluk.myphotoalbum.com

To be "Marked by Christ" means to:

Be clearly noticeable
Be singled out
Have a distinguishing characteristic
Make a lasting impression

From Acts 1:8 (NASB): "but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the remotest part of the earth."

Pastor Phil continued to say that a martyr = witness in this particular passage. A witness is "one who does what he has seen, heard, or knows"; in other words, they are a doer. In order to be true followers of Christ, we must be doers. "When we are marked by Christ, we leave our mark and we get marked."

Those who are marked by Christ are characterized by the Fruit of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. When we are 'doers', we do the fruits of the Spirit: "Fruit to go". True followers of Christ have the fruits of the Spirit manifested in their lives. Pastor Phil attached this to living lives of freedom and lives of balance. Thus, the mark of a Christian life is that it has FRUIT, it is BALANCED, and it is FREE!

He ended off with a pretty funny line: “We Shine like Stars and might pick up Scars”. Although I'm sure he actually meant that we WILL pick up scars instead of 'might', there seems to be a lot of "Shine"-ing this year.

So here's the cool part that I hadn't really thought of before. I know that we are filled with the Holy Spirit -- as a 'lead worshipper', what would we be doing if we weren't filled by Him?! But then the implication is: "we are to be marked by the Holy Spirit's filling" -- an anointing fragrance can come on you onto your head, lips, eyes, shoulders, hands, heart, or feet. One's cup overflows. Prayer with cupped hands. It was so cool to hear people share about what God did with them at retreat :) Beautiful! Yay! So happy for Missy and her void being filled with Him. So glad that Abraham encountered the Holy Spirit overflowing his cup in a very obvious way. Like wow.

Saturday night's worship set :D Woohoo! The darkness trembled ... a lot! Prepare the way of the Risen One! Saturday night was definitely the highlight of retreat for me. It just reminded me of why I love being a 'lead worshipper': to be able to help people express their hearts of gratitude, thanks, and fear of the Lord with their whole body, mind, and soul. It isn't any thing that I do, but because God was present, filled the room with His fragrance, touched people and said: "Dance for Me. Sacrifice your body in the form of an active consumption of energy of unstoppable praise to Me.". Satan flees and darkness hides because Light owns this place.

My chains are gone! I've been set free!
My God, my Saviour has ransomed me,
And like a flood His mercy reigns!
Unending love, amazing grace!

I'm so glad that Kitty got to come and join us for the weekend. I was so blessed by her support and her prayers before Saturday night's worship set. What would I do without her? I was so busy all weekend I didn't get to spend much time with her, but that's okay!

Yay to the Holy Spirit working so hardcorely in this fellowship. Of course, there were a ton of laughs and good times! It was great to see Glendon and Caleb again AND to have them help lead us to the throne of God Saturday morning. I was so glad that I had a chance to pray with people Saturday night. What an amazing opportunity! I love you all very much. Let what we do in here, fill the streets out there.

All images available at http://chrisluk.myphotoalbum.com

-------------------------

-- Kitty's 21st Birthday --
:D (February 10th, 2007)

So officially, Kitty and I have been together for 1 month and 17 days as of today. Indeed, quite a short time, but for all of you that are so ridiculously surprised; we've known each other for almost 2 years, but we've officially been together for that long. So if you're like everyone else that said, "I thought you guys were together for forever!", now you know!

So the idea was that I would come back to Toronto on Friday night to surprise her and crash her party (without telling her). All was set. Until I got into Toronto and realized that I didn't even look up directions to get there. Oooohhh .. so what do you do? Pray and hope for God to lead you where you need to go. Funny story, I circle the plaza twice, passing by Jack Astor's and everything not finding Demetre's, so I decide to leave, head out to Leslie St. and look for another plaza where it might be. I find nothing. That's okay, call people that know where it is! Call Caleb first ... he doesn't pick up. Call Kat second, she doesn't have any minutes left on her phone, so she doesn't pick up. Last resort. Call Kitty. I don't even say "Hello". Chris: "I'm not going to lie ... I'm lost." Kitty: "I knew it!" Suffice to say, I eventually found the place with Kat's guidance, parked, and being the smart woman she is, she knew that I was going to TRY and surprise her Friday night. Girls are impossible to surprise, they're just too smart! It was a great night! Got to see lots of great people that I hadn't seen in a long time.

Kitty was soooo sweet that she got me an early Valentine's Day gift. It's a scrapbook with pictures, quotes, song lyrics, Bible verses, and much more of things that are of significance to us both. Absolutely wonderful. Very sweet. Thank you :D

Saturday night, we had a chance to go to a wonderful family run restaurant for dinner. Have you ever had a 32 ounce prime rib? No? Go here and try it! Peter's of Markham Steakhouse and Seafood. Amazing. Definitely my favourite place on the planet to have prime rib, especially 32 ounces for the low, low price of $40 (relatively speaking). We also got the mushroom caps and it was unstoppabley good with the sauce the prime rib was drenched in. Super hot fresh garlic bread with sesame seeds was served too! We also got a huge slice of chocolate mousse cake that was the perfect sweetness. Easily one of the best restaurants in Markham.

A New Page is Needed 2

Sat, 17 Feb 2007 23:18:19 GMT

Another new page is indeed needed.

A New Page is needed.

Sat, 17 Feb 2007 23:16:56 GMT

Indeed, a new page is needed.

Thanks

Sun, 22 Oct 2006 19:10:20 GMT

Thanks for all of you who have said happy birthday to me! It means a lot even if you tell me late -- it just shows you care :) I know it's not always the best thing to do to post names, but I decided to this time to just give that extra oomph of thanks to you (in chronological order of me receiving a "happy birthday" message :p):

Kitty Lee, Rachel Wong, Ken Leung, Andrew Chow, Theresa Wong, Kimberley Lau, Shelby Chung, Adrienne Wong, Cora Cheung/Doreen Hsu/Jeff Cheung/Shirley Yip/Susan Park, Dayna/Jin, Hiram/Simon/Yvonne, Jeana Poon, Jon Cheung, Vanessa Ho, Sabrina Chan, Abraham Hum, Andrew Lam, Kay Lam, Sonja Ip, Brian Kung, Jonathan Tong, my family, Karina Lam/Sam Chiu/Yun-Ping Lee, and the many numerous others who said 'happy birthday' to me late and/or still got me presents (ie. Anita/Nishani/Sam)! :D

Thanks so much to everyone for going all-out and making my 20th day of birth something so special. You never really know how much two words, a smile, and a hug can do. Presents and cards are nice because you have them as tangible objects to keep and to hold, but a smile and a hug does amazing wonders.

HUGE massive insanely gigantic props go out to Kimberley Lau and Andrew Chow (and whoever else was in on the deal!) for organizing everything together to get Kitty to take the 2 hour bus ride here to London. If you were also in on the deal, let me know so I can thank you personally. That was one heck of a surprise. I was really, really, really surprised, you have no idea. I was speechless, wasn't I?! :p

Thanks especially to Kim for spending triple-digits on me, showing how much she cares for me (with using her time and a lot of money!), and for baby-sitting Kitty for a few days. It really means a lot to me that even words can't describe.
Thanks Andrew for sneakily giving hints throughout the day, especially, "are you suuuuure you want to go to men's cell?" haha .. You're making Delissio rising crust pizza right now as I type :p

Thanks Kitty for making the time in your busy schedule to come see me and chillax in London. You never cease to surprise me. Thanks for the apple pie and the ice cream -- there is still a LOT of it left! I hope you enjoyed carving your first jack-o-lantern pumpkin while being distracted with Smallville and Grey's Anatomy (two horrible shows that you shouldn't watch, by the way :p).

Thanks so much to the ACF crew that stealthily (haha) got inside London Hall to surprise me! The apple pie was really sweet (taste-wise and gift-wise) along with the ice cream! It's not that I don't like cake, it's just that it's not easy to find a cake that I like -- just ask Theresa! She's just as picky as I am about cakes! :p Thanks Adrienne for the book! I've started to read it and hopefully I'll be able to use more hymns that have such great Truth and combine those with music :) Thanks to everyone else for the pumpkin, carving utensil, and tea lights! It was really thoughtful :D It's amazing the things that people remember about you :p Thanks also to the morning prayer meeting crew for the song singing and just another great chance to pray and fellowship together :)

ACF Exec:

Wow. We've come a long way since the beginning of 2006. I love these guys and girls :) Hot pot day was defintiely a kick-off to something amazing :) It's been great to finally have a chance to share and pray with each other. It's been so heart-wrenching (in a good way) to hear what they have to share about and the struggles that they're going through and it makes me open my eyes and realize that I'm struggling with the same thing too. Thanks to Yun-Ping for his constant prayers, care, and for helping to open my eyes to my own downfalls. Thanks Jon for taking off my blinders again and for seeing how great God's love for us is, how we all struggle to love others with the kind of love Christ has for us. Thanks to everyone else, I definitely saw a bit of myself in everyone and it was absolutely eye-opening.

This fellowship means so much to me and I'm so blessed that God has put me in the paths of all these people. Talking to some of the grads, it makes me sad already that next year will possibly be my last year being able to enjoy the presence of so many solid believers and followers of Christ who are actively following Him and know what it means to be free from sin, have victory over death, pray with authority, and know Him in an intimate way. God has done amazing things in and through ACF and He will continue to do so when we keep Him as the centre. Praise God from Whom all blessings flow!

Refinement
Titus 2:11-14 NASB

Pam and Roger's (P&R's) is tonight! I'm excited. Part 2 of what it means to be a man/woman of God. AND, P&R's at ACF this upcoming Friday (October 27th)! Even more exciting!

God's blow-my-mind message to me today:

Romans 12 NASB (emphasis added):

1Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. 2And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect. 3For through the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think more highly of himself than he ought to think; but to think so as to have sound judgment, as God has allotted to each a measure of faith. 4For just as we have many members in one body and all the members do not have the same function, 5so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another. 6Since we have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, each of us is to exercise them accordingly: if prophecy, according to the proportion of his faith; 7if service, in his serving; or he who teaches, in his teaching; 8or he who exhorts, in his exhortation; he who gives, with liberality; he who leads, with diligence; he who shows mercy, with cheerfulness. 9Let love be without hypocrisy Abhor what is evil; cling to what is good. 10Be devoted to one another in brotherly love; give preference to one another in honor; 11not lagging behind in diligence, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord; 12rejoicing in hope, persevering in tribulation, devoted to prayer, 13contributing to the needs of the saints, practicing hospitality. 14Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse. 15Rejoice with those who rejoice, and weep with those who weep. 16Be of the same mind toward one another; do not be haughty in mind, but associate with the lowly Do not be wise in your own estimation. 17Never pay back evil for evil to anyone Respect what is right in the sight of all men. 18If possible, so far as it depends on you, be at peace with all men. 19Never take your own revenge, beloved, but leave room for the wrath of God, for it is written, "VENGEANCE IS MINE, I WILL REPAY," says the Lord. 20"BUT IF YOUR ENEMY IS HUNGRY, FEED HIM, AND IF HE IS THIRSTY, GIVE HIM A DRINK; FOR IN SO DOING YOU WILL HEAP BURNING COALS ON HIS HEAD." 21Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

-------------------------

I love rest. Love is rest. I love love. God is love. I love God.

"Hatred stirs up dissension, but love covers over all wrongs." -- Proverbs 10:12 NIV

-------------------------

None But Jesus

In the quiet,
In the stillness,
I know that You are God.
In the secret of Your presence
I know there I am restored.

When You call I won't refuse;
Each new day again I'll choose:

There is no One else for me,
None but Jesus,
Crucified to set me free,
Now I live to bring Him praise.

In the chaos, in confusion,
I know You’re sovereign still.
In the moment of my weakness,
You give me Grace to do Your will.

When You call I won’t delay,
This my song through all my days:

All my delight is in You LORD,
All my hope, All of my strength,
All my delight is in You LORD,
Forevermore.

Passion 07

Tue, 13 Jun 2006 21:53:34 GMT

www.268generation.com/passion07

Campus Challenge 2006

Fri, 02 Jun 2006 02:16:37 GMT

Edit (June 3):

Sunday Night at CC: There was much turmoil that night (from blowing the electric system for the theater, not practicing, and being so discouraged); but there was also a HUGE celebration. This celebration was oddly supplemented with out-of-tune guitars, but contrasted with worshippers' that wanted to reflect the pure worth and glory of God with their voices. Out of this worship team's depravity rose His divinity. There's no way that we could have done this on our own. I warn you ahead of time about out-of-tune-ness, not knowing the chords (having never practiced this ever!), lack of knowing lyrics, and of just plain not knowing what's happening -- the Holy Spirit led us through one heck of a night -- He's the one totally worthy of praise. Oh yea, if you've been wondering what it sounds like when Kat screams ... you'll hear it! :p (The link below is a REALLY low quality wma, if you want a higher quality one, e-mail me (chrisluk [at] gmail [dot] com) and we'll figure something out).

Sunday Night at Campus Challenge 2006

Pure Glory: Here's Kat leading Friday night and Sunday morning.

Campus Challenge 2006 Worship Team
Caleb - lead worshipper: acoustic guitar and vocals
Chris - lead worshipper: acoustic guitar and vocals
Kat - lead worshipper: acoustic guitar, piano, and vocals
Aaron - electric bass
Glendon - drums
Jean-Luc - electric violin
Kitty - piano
Wilson - electric guitar
Alex - worship coordinator
Eric - the essential behind the scenes man that does everything that needs to be done
Jon - sound technician

-------------------------

Colossians 3:17 NIV:
"And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him."

Great weekend. It was definitely VERY different from Campus Challenge 2005 in almost every aspect. I don't know if I can say one is better than another, they were both just very different experiences. I think the only thing that was exactly the same was the fact that there was not much sleep to be had :p

Well, another year has passed and yet again, the most memorable thing to come from this is worship team. I'm extremely grateful for the team last year for building me up into the lead worshipper I am now, and I'm equally greatful for this year's worship team for being able to vigorously work together for a single goal and to strive for perfection. I was definitely humbled by the amount of work that Wilson (our electric guitar player) put into learning his parts. Right off the bat, we told Glendon (our drummer), Wilson (our e-guitarist), and Aaron (our super trusty bassist who has one heck of a cool mohawk right now) that they'd be really vitally important to carrying a bulk of the songs we would be doing as many of the songs were guitar driven which equates to drums, bass, and e-guitar driven when arranged for a big band setting. So off we went to practice like crazy. First few practices were nice, slow, and lax. Really just jamming, but not to the point of having too much fun. Then we had a fun crash course of leading an evening of singspiration with merely 3 hours of practice earlier that day. But that night was when the team really started to gel. With less than 45 minutes to scarf down dinner, head back to the church to warm up and start the night, teamwork was much required.

Enter the quickest meal you have ever seen. EVER. Well, it was also decently cheap too :) Something like $5 a person? Pretty sure we scarfed down many "deep"'s of food in about 15 minutes. It's been so long, I can barely remember. But yes, that I think was only the beginning for what would become so much more :D You know that face that you get when you eat REALLY sour items (even Sour Skittles! mmm, Sour Skittles!); pretty sure you'd get that face too if you heard us that night. Of course you can't forget Caleb's wonderful G-chord that's always at the wrong fret. No worries, it'll return again :p But of course, I'm just making fun. We all know everyone has a special place in their hearts for Caleb.

Then what? I'm glad you asked. Well, the answer is really ... nothing. What do I mean? I mean, we didn't see each other again for over a month! Do I mean to say that we only practiced once for a day, lead a night, and then broke up? Well ... kind of. But the happy part is we got back together :D Yay for the month of May! You might wonder ... isn't Campus Challenge in May? Well, you'd be right! What does that mean? Do I mean to say that our worship team only had about 2 weeks to practice all 6 sets for Campus Challenge, get to know each other well enough to follow each other, and to enjoy each other's presence? I sure do! So let the adventures begin of the hardcore practices that lasted for 5 hours at a time, some with no breaks. But the fearless worship team plowed on focussed on one goal :) Can I say that none of us were frustrated, angered, or a little bored possibly? Well no. I have so much thanks to give this worship team. I remember blurting, "Thanks for being so longsuffering, guys!" I don't know if longsuffering was the correct word, but they indeed suffered through many gruelling LONG practices!

So some more adventures bubble-tea-ing and scarfing down more quick and cheap food helped us all out in the end. All thanks, honour, glory and praise goes to our Father above for assembling this team. Yet again, He never fails, two years in a row composed of musicians and worshippers that are lead worshippers at their own respective fellowships, churches, etc. What a way to kick it all off. In fact, this year's team consisted of 3 lead worshippers from Western ACF, 3 lead worshippers from UofT CCF, 1 from Ryerson CCF, 1 from Guelph ACF. And of course, worship coordinator who served with Ryerson CCF also! (And who would've thought that Eric Tang was going to be Guelph's new chair?). Well, sadly, we never got a picture of the WHOLE worship team, Alex and Jean-Luc Van Damme were missing from our fun photoshoots. But nevertheless, they were there in spirit .. or just in the washroom cleaning up the horrible mess we made.

Feel free to visit Kitty's blog for more insight into the craziness of our worship team and the many interesting screw-ups along the way. Kat also posted some of her thoughts. I don't think any one else on the worship team has made a public post about the weekend yet, but it'd be great to read them! Where are you?! :p Let me know if you've posted something somewhere so I can read it! :D

I don't remember who I was talking to, but I hope that after this worship team, we're able to come together again even when we're all old and grey and just chillax while our kids run around while the guys huddle around the barbeque and the women do whatever it is that they do. It'd be so serene and nice. Just watch out for Uncle Caleb, he's a bad influence :p Auntie Kat will be snapping photographs :)

Speaker: Alison Siewart
She was really cool! I guess I've never experienced a talk from someone who's actually into using creative approaches or creativity in general to express what God's been stirring in them. She had a great sense of humour and seemed to have a geniune interest in helping us get to where we wanted to get to. Stop thinking our God is so 1-dimensional. He's not a "flat Jesus". She was cool, I felt bad for nodding off many a time because of a lack of sleep. Well, at least I had "Ah Jai" to keep me company for my naps :p

Small group: Thanksgiving
Interesting group. I think it took a while for us to warm up to each other, which was a little sad, but in the end it's still okay :D Being on worship team definitely takes away from quite a bit of the small group time, but at least you usually get the big picture! :p

Random Talks, Prayers, and Meeting People:
Darn. I wish I got to meet more people than I did! I don't know what it is. It's pretty humbling when no one realizes that you're on stage. It's really cool, it's great that you're able to be 'transparent' to so many people -- that you're not who or what they're focussed on. Like Glendon was sharing, "What?! You're the drummer?!" hahaha .. it's great to not be noticed. We've done our job.

Praying for our campus late Sunday night was a lot of fun. So glad to see our MINISCULE group of people eventually grow to include almost all the Ontario universities in a matter of an hour or so. It was so encouraging to meet so many other prayer warriors out there on their campuses. It's beautiful to see such passion that these people have to see people on their campuses come to Christ and to make His name known above all names. That was really memorable.

That same night (wow, late night!) I got a chance to talk to Jeana, who I NEVER get to talk to. It was really great to hear her share what was on her heart and mind about almost everything. Again, I wish I spent more time with her, but after such a long day of stress, I was literally ready to tip over and pass out. Ended the night off praying for each other and what was tugging at us. I hope that our year of students really get a chance to grow together, to encourage each other, and to pop out of our own little bubble worlds -- we really need to join together and show the rest of ACF that we can be a strong, unified year with men and women of God striving to help the rest of the fellowship grow.

Yay, Western ACF! :D

It was really nice to actually KNOW people in my fellowship this year :D It was a great time to sit and share with each other. Yet again, God allowed me the chance to talk with yet another sister in Christ (Emily!) that I almost never get to talk to, ask her about her love for ACF and what she's learnt after serving as a frosh cell leader. It was so cool to have 24 wonderful people from Western ACF come out and spend the weekend togerther! A HUGE increase compared to last year. It was great to see so many people from next year's exec committee come too; I'm sure we'll remember the experience of washing each other's feet in servanthood. It seems like forever since we've had an ACF get-together and that long weekend was a great reminder of what fun we have over the course of the school year. It was also really bittersweet to see so many graduates come out to Campus Challenge even though it was their last year with the fellowship (and in university); the fact that they're missing next year will be very noticable, but we know God has more amazing people lined up too :D

Closing remarks:

I was really glad what God did with this worship team. He broke us down on Sunday night and reminded us how utterly ruined we are. How useless we are, how broken and empty we are. How deprived we are. When His divinity meets our depravity, it's a beautiful collision. Nothing could be farther from the truth. God totally took over after Communion that night. Out-of-tune guitars and a broken worship team with God's divinity equals one heck of a loud gathered church.

In our lives, be lifted high!
In our world, be lifted high!
In our love, be lifted high!

Hallelujah, our God reigns!

The enemy has been defeated, death couldn't hold You down,
We're gonna lift our voice in victory, we're gonna make Your praises loud!
Shout unto God with a voice of triumph, shout unto God with a voice of praise!
We lift Your name up, we lift Your name up!

Pictures at: chrisluk.myphotoalbum.com

Our Personal Prayer and Challenge for Campus Challenge:

Pure Glory - Christy Nockels
In my heart, in my eyes, in my soul, in my life,
How I need Your pure glory,
In my rest, in my work, in my secret, in my worship,
How I need Your pure glory,

Unveil my heart, let me look upon Your face,
Pure glory fall down on me,
And spend all my days,
On the riches of Your grace.
My life counts as pure glory for Your name.

My personal song of reflection for the moment:

Choose - Christy Nockels
Let me be in love with what You love,
Let me be most satisfied in You;
Forsaking what this world has offered me;
I choose to be in love with You,
I will choose to be in love with You.

Let me know the peace that's mine in You,
Let me know the joy my heart can sing;
For I have nothing Lord apart from You;
I choose to call on Christ in me,
I will choose to call on Christ in me.

Chorus:
For in the fullness of who You are,
I can rest in this place;
And giving over this my journey Lord
I see nothing but Your face.

And I bow down,
Humbly I bow down,
Humbly I bow down,
I bow down.

Let me know that You have loved me first,
Let me know the weight of my response;
For you have long pursued my wandering heart;
I choose to glory in the Cross,
Yes, I will choose to glory in the Cross.

Thank You God for placing this amazing worshipper in my life, for her amazing heart, and whatever that You have in store. Better today than yesterday, better tomorrow than today.

!!! GLOBAL DAY OF PRAYER !!!
Sunday, June 4
2PM to 7PM
Air Canada Center
FREE
Come join the world to pray for our cities, our country, our world. For revival.

Sunday, January 29, 2006

Sun, 29 Jan 2006 19:02:16 GMT

Caution: This is a very long post. I really recommend it as a read, but take it one pace at a time. I probably won’t be updating for a long time, so take that extra time to dive into His Word!

Passion06: Think. Go. Live. Be.

What can I say other than, God is INDESCRIBABLE! (It took me forever to even think up a word to put there.) The 28-Day Prayer Journey was a perfect way to prepare oneself for what was to come. Essentially, everyday there’s a kind-of devotional section you read, some encouragement through scripture, and something to focus on praying for/thinking about during the day.

God really reminded me that even though I’m seeking after Him, hoping to love Him more, and to draw closer after Him – He’s the one that sought me first, He love me so much more than I can possibly love Him, and He’s running for me, even when He saw me a long ways off! Sure, seek Him, but remember that He’s way more excited to see you! His beloved child!

There really is no other way to sum of all four days other than being in God’s embracing hug and bathing in His presence. Thank Passion for always being Christ-centered, God-focused, humble, and sensitive to the Spirit.

It was a life-changing experience. Really. Not kidding. I was hoping to listen, feel, taste, smell, and see God and He totally overflowed my cup. He was holding onto me all conference long and just kept talking to me, encouraging me, cheering me on. Encountering God is a magnificent and life-changing experience. I still have (jokingly) God’s arm’s dead skin cells left on me (obviously God doesn’t shed dead skin cells, but the idea is that He left a mark and I’m still feeling it)!

I totally encourage you to sign up for Passion07. You will not be disappointed. When you encounter God, there’s no such thing as disappointment. January 1 to 4, 2007 in Atlanta, Georgia.

Day 1: Early morning wake-up. About 6:30am or so? Airport before 8am. Lines like insanity. Oh look, Alex is wearing pink. Moving from one line to another, Air Canada … United? Customs; jump ahead; security; on the plane! Storm in Chicago, holding pattern until cleared to land, might need to stop at Grand Rapids to refuel. Well, that’d be inconvenient. Clouds, rain, instantaneously frozen water droplets over windows, rain again, lightning striking the plane. Fireball. Bright and big. Did you see that?! Check the plane wing – charcoal streak about the average size of a computer desk. Interesting. Turbulence, lots of it. Finally landed and back on the ground. Feels good to be in Chicago.

Get off the plane, slightly relaxed. Time to head to the next gate, so we can get to Nashville! Yay! What’s this? Cancelled flight. Go to Customer Service. You mean, self-serve customer service? Indeed. Alternative route booked. Let’s go! Hmm .. we’re confirmed for St. Louis to Nashville but not Chicago to St. Louis? Well, that’s kind of useless. Cancel both flights. Stuck again. Customer service! You mean self-serve? Yup. Hey look, it’s Kat! She’s just about to board her flight for the last leg to Nashville. Nice to see her :) She survived her solo-flight experience! Aren’t you proud of that little girl (I mean that in the nicest way possible)! Plenty of space left on her plane, let’s go for it. Can’t switch United to American Airlines unless you’ve got money – d’oh. Should’ve thought that one through. Customer Service! Self-serve? You’re good at this. What do you mean a flight to Tokyo is cancelled too? Do you know how many people are stranded now? Neither do I, but it’s a lot! What’s the next flight to Nashville? Check the screens. Let’s go there and hope for the best. Stand-by list, eh? Better than nothing. Sit and wait. Sitting and waiting. Waiting and sitting. No numb but yet. Waiting. (Pause)

I’ve never prayed so much in a day in my whole life. Since the second I woke up, frantically moving from line to line, experiencing the plane of death, walking from one side of the airport to the other, sitting and waiting – intense God communication. It was good.

(Un-pause). Name’s not called. Well, next flight. Standby. Sit and wait, again. Name’s not called. Next possible flight. It’s dark out. Wow, we’ve been here about 7 hours! Imagine that! We were only supposed to be in Chicago O’Hare for about 2 hours and then on our way to Nashville (original plan). God at work. Chris Luk, Alex Leung. Hey, I know those names. Plane seats? Sweet! To Nashville! Smooth ride. Meet a young lady who’s very nice, a child at heart. Nice to talk to. Get off the plane. Carry on – who would have thought listening to the advice from a movie would be smart? (Meet the Parents) No luggage seen for Alex. No worries, necessities are provided.

Taxi. They’re all minivans/vans, whatever happened to normal cars? Jamal. Showed us around town … sketchy. Hotel, sweet! Nice room! King-sized bed is huge! Joke with Alex: “The gentlemen-ly thing to do is to let Kat sleep on the bed every night and we just crunch onto the sofa bed. Joke becomes reality. I’m not complaining, I just thought it was funny how it worked out that way.

What to do? Main session is long gone, community groups are under way, only thing left is LateNites. Shane and Shane PLEASE! Walk to Gaylord Entertainment Center. 20 minutes at a brisk pace, not bad! GO Center. Big. Registration closed, just chill, look around. 268 Store, should’ve bought stuff while I had the chance! Everything sold out so quickly! Tour the rest of the GO Center, Graffiti area’s filling up fast, Visit Mobilization – cool idea! Listen in on LateNite going on nearby. They’re okay, never heard any of these songs before though. Who were they? Walk around and bump into … Kat?! That’s crazy! Of all the possible people!

Time to head home. Talk. This girl likes to walk on the street side of sidewalks – watch out for this kid – it’s an active battle for guys to walk on the street side of the sidewalk! Hungry = food! Drive-thru: everyone’s already in line! That’s hilarious! Go home, order in. What’s this? Open-late? And you’re closed? Front desk. Good deals, pizza and 24 wings for a good price. Good food. Kat dozing off at first plopped horizontally on the bed. Quick wake-up and re-sleep to be rolled up like a burrito in the top blanket. Good night! Room smells like BBQ wings! Time to sleep.

Day 2:

Wake-up. Breakfast! Good food. Registration. PASSION06 officially begins for Alex and I!!! Tim Hughes and Nathan and Christy Nockels! Her voice sounds even better in person. Worship. Stillness, peace, rest, outcry of thanks. I really need yesterday to be what it was. Tim speaks funny. Family groups, randomly find one! Cool group.

God’s huge-mungously warm, powerful, and embracing hug begins.

Main Session. Floor seats. Chris Tomlin. Worship. John Piper. Food! Apple was good. Beginning of the apple-a-day saga. Well, I’m not going to narrate the entire day. But what a day! Lots of time on your feet, it’s a pretty physically grueling place to be, but with God’s help, you can do it :)

I checked out Kneel, the 24 hour prayer journey there too. Prayer is so vitally important. I really encourage you to take some time and pray too! http://www.268generation.com/passion06/www/kneel.htm

It’s great, and has some really cool things to pray for! It was great to see so many people there earnestly praying and crying out to God for these things to happen.

The LateNite session with Matt Redman and Christy Nockels was AMAZING!!! What an experience, a building over 100 years old singing hymns that were written about that long ago? Christy introduced us to a hymn that she wrote, too bad I don’t recall any of it. Hymns are such powerful tools. They’re really starting to rekindle inside me and starting to give new life to me. (If you’ve worshipped with me lately, you’ll notice a lot of hymns in my worship sets).

Day 3:

Breakout: Worship panel. These guys are all comedians! They’re hilarious, and it’s such a happy feeling to see everyone so close and so family-like. The mystery which is Chris Tomlin. Kat thinks she has it all worked out now. Chris Tomlin, the mysterious kid who keeps to himself and absolutely cannot stop laughing! The mystery of David Crowder with no shirt on. Matt Redman and his love of baseball. Charlie Hall and the meaning of “sing to Him with your hearts”. So much fun.

LateNite today was insanely cool too. Silence. What a stark contrast to the regular 18,000 people screaming at the top of their lungs during David Crowder* Band’s “We Win!” Silence entering the arena, silence and focus on Christ and His sacrifice. Silent worship (Here I AM to Worship). I thought there was going to be communion, but that’s alright. Lead worshippers return. Cross lifted, Salvation is Here!

Day 4:

Time to go home. Last main session. Powerful. “Thank you for your jeans!” Check out the talk “Passion, Purpose and Designer Jeans”. Totally worth it. The send-off.

Can I say, tears of happiness, when the graffiti banners saying GLORIOUS rose up from the stage to be the centerpiece? That was beautiful! Who's the creative genius behind all this? Alright, so suspiciously, a white coloured tapestry was starting to rise up from around the stage and when it hit its full height, cool colours were fired on it, and THEN, it was revealed to be a huge mural of the graffiti wall that so many thousands of people poured their hearts onto in declaring how great God is, His love for us, and their personal struggles that Christ freed them from. What a way to go! While singing "Glorious" and "Our God Reigns"!!!

"Our God reigns, Our God reigns,
Forever your kingdom reigns."

"We lift our voice to You and sing
Our greatest love will ever be
You Lord
You Lord!

Glorious, over us
You shall reign glorious

There is a king that we adore
With humble hearts we bow before
You Lord
There is a place we long to be
Face to face we long to see
You Lord
You Lord!

Majesty and power,
You're the glory forever."

Only disappointment is a lack of Shane and Shane. Whhyyyyyyyy!!! I wanted to see Shane and Shane so bad! Ah well.

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Synopsis and reflections on the main session sermons:

What Passion is All About (Main Session 1) – Louie Giglio

"Yes, Lord, walking in the way of Your Truth, we wait eagerly
for You, for Your name and Your renown are the desire of our souls." – Isaiah 26:8

It’s always about the glory of God. He’s the most glorious thing ever. He knows who He is. He’s worth of all the glory, honour, and praise. He’s the greatest thing in existence. “For the sake of my name” I rescued you, I delivered you, I gave you mercy – God does it all for Himself. God is NOT egotistical. He loves you, and He loves Himself! There’s no one else to turn to other than God – there is no other rescuer than God. It’s because of His amazing love that He points us to Him. There is no one else who has done what Christ has done for us.

Run with everything you have into the embrace of the hug of God.

Your satisfaction, you being filled, blessed, freed, and God’s glory are the same thing. God is into us – we should be into God. When we’re satisfied in Him, He is most glorified in us.

Taste and see that the Lord is good. Interesting how of all the senses, taste is the one that shows up. You’ve got to sink your teeth into the Son of God – you have to take Him in and experience Him! Not merely to touch, listen, smell, or see Him, we have to totally take Him in.

“Do you consider yourself to be a born-again Christian?” A quarter of a million US freshman college students took the survey and almost 80% of the people checked the box saying No. There are 13.5 million US college students that go to sleep every night that have no clue what life is all about – that the Son of God has stepped into History to free them from the bondage of sin and to give them eternal life with Him. That means that everything else is being glorified, adored, and exalted on campuses all across the world.

The absence of His fame on my campus has been paining me for a while now. Walking around campus, noticing how many people are lost, dead, and are not followers of Christ, seeing how many have their eyes, hands, minds, souls grabbed onto something other than Christ. Sadly, I don’t know how to be a super-duper effective ‘spreader’ of Him through campus, but I know that God-willing, He will use me in any way He wishes.

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Suffering, Part 1 (Main Session 2) – John Piper

The universe exists to display the greatness of the glory of God’s grace in the suffering of the Son of God for undeserving sinners. God’s glory is revealed most magnificently in the suffering of the Son of God. Therefore, suffering must exist in the universe so that Christ could display the glory of the grace of God by suffering Himself, so that he might overcome suffering in us. This was miraculous plan A – not plan B – from the beginning this is what must be.

“13 Christ redeemed us from the curse of the Law, having become a curse for us--for it is written, "CURSED IS EVERYONE WHO HANGS ON A TREE"” – Galations 3:13

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Changing History (Main Session 3) – Beth Moore

(“Do you understand what I’m saying to you?” Anyone else notice how often she says this?)

“7 Don't be misled. Remember that you can't ignore God and get away with it. You will always reap what you sow! 8 Those who live only to satisfy their own sinful desires will harvest the consequences of decay and death. But those who live to please the Spirit will harvest everlasting life from the Spirit. 9 So don't get tired of doing what is good. Don't get discouraged and give up, for we will reap a harvest of blessing at the appropriate time. 10 Whenever we have the opportunity, we should do good to everyone, especially to our Christian brothers and sisters.” – Galations 6:7-10

How do we sow into the harvest? Be intentional in what you sow.

“8 My true disciples produce much fruit. This brings great glory to my Father.” – John 15:8

Can we change history? Is this reality? Or our mouths bigger than our realities? Can a few students change an entire campus? Is this possible?

Not only is it possible. This is a reality if this becomes what we intentionally sow. Be deliberate. When it’s all said and done, what do you want your life to have been about. Are you on the path to that direction? We serve a God who has created history, who carries time now, has planned the future – and as believers, He dwells in and through us! Of course we can change history! Remember that History is His story! (refer to Louie’s History series from 7|22).

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Suffering, Part 2 (Main Session 4) – John Piper

“12 In fact, everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted,” – 2 Timothy 3:12

“41 So they went on their way from the presence of the Council, rejoicing that they had been considered worthy to suffer shame for His name.” – Acts 5:41

How do the sufferings of Christ arrive on your campus? How are you going to tell others about Christ on your campus? Don’t think it’s strange when it comes. He paid the price of His life for our salvation. How are they going to see how satisfying He is in us, if it looks like it’s our toys that satisfy us? The cross of Christ is for propitiation, our cross is for propagation.

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Significant Insignificance (Main Session 5) – Louie Giglio

We are significantly insignificant. God is BIG, HUGE-MUNGOUS, CREATIVE, COOL, AWESOME, TERRIBLE, POWERFUL, FAITHFUL, and He is IT.

“ 4 He determines the number of the stars
and calls them each by name.” – Psalm 147:4

“ 31 "Can you bind the beautiful Pleiades?
Can you loose the cords of Orion?” – Job 38:31

"It suddenly struck me that that tiny pea, pretty and blue, was the Earth. I put up my thumb and shut one eye, and my thumb blotted out the planet Earth. I didn't feel like a giant. I felt very, very small." – Neil Armstrong

“ 3 When I consider your heavens,
       the work of your fingers,
       the moon and the stars,
       which you have set in place,

4 what is man that you are mindful of him,
the son of man that you care for him?

5 You made him a little lower than the heavenly beings
and crowned him with glory and honor.” – Psalm 8:3-5

4 billion miles away, Voyageur 1, before leaving the solar system, turned around and took a series of photographs of earth:

“That's here. That's home. That's us. On it, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever lived, lived out their lives. The aggregate of all our joys and sufferings, thousands of confident religions, ideologies and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilizations, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every hopeful child, every mother and father, every inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every superstar, every supreme leader, every saint and sinner in the history of our species, lived there on a mote of dust, suspended in a sunbeam.” – Carl Sagan

The universe and the entire cosmos is doing exactly what God told them to do – they’re glorifying Him, praising Him, and exalting Him! They’re there yelling, shouting, and shining the glory of God – they’re beating to God’s heartbeat. I want to be joining in with that everlasting applause – the forever-lasting renown of God. What a PARTYYYY!!!

Christ made EVERYTHING. He came to this little mote of dust suspended in space and died on a cross that He made so that we could be released from a useless and insignificant life. Long before we made a mess of our life, our Heavenly Father made a mess of His – for us – He decided what He was going to do with us. He decided to give us another chance, offered us His grace, mercy, life, He came and found us, He grabbed onto us with His mighty hand and held onto us with His undying strength. He decided that He wanted to create you so that He could love you and provide the best for you – He’s running after you, so much harder than you’re running after Him. He loves you, way more than you love Him. He’s seeking you, searching for you, begging you to return to Him.

“ 6 Who, being in very nature God,
      did not consider equality with God something to be grasped,
7but made himself nothing,
      taking the very nature of a servant,
      being made in human likeness.
8And being found in appearance as a man,
      he humbled himself
      and became obedient to death—
         even death on a cross!” – Philippians 2:6-8

Two black holes in the middle of the Whirlpool Galaxy – the X-structure. Everywhere we turn, it’s the grace of God. You can’t turn anywhere that won’t be a display of the glory of God. Even in a galaxy that’s so perfectly oriented in the universe to face us and create such an image as the wonderful cross of Christ. I was thinking about this for a while – two black holes in which create a glowing image of the cross. How perfect – black holes are these highly intense areas of gravity that pull EVERYTHING into it. Just think about this; Christ took ALL the sins of the world into Himself – all of it, everything – the sins that we have all committed, we are about to commit, and the sins that we will commit – ALL of it. He sucked it all into Himself. Nobody knows where the stuff taken in by black holes goes – it’s assumed to just not exist anymore – think about that! All our sins, disappeared, gone, non-existent forever. We’re FREE, we’re clean, we’re pure because of Christ! (For pictures, look below to the Passion Toronto post.)

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Passion, Purpose, and Designer Jeans (Main Session 6) – Louie Giglio

Anyone else want to do the Colossians challenge? (Memorizing the whole book of Colossians.) Where can you get things laminated?

YOU MUST LISTEN TO THIS TALK! MUST!!!

It’s so much easier to go out to missions trips and to spread God’s love there than to live out this life in front of our roommates, classmates, condomates, apartmentmates, etc. A real, authentic life is what we need to live out – people living in darkness will be drawn by your light and ask you – what is your deal? It’s God! He’s at work in me. What do you mean, God’s working in you? Allowing you to share the huge story of God. He’s changing you and changing me.

“17 Whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through Him to God the Father.” – Colossians 3:17

“I really, really, really, really, really, really want to have my own clothing line!”

Hahaha … well, not me personally. You REALLY, REALLY, REALLY, have to listen to this talk and think about it.

(My personal ambition has always been to become a doctor, preferably something along the lines of surgery where I can do something active with my hands.)

Most importantly, make sure your purpose is greater than your passion. “Thank you for your jeans! Thank you for your jeans! Because of your jeans, we’re here at this party!!!” Don’t ever think that you’re doing less than a person who’s doing professional ministry work – your excellence, your purpose, your passion, you’re free! Go and do what you have a passion for, but make sure your purpose is in the right place.

Love Jesus supremely.
Engage culture with excellence.
Stay connected to the community of faith.

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Pictures:

http://www.268generation.com/passion06/www/gallery/

chrisluk.myphotoalbum.com

-- Hopefully I’ll add some more when I get the chance. We all took a LOT of photos and videos. Almost 5GB of videos and a couple gigs of pictures.

I'm sure both Kat and Alex would be happy to share pictures and their experiences with you also.

Alex: www.sixsteps.org

Kat: sykokat.blogspot.com

PARTY!!! - Chris Tomlin

We're gonna shout to the heaven's now,
Gonna sing loud and drown the sea out
Celebrate the life I've found
I've found, I've found!

I was blind but now I see!
I was lost but He rescued me!
He saved the day and set me free,
Set me free, now I'm free!

We're gonna PARTY!!!
I can feel it down inside,
PARTY!!!
I was dead, now I'm alive!

Friday, December 09, 2005

Fri, 09 Dec 2005 05:20:38 GMT

Day 4: , Dec. 8: Endurance (from 268blog.blogspot.com)

This is not a good time for a collegiate ministry like Passion to be launching a 28-Day journey of prayer. End of term projects have drained the laughter of days gone by and just over the horizon finals loom, the dread of those who have yet to buy the book or make it to class. So much cramming to do. So little time. But for even the most prepared, these days are filled with stress and pressure. So today, we want to pray for you.

At the end of the day, there is very little separation between the days of Passion06 and these. It's all life and worship, and it's our opportunity to show the world that Jesus is alive. And just as we pray God will meet us in power in Nashville, He is fully with now You wherever you are.

For some, this term might be lost. I don't say that to heap guilt on you (I personally flunked out of college, twice!), but to be realistic. Your chance to glorify God academically might have to wait until another day. But whether you're about to pull down shimmering A's or something in between, the way you approach your school work is one of your best chances to magnify Him.

A lot of people on your campus will never hear of Passion, but will be moved by seeing someone who has found God to be enough on the academic journey. I learned that the hard way, trying to serve as a youth pastor while stinking up the classroom and being a terrible reflection of my Father. Yet, in his mercy I got a second chance and got to see His power come to life within as I successfully squeezed my last two years into four quarters. It was His life at work in me.

"I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me." Galatians 2:20.

So, breathe deeply today-you belong to Majesty and He is living in you.
Trust Him, not for the next two weeks, but the next two minutes. And keep doing that over and over until you arrive in Nashville.
Do your very best. You might not be able to change a C into and A before finals are over, but don't let that stop you from doing every single thing you do as though you are doing it for Him. Because you are.
Notice that He is there every second. Catch His gaze. Ask for His help. Give Him a smile.
Encourage someone else. A short text or voice mail might be all they need to recover hope and run for the finish.

Today's prayer: Lord, thank You for being in everything. In the papers, the projects, the exams. I am spent and weary, but I know You are endless supply. Power me with the life of Jesus as I walk through these final days. Give me the grace to endure. And be glofified as I seek to do all I do for You. I'm hanging on to You Jesus. Live Your life in me.

And Father, we pray for every student, asking that You would cause them to know Your presence in the midst of little sleep and lots of stress. Thank You for the grace You give every minute of the day. You are more than enough. For Jesus' name, Amen.

"Do you not know? Have you not heard? The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth.He will not grow tired or weary, and his understanding no one can fathom. He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak. Even youths grow tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall; but those who hope in the LORD will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint."
Isaiah 40:28-31

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One Pure and Holy Passion

Give me one pure and holy passion
Give me one magnificent obsession
Give me one glorious ambition for my life
To know and follow hard after You

To know and follow hard after You
To grow as Your disciple in the truth
This world is empty, pale and poor
Compared to knowing You, my Lord
Lead me on and I will run after You
Lead me on and I will run after You

Monday, December 05, 2005

Mon, 05 Dec 2005 18:12:21 GMT

Day 1: Mon., Dec. 5: For the Glory (from 268blog.blogspot.com)

The beginning and end of everything is the glory of God. So, naturally, it is fitting that we begin our journey of consecration, moving towards Passion06 and beyond, with His glory in view.

As we prepare our hearts for what lies ahead in Nashville, and as we begin to pray together all across the nation and world, we must do all we do to the end that God’s name will be great in our midst, receiving the honor and glory that He alone is due. If we have any other motive in our thoughts, actions or prayers, we will fail.

Passion exists for the glory of God. Our goal is not simply host successful events. We want more than songs. More than speakers. More than an experience. We want to start a movement for His renown! Thus, our desire is to center everything we do on God, do all we do for Him and leave Passion06 with renewed hearts to spread His story of mercy and grace to every person on planet earth.

And whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through Him to God the Father. Colossians 3:17.

Today’s prayer:

Father, You alone are God. You are bigger than my ability to fully comprehend. You are “I AM.” I am “I am not.” You are great. I am small. Yet, You have made me in Your image and have redeemed me from the muck and shame of sinful ways. You have brought me to life through Jesus Christ and called me Yours. My very breath has come from You. All that I am and everything I will ever be is You.

On the very first step of this journey I humble my heart. There is nothing I want more than for my life to bring attention to Your greatness, for my life to reflect Your face to the whole world.

Lord, cause every part of my life and Passion06 to bring the most glory possible to Your name. Amen.

All through the day: More of You. Less of me.

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Reflection:

It's about half-way through the day as I'm writing this and to think, More of You and Less of me has been interesting. While sitting in lecture, writing like a maniac, and just trying to be a sponge and absorb all that the professor is saying - how do you make Him most glorified? Perhaps by being attentitive, writing the most comprehensive set of notes the world has ever seen, or to participate and ask ridiculously good questions when the time comes? Wow. That's like .. impossible to do for SO many hours in a day. So far, it defintiely hasn't been going THAT well.
One thing I find interesting is that when sitting with the 'lunch crew', the topic of God or something that pertains to Him comes up. Odd. Too bad today was the second last lunch together this semester. It'll be interesting to see who'll be around next semester. Come to Delaware's cafeteria for lunch, people! :p
Another thing is that I'm so physically tired today. As I'm sitting here, I'm drooping and almost about to nap on this keyboard - more of Him, less of me. Now how do I do that. More of Him would mean that I'd be energized like crazy and be able to take on schoolwork and classes as I mentioned above. Cool. Less of me it is!

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David Crowder* Band - You are My Joy

He has set me on fire, I am burning alive,
With His breath in my lungs I am coming undone.

And I cannot hold it in and remain composed.
Love's taken over me and so I propose: letting myself go.
I am letting myself go.

You are my joy!
You are my joy!
You are my joy!
You are my joy!

I need to catch my breath, I need to.
I need to catch my breath, give me a moment now.

I'm laughing so hard right now
I'm laughing so hard right now
I'm laughing so hard! :D