New Hope Christian Fellowship

Religious Epiphanies

Christianity, Michael's Posts 1 Response »

May 172010

We have a new pastor at our church. Daniel Cohee lived here in Taiwan and preached occasionally at New Hope while studying Chinese last year. Then he went back to the States and spent almost a year trying to raise money to support himself as a full-time missionary to Taiwan and other places in Asia.

New Hope’s previous pastor, Joel H. Linton, felt God calling him to a ministry in rural Taiwan. Last fall Joel and his family left for a year-long furlough in the United States. When they came back they would be living outside Taipei. Our church group’s ruling elders and other men had been preaching the sermons since then. During that time we asked Daniel if he’d consider coming to Taiwan earlier than he expected and serve as New Hope’s interim pastor. He agreed and has been at it for about a month now.

Emily and I have been excited to see God work. God has been so good providing direction for Joel and the Linton family. He also has been so good in giving us that time in between pastors for the ruling elders and other men to preach. During that time it was so cool to see different things brought up as each man had his unique perspective to share from.

And God is also good in leading Daniel to serve as the interim pastor. A few weeks ago Daniel began preaching from John. I have been so interested and encouraged by how much Daniel’s sermons point to Christ. How, he points out time and time again, everything in the Bible and about Christianity points to Jesus and confirms His divinity and rightful place as our Head.

Yesterday the sermon was on John 1:35-51. Daniel pointed out something I had never really gotten before. He pointed out Andrew, right after learning where Jesus was staying, immediately went and got his brother Simon and brought him to meet Jesus. Daniel explained how that is what evangelism is all about. It’s not about ideas or arguments or proving points. Evangelism is about bringing people to meet Jesus.

It makes so much sense. When people ask me to explain one of Christianity’s obtuse concepts or whatever I should instead bring them to meet Christ. I shouldn’t be wasting time trying to explain about head coverings but instead just show them where Jesus lives.

Since we’re on the subject of religious revelation I had another one recently. I need to be wary of living for myself without hurting other people. My goal should not be to do what I want to do without hurting other people. I need to be living for Jesus, full stop. My mother-in-law shared the JOY acronym with me recently and I really liked it. It’s cutesy and it’s true: Jesus first, Others second, You last. True joy can only be found living this way. Thank you MommaMuffett and thank You Jesus.

Guys’ Bible Study

Christianity, Michael's Posts 4 Responses »

May 052010

I’ve been thinking it has been quite a while since my last post. So here I am.

A little over a month ago another Chris, a friend from church, and I started a guys’ Bible study. The desire to get something like that going at New Hope came because of my experience at Liberty back in Lansing. The guys’ bible study there was a great tool God used to draw me into the community of brothers there. Not only friends were provided but also accountability, encouragement, and new

I’ve been thinking it has been quite a while since my last post; so here I am.

About two months ago Chris, a friend from church, and I started a guys’ Bible study. The desire to get something like that going here with New Hope men came because of my experience at Liberty back in Lansing. The guys’ bible study at Liberty was a great tool God used to draw me into the local community of brothers. Not only friends were provided but also accountability, encouragement, and new understanding of Jesus.

The first time Chris and I met it was just the two of us. We started with Acts and every other week we read a chapter, discuss it, and then specify prayer requests and pray for each other. The second time we met more guys came and it seems like more guys keep coming and trying it out every time. We live all over the city and meeting during the week is rough on some of them because of the distance, but hopefully we can figure that out too. After we finish the “meeting” part we hang out, play PS2, talk, and all that. I have really appreciated it and it feels like we are all getting more comfortable and easygoing with each other at church meetings on Sunday too.

One of the things thats rough sometimes about living so far away from home is being able to find a community. Everybody is so different but at the same time all us ex-pats have that one thing in common of living in a foreign land. It’s hard to explain how that fact becomes awkward sometimes but it does. It’s like conversation always circles back to the same types of things and no lasting or deep friendships are formed…at least that’s been my experience. It’s like we all feel that this is a temporary situation and so it won’t do to really connect and put down roots.

Well, knock on wood, this guys’ Bible study seems to be helping to end that. Already I feel closer and more deeply invested in these guys. And as a Christian thats something I believe to be important.

My prayer is that Jesus uses us to His ends and that through these bi-weekly meetings guys who are living far away from home, or near home in the case of Taiwanese guys, will benefit from communal commitment and service to Him.

I am so grateful to Jesus, Thom, Phil, Andy, Chris, Tim, Jesse, Aaron, John, and all the other Liberty guys who gave me that back in Lansing and made me want it here.

If any guys living around the Taipei area are reading this and are interested you are always welcome. Just drop me a line and I’ll give you the details.

Developments

Michael's Posts, Our Taipei Life, University No Responses »

Mar 212009

Even though I have a lot more video footage of Korea I have run into a snag. The program I have been using to edit the footage isn’t syncing my audio with my video. Before this wasn’t really a problem because my audio was music tracks laid over the original sound with only snipits of actual audio. Now I’ve got footage that includes audio…argh. I’ll just have to put in some time and do some research.

A few weeks ago our church had a sign-up for a whole bunch of different small-groups. We signed up for one that would meet every other Friday not far from where we live. Tonight Emily and I went to our small-group’s meeting and had a great time singing some worship songs and then reading and talking through a bit of James, chapter 1. It was nice to get to know people better. One of the attendees is even going to go hiking with us tomorrow!

The whole union leadership of my class is going better (refer to previous post). I’m encouraged by the headway I’ve been making with the IC administration and the good guanxi (chinese for relationship) being developed.

I’ve started thinking about an opportunity MCU offers. In your senior year of undergrad, if you are among the top 20% of your class, you are allowed to start taking masters courses which then means you only have one year after you finish your undergrad to finish a masters. I talked to the director of my department and she was very positive. Emily will have a year of courses left after I graduate so this might be perfect. The alternative for that year would be that I take Chinese language courses and work to build up our bank but the masters is very attractive. I need to do some more research and praying though. Its sort of weird that I basically got my resume to the point where I didn’t need a degree back home and now I may end up getting a graduate degree.

At church I’ve been given a weekly task. The sermons are recorded and uploaded to the church’s blog. I’ve been asked to edit the audio file and then upload it every week. I know, I know its not the hardest or most demanding job in the world but hey. If you want to hear a sample of my work go here http://www.archive.org/details/JesusSaidiWillComeAndHealHim.

I’m currently reading Chuck Swindoll’s “Improving Your Serve.” The other day a thought struck me. I was about to read in the book but then I remembered some laundry needed folding. This led me to think about the difficulty of reading a book on servanthood. How do I read the book without being distracted by constant thoughts of how I shouldn’t be reading but instead doing something servantish….perhaps an email to Mr. Swindoll is in order.