Put Out Into the Deep: The New Evangelisation - Talk 8 (Final)

By Jack Chui

I finally get around to writing about the 8th and final talk of the Theology of the Body series hosted each Wednesday night for 8 consecutive weeks. I was late to the last seminar and missed half the video but it seemed to me according to the heading in the notes that it was just going to be about spreading the word on Theology of the Body and the truth about our bodies. So rather than recount the notes which I didn't think were too exciting, I will try and sum up the whole TOB course and what it means to me.

My three key take outs:

1. Lust is a Battle - vs. love is a great counterfeit. It is such a great struggle to combat lust, or the using of another's body for self-seeking pleasure. It can be difficult to see the joy of unconditional love when lust is so tempting. This battle is a constant one and an impossible one to win...
2. We need more of God's help - but we can win the battle if the Holy Spirit helps us. I learn than in marriage, to sustain the love between a man and a woman, it is better to humbly ask God for Him to love my partner more through me than for me to do it from my own will. It reinforces the idea that I continuously need God and that it will be so much harder, likely impossible without Him.
3. The Heavenly Marriage - the early marriage and/or sex is not the be all and end all to life because there is a greater marriage in Heaven that we are called to. If we can look forward to this then its not so important to seek marriage here on earth as much as it appears to be the most happy thing in the world to find love in a partner and get married.

All in all, I wasn't too surprised by or excited by the content of the talks, mostly because I had heard part of it before and in a way I was/am living its message through most of my life. After some shortish relationships which broke my heart I stayed single for 8 years in a way determined to make sure that the person I would choose next would be my last. I was very passive in looking for the right girl, to the point of disinterest. Yes, there was pressure from my parents to find someone because they were concerned for my long term 'loneliness', but I was lucky I moved to Melbourne from Sydney and so don't live with with my parents and so don't face the pressure so much. So, I could say, I have waited patiently for the right girl if there is one.

I wasn't very concerned about not being able to find the right person because I had come to a comfortable stage in life that I would be happy being single and continuing this way for a long foreseeable future. I had ministry, sport and enough friends to keep my faith up. My faith was growing to trust God more and more that He would look after me, and look out for my best interests. I'm lucky perhaps, that I've had such a 'posivite' (can't find a way of saying 'goodie goodie') upbringing, but its a great blessing that I've somehow stuck close to God/Church for quite some time.

Now, things are different because for almost a year, I have been in my most steady relationship in my short life. With TOB, I hope to discern about marriage and live to God's initial plan for His creation to the best of my ability. I have learnt more about this now in TOB, and while I have been living most of it for some time, I pray that my partner can live it too and that together we can help be a model to encourage others to do the same. Its going to be hard, as I/we fight a losing battle against the world's ways, but it is one that I think I can lay my life down for. Please pray for me, that I can remember what I learned, practice and be true to it, and help encourage others to know of God's plan for our bodies, sex and life.

The Old have been Replaced by the New

By Jack Chui

I was meant to write about the first Firebrandz P&W night which was held on the last day of July but just hadn't had a chance to. Now that some other things have settled, its time to write about it and conveniently tie it in with how the other ministries are going.

Bur first, to put this post into context, I was feeling down and lonely 2 months ago as I wrote here:

http://stay-ministry.blogspot.com.au/2013/06/lonely.html

Jean has now left Melbourne which means I'm the only one left of the early leaders and of any one that came has been in STAY over a year ago. But God is so faithful, as I've encountered several times before, He brings the right people at the right time. So far (and its kind of early), God is renewing the young adults ministry of STAY with completely new people - people so different than the old crowd. They have a new life and energy which I as part of the old crowd really lacked and its great to see them lift me.

When STAY started, we had 5 aims: Worship, Fellowship, Service/Ministry, Evangelisation and Discipleship. Instead of closing STAY when it struggled to do even one of these aims, I can happily say we are getting there with 3 of them =)

Worship - Firebrandz

This came out of nowhere and I will gladly claim partnership and say that Firebrandz is an offshoot group from STAY. Its managed by much better people than me but that kind leader Aaron is now a strong part of STAY so I can claim it as part of us (even though its more an externally organised group).

Firebrandz hosted its first P&W night on the last Wednesday evening of July. Aaron and his core group were doing most of the work, and I only gave advice and helped promote the event at church at which was going to be the venue. I had little idea what the night would be like short of the many other P&W events that I've been to. I had lowered my expectations based on Aaron's past experiences with organising such events but in the end it didn't matter how many people came, if there were only 10, it didn't matter so long as we could praise and worship God together.

For the first night, an amazing ~70 people came, mostly on the young side which spaced out a bit filled about one third of the church. There were too many people from goodness knows where to get to know so I concentrated on getting the equipment set and changing the slides. There were only 2 people playing and leading the music - Christine and Aaron, but they were enough for God to reach out to the whole church. One of the elders from Aaron's core group came from India (or NZ) to give a bit of a talk after 4 songs and even though I didn't quite appreciate his style of preaching, he managed to encourage just about everyone to come to the front for prayer (a little pentecostal style) -- only the Holy Spirit could inspire such courage from everyone!

So while I wasn't so amazed because I've seen things like before in my other life, it was still a great night from which I could see God work powerfully. The next Firebrandz P&W night is again on the last Wednesday of the month, this time it coincides with St. Augustine's feast day so I'll be praying for that one to be Spirit filled.

Fellowship - STAY Cell Group

Cell group is the core of STAY because its the base from which people find each other and then participate/volunteer for the other ministries. It has been operating for the last 4+ years and had its ups and downs. Two months ago, I was the only person in the cell group that would show up on a Sunday afternoon but last night we had 12 people! And most of these that came were there last week. For the first time (I don't remember the last time) it seems we might be able to get a consistent attendance in cell group.

The rebuild started slowly, after I called an 'emergency' meeting 1.5 months ago to decide the fate of cell group and therefore the entire STAY ministry. I was open to just about any suggestion that we could try to keep STAY from folding and keep faithful to my ministry. We changed the time from Sunday afternoon to Tuesday evening and the ones that were at the meeting came and started to bring their friends.

The Holy Spirit seemed to work and touch each person as it attracted 'new' people to STAY - most which didn't belong to such a young adults group before and searching for more of God than just on Sunday mass. Some have found us from Sunday masses, but quite a few have come to STAY from attending Firebrandz. They kept coming back, which was a struggle before and so I'm so grateful to be able to see the same people for several weeks and hopefully build better fellowship with them when I failed to before.

And now with 12 people last night, it was like an overflow because we couldn't really sit close around the table. I find large groups such as last night hard to manage because it can be difficult to encourage sharing but its a nice problem to have. So thank you Holy Spirit for drawing people to build what I hope to be a wonderful cell group. I pray that through STAY, we can simply bring God to young people.

Service - Friends of Refugees

On Sunday 4th August, we ran our 2nd Moving Day where we pick up large donated essential items in a truck and deliver them to newly settle refugees. It is a large logistical operation for such a small group where many things can just go wrong. Even after some better planning after learning from the experiences of the first Moving day, there were still other problems cropping up which somehow, we managed to deal with as we went.

While not as amazing as the first Moving Day (my personal account of that here: http://stay-ministry.blogspot.com.au/2013/07/simply-amazing.html) it was still fruitful to see that we could help such underprivileged families have it a bit easier with settling in Australia. Perhaps my main take out which I can share is the dominance of young people that got involved to help the operation succeed. We usually enlist more adult volunteers because they seemed to have bigger hearts and also more time on a Sunday afternoon and young people have kind of been lacking. So it was uplifting for me and Father Peter to see young people involved - plus it also helps the refugees meet more people of the same age.

Hopefully as STAY cell group builds up, more can be encouraged to help Friends of Refugees befriend our new neighbours.

Please keep praying for these three ministries - so far things are looking good. We don't have anything that helps meet the aims of Evangelisation short of evangelising to the people that the ministries reach out to. For Discipleship, I am thinking of hosting a retreat or at least day trip/overnighter somewhere away from Melbourne city at the end of the year as a celebration to the year gone by.