the glory and the horror

The kids have been great! I even got to sit down with one kid today and walk him through the Gospel. He appeared to already understand it, and he said he believed it, but it was good just to talk to him again.

God has definitely been working me over the last couple days with the support stuff. I was really getting a little anxious earlier this week, but in the last two days, God has provided some more support, putting me at about 25%, which is nice to see, but it also only reminds me the work I still have in front of me. I’ve got about half of my one-time support, but I still need most (80%+) of my monthly support. If you’re reading this and would like to help me, please email me at philfung at aol dot com.

That’s something y’all can pray for. Apparently, this year, everyone is a little slower in raising support, and that’s worrying some of the others up in the organization. It could be, as my mom suggests, because of the economic slowdown that we’re in the middle of right now. It could also be that some of us are just having a hard time raising support, for whatever reason.

Don’t see AI. It’s an enormous waste of time and money. Final Fantasy looks kinda neato though. Random thought, although sorta related. One of my sister’s friends brought over a bunch of movie posters today. I got a Tomb Raider poster to give to another one of my friends, because he’s an Angelina Jolie, um, fan. However, the word “fan” does not do him justice. I mean, he really thought Gone in 60 Seconds was a good movie, even beyond the pretty cars.

I got in touch with Troy tonight! Yay! I enjoy hanging out with him, and catching up during our breaks. He was a good friend in HS, and a solid Christian. We’re probably going to go to the county fair tomorrow aftenroon/evening, and that should be pretty fun. I think it’s one of the first times that he’s been when he didn’t HAVE to go

Something else happened tonight that was pretty cool. I went with Jackie to her college group tonight to hopefully talk to someone in her church about support, but then I got talking to the speaker for the night, Lance, who happens to be Troy’s cousin! Yeah. Small world. Anyway, the cool thing isn’t that, but rather what we talked about. We studied Daniel 1, and how Daniel and friends went out on a limb for God, trusting Him to provide for them. However, their first attempt to be men of integrity and stay pure was shot down HARD. Then, they had a choice. They could have said, “OK, I guess we can’t really do anything about this, so might as well just go ahead and eat the stuff. God will have to understand. Otherwise, we’ll starve.” But they didn’t. They took the initiative to take another step, and trusted God with the results. It was kinda encouraging to hear that, especially in light of the slow support raising. God knows how to provide the boost at the right time.

Also, I hope to update this page, and work on the layout a little. We’ll have to see how it goes with my free-time.

Just thoughts.

I’m helping out with vacation Bible school at church in the mornings this week, and let’s just say that I’m excited This is turning out to be oodles of fun The kids are great, my co-teachers are wonderful and it’s a chance to get out there and serve. Fun

Support continues to slowly come in. Slowly is the operative word here. I know God will provide, if I’m supposed to go, but it doesn’t necessarily make it any easier in the here and now. I just finished The Practice of the Presence of God by Brother Lawrence, and sometimes I wonder if he was lying when he wrote that book. I mean, sometimes how can anyone feel the way he was feeling? He makes it sound so simple to not worry, to not be anxious. I did have some good conversations with some people, and that was encouraging, but I still worry, and I know I shouldn’t, and that only makes me feel lamer.

I had lunch with Sam today after VBS, and we had a very good time hanging out over a good, cheap meal at Dimitra’s in Alameda. Good sandwich, good company, good conversation, and just a fun time. Thanks for time, Sam . We talked about a number of things, ranging from little kids and the funny/weird/gross things they do, to relationships, to church, to baseball, to Starcraft. That, my friends, is a good conversation.

Praise: I found a cheaper plan ticket (actually someone else found one and told me) for my mission trip $300 cheaper than what I found! Praise God!

I need to make some phone calls.

Just thoughts.

I went with Jackie’s college group to Great America yesterday, and met some new friends, and got a little bit of a feel for her church, Cornerstone Fellowship, out in Livermore. It sounds like a relatively standard “new generation” church. They’re relatively young, with a relatively young congregation. Their church has a cafe, in a business park out in Livermore. They seem relatively solid. Pretty well-off financially, too. Very middle, upper-middle class, mostly white church in a mostly white area. They also seem to have a large part in this ministry to abused women, I think, called Shepherd’s Gate. Very interesting, I thought, for a church like that to be so involved in a ministry like that. I think I’m going to visit them some more, check them out a little more.

Just thoughts.

Argh. Can I say I’m frustrated with CIBC?

I’m frustrated with CIBC.

There. I said it.

After reading about the barefoot incident, and now reading about some worship stuff on the sfc bbs, I’m just a little bothered by the way things are going there. It’s as if the english-speaking side is so caught up in just business as usual, from day-to-day, or rather, week-to-week, that we’ve forgotten why we exist. It’s as if we just lack vision and purpose for that part of the church. This past Sunday was a perfect example of our typical “worship” service. It was a little better than usual, because the message was pretty good. However, it wasn’t, IMHO, a coherent, complete worship service. Granted, worship is fairly subjective, but it just felt dead and contrived at times. I’m not sure what it is. Part of it has to do with the stilted feeling of the service. Our liturgy is very much the same, week in, week out, but it does not flow, in the least. I’m not sure what it is, but we’ll go from singing (all 3 songs), to sitting listening to announcements, then to the offering, then to the service.

The attempt at a contemporary worship also makes me feel a little odd. It’s a genuine good effort, I think, but it’s only once a month, and no one ever knows the songs, because for whatever reasons, we only sing “contemporary” songs that week. We try to integrate more recent songs into other weeks, but it just feels so compartmentalized and rigid. We also seem to only choose songs from a pool of about 30 hymns/older praise songs. I don’t understand why we always sing the same ones, over, and over. It’s also hard to teach new songs when you only sing 3 a week. It’s hard to get into a worshipful mood if the music is supposed to do that, and you only sing for 2 minutes.

I don’t know. I guess I’m so used Ecclesia-type worship, that coming back to this feels very odd, to the point of it being very difficult. *sigh*

I feel lame for feeling this way at times, too, because I know it sounds overly critical. I know that creating an atmosphere for worship is not dependent on music, or the liturgy, but there’s something about the music and the liturgy that helps it significantly, especially when you have a large gathering of believers. I’m not sure what it is though. I mean, I’m totally glad that I went to church, and that I have a church to call my home church, but I also know that our church is capable of so much more, as a community of believers. I guess what bothers me is that untapped potential. If CI could create an atmosphere of true worship, one that flowed from Sunday mornings to the rest of the congregation’s week, I think we would see a very different english side.

After all, worship is simply the right response to who God is. As Patrick Morley said, “The turning point of our lives is when we stop seeking the God we want and start seeking the God who is.” I don’t see or feel that at CI, for the most part. I know feelings and emotions can be deceptive, and they’re not the final judge of what is going on there, but it’s more than just a feeling. It’s an atmoshere and environment. I’m not sure if this is clear, but I’m going to bed now. It’s late.

Just thoughts.

So Sam wrote about me in his most recent entry to musings of an ex-church janitor. I didn’t think it was that big of a deal to go up there barefoot. I wore my Birks to church that day, since it was hot, and I had taken them off for service, and just walked up there barefoot. Plus, my toes like freedom.

Just thoughts.

This is really weird. I posted and published, or so I thought, yesterday, and I see it when I log onto blogger, but it doesn’t show up when I go to the regular page. Very odd.

Well, I’m home now, and it’s kinda nice. Tomorrow, I take off with my mom to go down and grab some of my brother’s stuff to bring back up here. I also need to clean up all the stuff that I brought back. Like put it in my room, or something like that, and make it really crowded in there.

I have many things to do. Support raising is appearing rather daunting right now. For anyone who’s reading this, please pray for me. It’s going to be quite the faith challenge.

Just thoughts.

The road trip is over. and boy was it fun right now, I’m updating from Austin, Texas, where I’m spending one last night at Alex’s place (he’s my road-tripping partner). I’ll update more when I get home, if I get a chance. We got to see all sorts of stuff, like Yellowstone, Mt. Rushmore, the Badlands, Carlsbad Cavern, Roswell, Big Bend, Colorado Springs, and other random stuff. I’ll expound on this more later, I promise.

I wonder if anyone actually reads this stuff.

Just thoughts.