Equip Music Ministry Conference 2020 Day 2

It is good Day 2 which began with a sermon by Philip Percival on 1 Corinthians 14: Singing in Mind and Spirit. The takeaway from the session is that singing is a ministry of the edifying word and when we think about what our giftings are, it will work better if we look at our church and see what needs to be done and do it. And in our song leading, it is an act of engaging the church with Christ.

After which the Emu Team gave us a Church Music Masterclass which was very helpful to me. I learnt about harmonic and rhythmic layering and a bit on texture and how to work all the vocals and instruments together to engage the congregation worship in music and songs. 

The electives I took today were Songleading and The Ministry of Sound. There were good sessions but too brief to cover everything. 

It's a good conference though I wished I was able to also attend the other electives as well.

pearlie

Equip Music Ministry Conference 2020 Day 1

I signed up for the Equip Music Ministry Conference 2020 and headed to Heritage Center today. It is a Friday and I expected that traffic will be bad and so I started quite early.

I signed up for these electives, the first two for today and the other two tomorrow:

1. How Do I Know If I Have Really Worshipped?

2. Songwriting

3. Song Leading

4. The Ministry of Sound

The conference began with a sermon by Rev Ong Meng Chai on True Worship based on John 4:1-26 and Mark 7:1-8. It is a good sermon that highlights on 3 characteristics of true worship. And if we have not worshipped in all 3 of these, we have worshipped in vain. And it also important to know that when there is true worship, there is also false worship.

Firstly, it's rational. It engages the mind, the intellect and understanding. Next, it's spiritual and not tied to any location. He warns us also not to think that spiritual is all touchy and feely but that the Spirit himself is the Spirit of truth and so it's back to the first point of being rational. And finally, it's moral. This is when Jesus asked the Samaritan woman in John 4 about her husband, which she had 5 and the man she is with now is not even her husband. Worship is a soul searching exercise, we are to repent and set our lives right in Christ. 

We then had a teaching session by Rev Andrew Cheah on what worship and church is. He spent a lot of time on Bible verses showing us how the Bible uses the word worship in 4 different ways (proskuneo, latria/latreuo, leitourgeo and sebaomai). In conclusion, the Bible stresses that worship is Gospel-centered, it's all encompassing in our lives in relation to God and in using music to help and love each other in church. 

The one thing I am not sure though is his interpretation of Colossians 3:16: "Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God" (ESV). He said that we are to sing songs to minister to each other in church but from the verse, I see that the "one another" refers to only teaching and admonishing, while singing is to God alone. I don't know. This is something I need to read up on.

For my elective, I was looking forward to the session on How Do I Know If I Have Really Worshipped? because as a worshipper, I have not always felt that I have worshipped. And as a worship leader, what do I need to look out for to lead and teach the congregation to really and fully worship the only true God. But the session was not as I had expected. The speaker spent all his time on the externals, like atmosphere and presentation and instruments, etc. I now need to do some reading and thinking to answer the question that they have stirred up in me. 

My final elective for the day is songwriting. I have not been trained on this before even though I have co-written two songs for weddings and so I had a good learning curve on this one. There is a lot to read up on, too many technical terms I need to check out. I found an online course on songwriting from Berklee College of Music and I might just sign up and attend. 

Oh, there is now even more to do in 2020 and it's just the second week!

But it's a good day of fellowship, of music and songs, of worship and adoration of the great Yahweh.

pearlie

Seminar and conferences in Bangsar South

I seem to be having frequent meetings in Bangsar South lately and I find it a very nice and good venue for seminars and conferences. 

I attended a meeting today hosted by HRDF in this meeting room. 

Doesn't it look grand and impressive. Ok, maybe I'm a little bit conventional preferring things that are old fashioned. 

But of course more importantly, it was a good meeting and I met several very nice people. 

pearlie 

7 Habits Facilitator Enhancement Seminar

I was invited to attend a 7 Habits Facilitator Enhancement seminar today and I am glad I attended it. Even though the day was long, I had a lot of takeaways from the speakers. 

But the most important thing I have time and again being reminded of is this one thing: it all stems from the CEO. Whatever director or tune or culture of the company, the business, it's the CEO who is spearheading it. 

Is the message clear? Is it communicated? Is everyone going the same direction?

pearlie 

Input and Maximizer at play

I have completed delivering two modules of training at work and was brushing my next module when I thought I'd come up with an activity that involves creating a poster ad. 

That was when I remembered the last time I went searching for such ads. 

It was during the recent preaching seminar that I have attended. In one of the workshops led by Paul Barker on the applications part of a sermon, he gave us homework. We were to go look for advertisements that portray values, good or bad. 

And it was my Gallup theme strength #3 Input and #7 Maximizer that was at play. My Input pushed me to spend almost an hour if not two till past midnight to scour the internet to find these. And my Maximizer insisted that I only give up looking when I find those that are interesting and unique. 

Here they are:

I thought this Facebook one was cute but not carrying a very positive value but a reality that most of us are so deliberately addicted to social media. 

 

I felt this one minimizes the value of life.

 

At first I did not understand this ad but soon figured out that it's what you eat that causes a war in your stomach. So you would need an Eno to soothe it. The value? Glorifying violence. 

 

This was the one that we picked for our group to present as our chosen ad. Its tagline was "Right the Wrong" and I felt that it minimises sin. It's as easy as whitewashing it and it will be hidden, but it is still there. 

 

Don't you think these ads are brilliant? But not the imbedded values they portray though. 

pearlie 

Being an analogical stomach: CEP 2016 Day 3

From L-R: Ng Kam Weng, Chris Green, Andrew Reid, Tan Kay Hoe, Paul Barker, DA Carson, David Cook

It was a good closing to the three full days packed with the feeding of the Word of God. It was such a huge and massive intake of spiritual food that by the end of today, I was like a sponge that cannot take in anymore. And so, I chose not to attend KVBC in the evening and returned home after the CEP conference ended at 5:00pm. 

With the conference, my hope and desire is to relaunch myself back into the ministry of the Word. I love to learn and to teach. DA Carson commented that if he were to akin himself to a part of the body, he'd be a stomach. He takes in food, digests it and then distributes nutrients to the other parts of the body. I thought that was a brilliant analogy. I'd like to be a stomach too but in comparison to Carson, I'd be a teeny weeny one, but one that takes in, digest and distributes all the same. 

pearlie

Run to him and keep running to him: CEP/KVBC 2016 Day 2

 Andrew Reid on "The Humiliated Head of a New Humanity" ~ Hebrews 2:5-18

Today is day two of the conference, and again, it was excellent. The exposition of Scripture and the teaching of the ways to read Scripture were so insightful and useful. It is not so relevant in quoting this and albeit not accurately, but I feel like being drunk in the Spirit with the filling and chewing of the Word for the whole day (Eph 5:18).

I was so exhausted by the time the CEP Preaching Conference Day Two came to a close. And I was telling my good friend that I am in a 75:25 situation, that is a small part of me wants to go home and go to bed. But we persevered on and it was a good decision.

I wish I was more alert in listening to Andrew Reid's exposition of Heb 2:5-18 during the night session but I still managed to get some very good insights from the passage - the type and anti type of the fallen humanity that is us and the perfect human in Christ.

My wow moment was when Reid said, "we share in the flesh and blood of the Savior" and I am now sure if he said the following or if it dawned on me that on top of that we are invited to partake of that perfect flesh and blood that is Christ.

And his closing is a reiteration of why I am in this conference in the first place - run to him and keep running to him.

pearlie

KVBC/CEP 2016: TheFinalWord/ #PreachTheWord

 

 

pearlie

A need for expository sermons

 

I have begun to listen to mp3 sermons by Dick Lucas again. He is still my favourite speaker. 

He is an Anglican evangelical cleric, best known for his long ministry at St Helen's Bishopsgate in London, England. He was the rector there from 1961 to 1998. He founded the Proclamation Trust in 1986 as a center to train men and women on reading and studying the bible contextually. Now in his 90s, he still has an active and influential ministry. He preaches and speaks at conferences and serves on the leadership team of the Cornhill Training Course. 

He preaches very good expository sermons giving you both the context of the passage and the bible as a whole. 

I just listened to part 1 of his sermon The Race set Before Us (2 Tim 4:1-8) and learnt that Onesiphorus is one rather special person. 

Lucas compared Paul being imprisoned in Rome to a pastor then being imprisoned in Iran. The pastor's friends who visited him in the Iranian prison went through invasive interrogation as to who they were and why they would want to visit the pastor in prison. They were asked who among their friends who have also converted to Christianity. There were soon released after being fingerprinted. Would you have the courage to visit this pastor in Iran? 

In the same way, Paul was imprisoned in Rome under Nero. Imagine what Onesiphorus would have gone through when he visited Paul in prison. Paul said this of him: "May the Lord grant mercy to the household of Onesiphorus, for he often refreshed me and was not ashamed of my chains, but when he arrived in Rome he searched for me earnestly and found me - may the Lord grant him to find mercy from the Lord on that Day! - and you well know all the service he rendered at Ephesus. - 2 Timothy 1:16-18

I have new respect for this small but great person in the bible. We can learn many lessons just from him. 

I really miss listening to expository sermons. I plan to listen to more of these mp3 sermons in my commute. I have also just signed up to attend the Centre for Expository Preaching Conference 2016 to give myself a three-full-day dosage of it. As much as I am not a preacher, I am looking forward to it, as well as the Klang Valley Bible Conference 2016 in the evenings after the day conference. 

pearlie

The Tree of My Happy and My Stressors

I attended a seminar on Self-Care for Caregivers today. I am not yet a caregiver per se but I was there to accompany my mom and to help out the Ladies Fellowship who organized the one-day event, and I was so blessed by it.

One of the activities that I found very special was what I shall call The Tree of My Happy and My Stressors. 

In the context of being a caregiver, we need to be aware of who we are and the reason why we chose to be a caregiver. "Having no choice" is a reason in itself that will play into how we should manage ourselves in self-care, and self-care is something every caregiver should have an awareness of. 

In the activity, we drew a picture of a tree on a large piece of paper with our name stuck on the trunk. That tree represented each of us personally.  We then wrote down what our stressors are, things that stresses us.

But before that, we did list down our stress symptoms, or what happens to us when we get stressed out. They can be sleeplessness, fatigue, breakout of eczema, losing weight, over eating, etc. These act as alarm buzzers for us. When we notice these symptoms, it is a warning that we might be stressed and we will get burned out if we are not careful. One of my symptoms is me being really short tempered and my poor son will get the brunt of it. It is a sure sign that I am so stressed out that I know I must manage it. 

After listing out our stressors, we listed down the things we do that make us happy. Mine were stuff like reading, singing, journaling, family time and grocery shopping.

All these stressors and happy things are each written on post-it notes, which were stuck onto our trees. The stressors in the "soil", buried deep so to speak and the happy things on the branches and leaves, out in the open. 

 

When we were asked about how we felt when we did the activity, I wasn't so sure about it. I began to wonder why should my stressors be in the root area. Analogically, the stronger and deeper the roots, the stronger and firmer the tree. But when I looked at my stressors, they looked heavy and negative. I felt like they could poison my roots and the tree will die.

But as I thought about it and as what our speaker then told us was exactly the lesson behind this activity. It's that we may see the stressors as negative and bad, but they are not necessarily so. Yes, we need positive stuff and yes, we definitely have them in the roots but when it comes to our stressors, if they are managed well, these stressors can be the very thing that will build us to become stronger. It is true that they can poison us but only if we do not manage them properly and if we don't commit them to God.

Moreover, they are the very reason why our happy things are happy. They give our happy things meaning. Without the stressors, I felt that my happy things sounded very trivial and useless. But with the stuff that I am building at the root, both positive and negative, the leaves and branches will become healthier.

 

After we had our trees all done up, we each wrote a letter to God and placed it in an envelope. We then took down all the stressors and happy things from our trees and put them into the envelope to be "posted" to God.

It felt very therapeutical.

pearlie

Horses and theatre, and story telling

I attended a seminar on human resource and learning today. It was organized by People Potential and it was their 13th year in running these one-day complimentary seminars where they invite HR and Learning practitioners for an exchange of ideas and experience. 

I was exposed to two news ways of learning and I learnt one new thing.

The new thing I learnt is the basics of business story telling. I am never good in public speaking though I have done a few good ones and I am quite alright in facilitating training sessions. But when it comes to persuading and influencing, I am utterly bad at it and so I thought learning how to tell a business story may help. The basics seem simple and I could now easily craft one. But the challenge now though is to find the stories and they have to be personal and real. To me that is tough and I'd be cracking my head on that for now and after that to actually tell the stories. Ah! I don't know. 

The two news ways of learning I have discovered on the other hand are really interesting ones. One actually involves horses. It is a way of learning that gets you to the innermost values that you hold. It is through the caring, grooming and bonding with the horses that you might be able to get you to your heart of heart. I must say I am not yet convinced of its breadth and scope but I believe horses can teach us a lot and it will definitely be deep and long lasting. 

The second one is is fascinating. It is in the form of an exchange theatre. You will get a group of skilled actors to portray a common scene or problem in your organization that you want to address. And you use the actors to try out scenes that you yourself can get to play out what you think might work with zero consequences. It should handle culture and human behavior issues really well by putting you in a live test environment which you can twist and turn however you like to try out behaviors and solutions to see what might work. 

It was indeed a good day of learning. 

pearlie

Today is a five-star day

Today was a good day. I did not have high expectations but it turned out surprisingly well.

I spent the day in a Learning and Development Seminar organised by People Potential. I learnt quite a lot, reconnected with a former colleague and met some very nice people.

For one, I inadvertently took part in a situation game in stakeholder management and we came out as the winning team. However, I was quite left out because I'm not used to being in simulation games. In my previous experience in taking part in case study games, I normally take a really long time to even get myself into in right context. The other team members were really good. They catch on very fast. But at least it was a good first experience for me.

Next, I was in an Emotional Intelligence session and one of the tool that was introduced to us was the gamification of emotional conversation. The objective of the game was to share our lives and our feelings to inspire one another. I enjoyed it a lot.

Finally in the evening, I received my Coursera third peer assessed assignment grading in the What Managers Can Learn From Philosophers, and I scored another perfect score. Three assignments assessed, two left ungraded.

And when I retired to bed, I assessed my day with a full five-star in my Momento journal app. I can't remember when I last gave myself a five-star. Must have been a long, long, long time ago.

It was a wonderful day. Thank you Lord.

pearlie

I am in an introverted phase

I am a learner. But I find myself presently uninterested in attending seminars or classes, even though the topics are very interesting to me. I thought about it and concluded that this must be the phase of my life where I am more introverted than extroverted.

According to the personality type theory, every person, whether an extrovert or an introvert, will have their more introverted and extroverted phases interchangeably. As much as I am an introvert, I can extrovert when required. Just that, for now I feel that I prefer to spend my time mainly in more introverted activities.

So in terms of attending classes, I am currently more attracted to online learning rather than actually attending them physically. I used to hate online learning, maybe because of the compulsory sessions that I needed to do then. But with the many MOOC programmes available online, this is the perfect time to look for programmes that interest me and spend my introverted time in them. When I was introduced to MOOC programmes two years ago, it did not catch on to me like it does now. I feel that I was in my more extroverted phase then.

I have signed up for Fundamentals in Project Planning and Management with Coursera.org, and just after the first week, I am learning so much from it, and wanting more.

Having said that though, I have signed up for a symposium in the next few days. Not that I wanted to, I was required to.

I am looking forward to the learning, but just thinking about the hoard of people there, I am feeling tired already.

pearlie

An Education Plan

I attended a seminar in church today on "What to do after Form 5/O Levels?", which was very much an eye-opener for me.

Back in my school days 20 over years ago, there wasn't much of a plan. My parents didn't do any research. It basically just boiled down to whatever appears as the the next step, just take it.

As such, I did not realize there is much to do with regards to my son's education plan. But now I know and there is much for me to do - to perform some research, to talk and help my son discover what his interests are and what options he has for a career.

There is much to do and I'm glad I know that now and I'm glad I'm given a good head start with what was shared during the seminar and I'm glad it is not too late, but it is time to start.

pearlie

DA Carson is back in KL (9-11 Sept 2013): The God who is There

pearlie

TTT at Mumbai: Day 3A side dish for some chewing

Training today was slightly on the boring side, as they rehashed what I have been doing for the past 2-3 years, but just because I was the only one that was not new to this, it has to go on as planned, which is why I tend to multi-task in situations like this.

Much has been talked about at Kar Yong's with regards to pastors and full-time-workers (FTW) take home salaries. During the training session, the mention of per-diem for staff from more developed countries who are seconded to less developed countries made me think about ways that can help alleviate some of pastors and FTWs financial worries. What comes out of my ruminations remains to be seen.

Check this out and tell me what you think - note the date of publication and I was told nothing much has changed since then as far as pastors and FTWs' salaries are concerned.

Click here for the pictures of the day: Mumbai - as I saw it from a bus.

pearlie

TTT at Mumbai: Day 2ORID and Hand Gestures

One of the other things we learnt about being a good presenter is to start with a good impact statement. What I can say of them are basically excellent introductions that are short and impactful, and that is one difficult thing to do! But if mastered, they are attention grabbers. This reminds me of what Joanna, my vocal teacher and friend, used to tell us - take care how you begin a song, if it is poorly begun, you would have lost your audience.

We then moved from being good presenters to being good facilitators. We were given a few pointers to use when facilitating session, using the ORID model:

Objective - what were the initial thoughts, what happened, just get the facts from the participants, etc.

Reflective - how did you feel, what made you say that, what were the benefits, how can parallels be drawn, etc.

Interpretive - what does all this mean, what conclusions can you draw, etc.

Decisional - what decisions can we make, what is the action plan, etc.

I was called up first to do the facilitating of a session we had earlier. It was an anagram puzzle with extremely little instructions, which I was late in attending because I needed to go to the washroom. I came in and this was just it:

Solve this anagram: A Galvanisers Moth

The group told me when I came in that the instructions were that we can only ask 3 questions and that's it. We only have those words on the flip chart. I was a bit confused at first because they were so concerned about working it out that I did not know what was happening. But when I saw that they had no idea what an anagram was, with one of the questions they planned to ask being "what is a galvanisers moth?" I kind of took over and started to solve it. We got no where - there would be thousands of possible options!

But the exercise was merely a prequel to a facilitation exercise and I was asked to facilitate it and find out what they thought about the intructions given to them.

I suppose because I sort of fell into character since this is quite a common thing, if not exactly, that I do in church. The new thing that I tried out though were the hand gestures - and that was quite interesting.

Click here for pictures for the day: A Cauldron of Cultures

pearlie

TTT at Mumbai: Day 14-Mat Learner's Model

I did not expect much out of the training here in Mumbai. (By the way, TTT stands for Train-the-Trainer.) But what I went through today was quite spectacular. I have learnt how to be a presenter, albeit conciously or unconciously, almost all my life, since I grew up in the church environment. But what I learnt today about being a good presenter were really good learning and reminders.

One the things I find quite brilliant is the 4-Mat learning model.



It basically divides preferences of learners into 4 categories - the Why Learners, What Learners, How Learners and the What-if Learners.

I see myself as a Why and a What Learner. My left side of the brain with the Attend and the right side with the Imagine - I think, since this picture here shows that there is more than what was being introduced during the training session.

I believe that all quadrants are important. As much as I learn best in the why and what, I also need to know the how and what-if. But what I can gather is that this is only applicable in a learning context - how one prefers to learn.

Being a Why and What Learner, I now understand why I refuse to learn sometimes and the fact that I really dislike things like role playing, debates, "just do it", pass/fail grading, timed tests and computer assisted instructions (ooh, how I hate these!).

Click here for more information on 4-Mat.
Click here to view some pictures I posted for the day.

pearlie

So many good things!

I had such a full day today it may be true that I have enough content for the next one month. Alright, I am exaggerating but it was.

I collected a big box of books from Kar Yong. I had breakfast with him and engaged in bible talk. He agreed to take up a biblical session in my church. I attended a workshop on "Writing Effective Testimonies" by Angela Little. I met Melissa - my first blogger friend meeting. I wrote my first paragraph of a real testimony as a ghostwriter. I met Fung Bo Bo who also attended the workshop. I also met Rosalyn, an ex-colleague. I bought Tony Anthony and Angela Little's Taming the Tiger. I bought Janet Ng's Harvest of Love about her son, Colin. I had a nice chatty dinner with Melissa. I came home and finished reading Harvest of Love. It gripped my heart.

I will write about these in days to come.

At home, I spent some time with Calvin and at bedtime, I read to him Exodus 30 & 31. He was as usual full of questions and this time after reading Exo 30:10 "Aaron shall make atonement on its horns once a year; he shall make atonement on it with the blood of the sin offering of atonement once a year throughout your generations. It is most holy to the LORD," he asked me, "what is atonement?"

I was very tired and I actually ignored his question, and continued reading - shame on me.

"You did not answer my question," he demanded.

I smiled. I relented. "An atonement is when something is put to death in place of us. God has set it as a law that all Israelites, who sinned against God, who in His holiness must die, should take a lamb to be sacrificed in their place, so that God will not be angry anymore. Do you know who the Lamb of God is?"

"The person who offers the lamb?"

"No, the Lamb of God is Jesus himself who became the lamb that died in our place. He did it once and for all, as an atonement for us. Do you then think that you can sin more because Jesus has taken your punishment anyway?"

"No."

"Good, and do you have to kill anymore lambs?"

"Yes."

"Huh?"

"So I can have lamb chops."

With that, my son went into fits of laughter. You could have seen my face. I put on a mock smirk but found that so hilarious I burst out laughing as well - lamb chops! I had a really good day.

pearlie

Exegetical Preaching Seminar Day 2

Carson spoke on (1) Preaching and Biblical Theology and (2) Preaching and Systematic Theology yesterday. For today he did (3) Preaching and Historical Theology and (4) Preaching and Pastoral Theology.

That is a lot to take in and I feel a bit overwhelmed by it all that I am not yet able to make a summary with my thoughts here in the blog, which I would normally have done. But do it I must, at least to concretize my thoughts, through rethinking and revising.

Soon, I'll do it soon.

Oh, by the way ... I am pleased to say that I ONLY bought one book during the seminar, and got it autographed too.


pearlie