Get ready for Melbourne Chinese Christian Church’s upcoming event, its annual Coffee Night! You are cordially invited to join us in a night of musical presentations and sharings of faith, as well as good food and great company. Canapés and drinks will be provided during the intermission.
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When: Saturday, 26th August 2017, 7:30 PM
Where: Melbourne Chinese Christian Church, 29 Summerhill Road, Glen Iris 3146
We will also have the privilege of hearing from and supporting Global Aid Network (GAiN) on the night. For more information about this organisation, please visit their website: http://globalaid.net.au
Doors will open at 7.30pm and presentations are scheduled to finish at 10.10pm. You are encouraged to stay back after the event and have a chat over another coffee or two.
This is an open event, so don’t hesitate to invite friends, family or anyone else you know who may be interested.
For more information, feel free to post a question on the Facebook event wall, ask a friend from MCCC or email Hanan Tang (hanantang4@gmail.com)
Something fishy is happening on Good Friday. If you are a SOYA (Slightly Older Young Adult), you and your friends are invited to the first SOYA 2017 event for delicious food and a chance to meet old & new friends.
When: Friday 14 April 2017 from 12:30pm to 3:30pm Where: Fordham Gardens, Camberwell Road, Camberwell (If it is rainy weather, we will move to Melbourne Chinese Christian Church, 29 Summerhill Road, Glen Iris, VIC 3146) Cost: $10pp
Please RSVP Michelle Li 0425 764 098 or Vivian Koo 0429 909 884 by Monday 10 April 2017.
From the SOYA Batch (Vivian, Michelle and Janette)
We’ll all be at the English Service Camp this Sunday, so don’t come to our English Service Chapel at the Summerhill Road location!
Instead, feel free to join us at the campsite! The address is Lyrebird Park, 510 Beenak Road, Yellingbo, VIC. Please come at 9:30am. If you want more details, contact Arnold Ho on 0412 361 228. Hope to see you there!
Join us for this year’s Melbourne Chinese Christian Church English Service Camp. The theme is “Living Out The Gospel In Today’s Society”, and the camp speaker will be Dr Keith Graham. It will be a great opportunity to share in fellowship and learn God’s word together.
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The cost is $215.00 per person. (Children prices available)
This includes accommodation and meals from Friday dinner to Sunday lunch.
The camp registration form can be downloaded by clicking on the link below:
Come join us at MCCC English Service this Christmas as we ask the question “What is Love?”
On the night you can expect a choir performance, carols, a skit performance and a talk on the topic by our guest speaker Mark Young. And in true MCCC fashion, we’ll also be providing supper and refreshments at the end of the evening.
Yes, it’s the time of year for our … annual Coffee Night!! Woo!!!
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Once again, Melbourne Chinese Christian Church will be hosting its annual Coffee Night! Come and join us for a warm night of musical presentations, sharings of faith and some good food and coffee.
Performances are scheduled to conclude around 10:00pm, but we encourage you to stay back to chat and eat!
We are privileged to have Spur Afrika join us on the night. For more about their vision and mission, and how you can support them, please visit their website here: http://www.spurafrika.org/
This is an open event, so please invite friends, family or anyone else you know who might be interested! We also have the official Facebook event that you can use to invite your friends to.
For more information, feel free to post a question on the Facebook event wall, ask a friend from MCCC or contact Samuel Wong or Peter Zhong.
Hope to see you there!
P.S. Bible study notes for YYA Friday 29th July are uploaded, check them out!
Just a reminder that there’s no YYA this week on the 25th March, we’ll be taking a break because it’s Good Friday! It’s Good because since the Righteous Jesus died for us unrighteous people, we who follow Jesus can be counted as righteous and live in eternal paradise with God! We can have assurance of this because God was pleased to raise Jesus from the dead on the third day -Easter Sunday. So come along and celebrate with us! We’ll have a Good Friday service at 10am on the 25th of March, and a Easter Sunday service during our normal Sunday service time of 10am 27th March!
YYA is also taking 2 weeks of term break after this, so we’ll come back on the 15th of April with an Activity Night (our new Sharing Nights which should be suited to inviting your friends to)! So start inviting your friends to come along to the Activity Night, where there’ll be fun and games!
We had a lovely blessed time at the Easter Camp, diving into and meditating on God’s word, having great fellowship and serving one another! Here are a host of camp resources for you to enjoy!
(Disclaimer: Although I try to be as faithfully accurate as possible, I liberally use my own voice and also insert more of my thoughts in [these brackets], so my personal notes are just my personal take on the session and shouldn’t be seen as the 100% exact official views of Shebu or MCCC. – Vince)
There’s no handout, but here are some of my personal notes :
The foundation of every relationship is our relationship with Christ. (Ge 1-2). Perfect family relationship is modelled in God the Father and His Son Jesus, our relationships and identity are defined by knowing who we are in God. God’s definition of relationships: 1st most important is between God and man, then man and wife. Satan tempts Eve and challenges God’s authority, leading to broken relationships (Ge 3). Gal 4:5-7
World culture vs God’s standards – work out what is tradition and what is God’s command. (Mt 15:3-5). Family heritage – think about what are God’s commands, and if heritage is good (but not specifically commanded) no need to stop. [I’m reminded of 1 Cor 10:23-31]
Love Triangle – Jesus is at the top, you and the other person on bottom left and right corners, you grow closer to each other as you grow closer to Christ, by the Holy Spirit.
Eph 6:1 Children obey parents in the Lord – Honour Jesus 1st, then honour your parents. Eph 6:2-5, Parents – “do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.” Col 3:21. Learn to pray with one another (parents and children).
Conflict Resolution: Don’t be the Rhino (aggressively stubborn), ostrich (pretend there are no problems) or echidna (putting up barriers, withdrawing from social contact, ignoring/”silent treatment”). 1. Look into yourself (make sure you don’t have the log in your eye), 2. Ask for forgiveness if needed (usually both sides would need to). Forgiveness means not remembering and bringing up something in the past as leverage. God doesn’t go “you did that last week! [and so I’ll do this to you, even though I’ve forgiven you previously]”.
Disciples – focus on the eternal things, not just success. Kids are gifts from God for a season. Disciples of Jesus are raised to be sent out, so too should your children [leave father and mother and cleave to wife].
And a photo for resources he recommended:
The Meaning of Marriage – Timothy Keller,
gospel-centered Family – Time Chester,
Money (god or gift) – Jamie Munson,
What did you Expect – Paul David Tripp,
Shepherding a Child’s Heart, Tedd Tripp,
gospel-centred Marriage – Tim Chester,
You and Me Forever – Francis Chan, (for those on tight budgets, you can get a free PDF by clicking “FAQ”, then scrolling to the bottom and clicking the download link).
We had a great Q and A session, and here are some of my personal notes on it:
Is following Christ a binary yes/no?
Yes, there is no in between (or “try” – Yoda, happy May 4th =P).
Do you have to love yourself before loving others?
You might have to ask why you don’t love yourself – what is your identity in Christ [see Ro8]? God tells us to love God and love others. The world’s view of love is very different to God’s view of love. Mt 22:37 God is the source of love. Love others as yourself, 1Jn God is the origin of love.
Authenticity of the Bible?
OT: Dead sea scrolls, and a lot of partial and whole copies of text. See theological MOOCs and http://www.ccel.org/ NT: 4 gospels support one another. Other resources: God’s Big Picture – Lee Strobel. Centre for public Christianity – Dr Dickson. The main ‘argument’ of Christianity is belief in historical fact of Jesus Christ’s resurrection and the empty tomb – that many early Christians died for! [Also check out the resources at end of this post!]
Can you lose salvation?
No. Eph 1:13 Sealed with the promise of the Holy Spirit guaranteeing, Ro 10:8-9 if you confess with your mouth and believe in your heart then you’re saved, 1Pe3:18 Christ died once for all. When there are examples of apostasy in the world (and NT), we should ask was this genuine salvation in the first place?
Can God punish me if I’m Christian?
Yes -God disciplines those He loves [Hb12:5-11] and there are earthly consequences to our sins. Though no eternal punishment! – 1 Jn 1:9
If you ask for forgiveness, can you be sure you’re forgiven?
You’re forgiven before God (1 Jn 1:9), but you can’t force someone to forgive you, just like you can’t force someone to believe in Christ. That said, Christians should always forgive. Lk 17:3-4
Dating in high school: Christian perspective vs Asian?
The Asian perspective (which can still be valid) comes from practicalities and knowing that so much can change during high school years, and that our desires can often be fleeting.
Christian perspective is: generally “date” to marry (don’t act like you’re married when you’re not), and don’t awaken love before its time (Song of Solomon/Songs).
My friend says: “Why does a good person need to believe in God? Does it matter if I go to heaven?”
The bible says our works are filthy rags; go through the bible with them. Jesus is the Way, the Truth and the Life, no one comes to the Father except through Him – John 14:6. Ro 3:18 – we are saved from faith apart from the law.
For evangelism, ask questions – what do you mean by ‘good’? Who is God to you? What do you think the point of heaven is?
[Hint: it’s all about God and worshipping Him. Also, you may get use out of resources like: Two ways to live (multi-language; iOS/Android app available in respective stores), and Knowing God Personally (with PDF version). And heaven is definitely worth it when you consider every good thing in all of creation comes from God, and that without Him there is no good thing that has been made nor its existence sustained. And continue studying the book of Revelation with us (and read ahead!) to see the wonderful description of heaven – where there’ll be no more sorrow or pain, but perfect worship of our perfect God in new perfect bodies in perfect relationships!]
How do you describe God’s love to the unloved?
Love them as Christ’s ambassadors. Like Christ touching the untouchables (lepers).
Are Red Packets (Lai See/Si, Ang Pao, Li Shi, Lucky Money, etc.) OK?
These are just gifts showing love and encouragement. You could even put bible verses along with money inside, no need to be so legalistic.
Discern through the bible if particular cultural things are against God or not.
Make sure it’s not a stumbling block (e.g. a convert explained to their parents lovingly that they didn’t need it under their pillow [to keep them safe/bring them fortune] any more, because they have Jesus).
Is it possible for someone to have the gift of prophecy to tell you God’s plan in your life?
The priesthood and the prophets: the priesthood (genealogy based, a special order) is gone. Jesus is the High Priest – the priesthood before him were a type/pre-figuring Christ the fulfilment of the OT. Prophets were specially called to tell God’s word to the people. 400 years of Malachi to NT of silence (no prophecy), then in Luke Anna the prophet and John the Baptist prophesy about Jesus. Rev 22:18-19 – the book of prophecy is finished. Prophets have finished, now there are preachers to proclaim God’s Word! Eph 4:11-13 Details purpose of roles for building up the body of Christ. 2:19-20 shows the foundation is finished – that of apostles and prophets with Christ as the chief cornerstone.
There will be false prophets and teachers (2 Pe 2:1-3) so test everything through God’s Word (the Bible) – 1 Th 5:18-21! Hope in Jesus [and His promises in the Bible], not in the prophesy. God’s will is revealed in the bible; for the specifics – are you communicating/communing with God? [read devotions – reading the Bible and prayer]. False prophets commonly interpret stuff out of context to justify their position [mindset of looking for support of their ideas in the passage instead of reading the Bible passage and figuring out what it says]. [The Bereans were commended for testing Paul’s teaching with the scriptures – i.e. the Bible – Acts 17:11]
Some resources mentioned in the QandA and other related resources:
Last week we had a great week of introductory study on the first chapter of Revelation, and the youth also had fun playing a mind bending alias-memorising chair game!
This week we’ll continue the study with the start of chapter 2, at the same time of 8pm ending at 9:30pm with supper.
Resources
For those of us new to the website, you can find the worksheets/bible study questions in the menu under “YYA Worksheets“, and the roster under “Rosters“. Feel free to check them out before you come! =)
Something fishy is happening on Good Friday. If you are a SOYA (Slightly Older Young Adult), you and your friends are invited to the first SOYA 2017 event for delicious food and a chance to meet old & new friends.
