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You will not change the world in your spare time with your spare change. The word we almost never use when we talk about mission [work] is “sacrifice.” (Bart Campolo)

Friend: Of course, God can use me in the Third World… But not everyone is called to go to the Third World. I don’t agree… I actually think there’s a lot of need for people in rich countries too. Although they’re rich, they’re poor in spirit, no?

Me: I don’t think everyone is called to the Third World, but i’m willing to stake my life that many, many more Christians are called to the Third World than they’d like to admit. There are three billion poor, hundreds of millions unreached in the Third World. Of course there are millions not saved in the First World too but 1) the number unsaved in the First World is much less than in the Third World 2) There are already so many more Christians living in the First World who can reach out to the lost there so it’s not an excuse to say, “But there are so many lost in the First World too, so I should stay.” Just compare how many missionaries and Christians there are in the Third World to reach out to the unreached people and help the poor there with how many Christians there are in the First World doing the same. The great need is not in the First World at all…

Friend: Haha… I know what u mean. It’s not an easy path to take especially if you have a family and everything… Like Jonah not willing to go… Eh, you haven’t answered me yet. Where are you going in 5-10 years time?

Me: I hope to marry and go to the Third World lor :) Can’t be a hypocrite and not act out what I believe right!

Postscript: To correct myself, there are more than “hundreds of millions unreached in the Third World”. If by “unreached” we mean those who are part of the Unreached People Groups (that is, people groups without adequate numbers of Christians - normally taken to be 2%-5% of the population - and resources for it to be evangelized), there are actually 2.5 billion unreached people. Yes, that’s slightly less than half of the world’s population of 6.6 billion people.

The number of Protestants in the world is around 800 million. If we consider Catholics with Protestants, there are around 1.8 billion in total. Though I don’t have the statistics with me now, my guess is that maybe 27-40% of Protestants and Catholics live in the First World and the rest in the Third World. So that makes it around at most around 320 million Protestants and 400 million Catholics who live in the First World. They (720 million Christians) would be reaching out to probably 800 million non-Christians in the First World. Meanwhile, you only have about 1.1 billion Christians reaching out to a whopping 4 billion non-Christians in the Third World - not forgetting the fact that 3 billion people in the Third World live on less than US$2 per day and Christians would do well to help them.

Therefore, while there may be more Christians living in the Third World than the First World, Christians in the First World make up 50% of the entire First World Population but Christians in the Third World make up only 20% of the entire Third World population. Furthermore, let us not forget that 2.5 billion of these 4 billion non-Christians in the Third World are from the Unreached People Groups which really means they are a lot more tougher to reach out to and thus would require more time and effort to do so than reaching to people groups that are already reached (duh!) - of which all in the First World are.

Considering all this, is God calling more Christians to live in the Third World to preach the gospel and help the poor?

On another note, we are all hypocrites. I too am one right now and will be even if I were to live in the Third World. No one will ever attain the ideal or reach the standard set before us, but we must try and do our best. Christians have been saved by grace and we live by God’s grace daily. Yet God’s grace ought to compel us to live for Him more and more. The call is to live more fully for Him and to be less of a hypocrite than we are. No sacrifice ought to be too great for the One we proclaim to love and follow and serve…

Just finished watching the DVD of “The Motorcycle Diaries”. I read a bit about Che Guevara’s life many years back. Here in Singapore, as in many places in the world, Che’s face has become a famous icon seen frequently on many T-shirts. Yet few know who he really was. To many, his rugged good looks is seen as “cool”. For me, I’ve always associated Che with being an exemplary and compassionate human being since I first read of him.

The movie is really about the Che’s journey throughout Latin America. I knew this much before. People who know me well know that I seldom watch movies in cinemas because they are just too expensive. And I have better things to do when out with my friends than to spend it on an anti-social activity. And so I had never watched this movie before. Had I known this wasn’t just about Che’s journey but really about how this journey transformed his life and planted the seeds that made him a revolutionary, I would have watched it sooner.

In the movie, we see the virtues that mattered to Che: honesty, truth, compassion and idealism. We see how the poor and suffering moved him and how his experience and knowledge of poverty and injustice in Latin America forever changed the direction of his life. We see compassion in action: giving his only US$15 to a poor couple, sacrificing his own asthma medicine for a dying woman, being the first person in a leper colony to shake hands with lepers without the compulsory protective gloves (thus recognizing the dignity they deserve as human beings) and swimming bravely across the Amazon River (which nearly cost him his life) which seperated the health care workers from lepers in order to celebrate his birthday with the lepers as well. He had no patience for such inhumane segregation.

The movie is definitely an inspiration for me. I love reading and watching about how experiences transform people’s lives, making them want to live more radical and compassionate lives for the poor, suffering and oppressed. I hope more people who are familiar with Che the icon will find out what truly made this man great.

Watching this movie in Spanish - as when I watch other movies with a Latin feel to it - makes me fall in love with the Spanish language and the region of Latin America all over again. I really need to improve my Spanish!

Lastly, when one day I speak fluent Spanish, I would really love to travel Latin America just like Che did. Argh…that would be a bloody awesome experience! Won’t be terribly safe, but I don’t really care! Inside, there is this adventurous spirit in me. When I was in Bogotá, Colombia, I really didn’t care whether I would be kidnapped by the FARC. Actually, I thought that would be a wonderful experience. Coz I know that nothing bad would happen to me because I’m not White =) But seriously, travelling Latin America would be a dream. I would love to take a couple of years just travelling and going where the mighty Wind leads me - without much money, without much possessions, without any planning but just going with the flow. And who knows, I may settle down somewhere and start doing development & missions work and helping the poor. Now, that’s a dream - that will probably never come true…

I’m not good at respecting elders or submitting to authority. Whether that’s a good thing or bad, I guess that really depends.

It’s not that I don’t respect anyone or that I will never submit to any authority. It’s just very hard for me to find people I can truly respect and look up to. And trust me, I wish I could find such people. It’s always good to find mentors and leaders you can look up to and learn much from. For me, I can’t say I’ve found anybody like that. And I think it’s simply because I’m very idealistic and have high standards. I’m a perfectionist. I demand a lot of myself and same for others. That doesn’t mean that I don’t have time for those who fail to reach those standards. For indeed, I myself fail my own standards most of the time. I am my worst critic.

So for me to really respect someone, the person has to be truly outstanding - in my eyes, at least. There are many wonderful people out there. But very, very few I can really, really respect.

One thing that really irks me about those older than me is that, in the presence of the young, they always have to talk a lot about their life, their vast experiences and through all that give lotsa advice to the young. Now, I have no problems with receiving advice. But age and experience alone does not qualify one to give advice to another. Elders need to stop thinking they have all the answers to the problems. They need to stop speaking to the young in a condescending way as though they know everything. Seriously, I am not impressed. Many others may be, but not me.

Why can’t old people learn to talk less and listen more? I think I’m more inclined to respect someone who listens and takes an interest in the life of the young, rather than one who always wants to advice the young.

Old people do have more experience, no doubt. Experiences they have gone through may be worth a lot when say a 60 year old one hundred years ago is advising a 20 year old. But in this rapidly changing world, their experiences are worth less because things aren’t the same anymore. The young learn fast. So old people shouldn’t assume that the young are as ignorant as they were at their young age.

Perhaps the most irritating thing I hate about the advice of the old is that they are supremely pragmatic people, giving supremely pragmatic advice. Most old people are like that anyway. They lose their idealism as they grow old and that’s a sad thing. Most of the old look down on the idealism of the young. And that’s what I can’t stand about old people. They have lived for long and know how the world works and so their advice is very often to be pragmatic, not to be too idealistic and that one should sacrifice one’s principles because this is just the way the world works.

I really liked what OCBC Bank chairman Dr. Cheong Choong Kong said at his convocation speech (22/04/06) at the University of Adelaide. His first advice was:

Don’t do what is expected. Be contrarian. No one’s ever achieved greatness by following the textbook or meekly obeying orders.

Now, here’s an elder’s advice that is worthy of respect. We need more of such people. We need more of such advice. We hear too little of such advice. Actually, sorry, we do hear a lot about such advice. Such advice was printed in Singapore’s mainstream newspaper. We constantly hear people telling us to be different, non-conformist and creative. But most people who say it’s good to be such don’t usually mean it, do they? That’s why most people don’t live like that. It’s cool to say we should be like that. It’s totally uncool and frowned upon if one were to actually live like that.

We hear a lot about creativity being something that only a non-conformist possess. For a confomist and someone who is too willing to listen to the advice of others and submit to authoriy would never do anything different. Asians, in particular, face the problem of too much conformity. Their culture values conformity and frowns upon individualism.

Now, I’m not being pro-western, I’m not idealizing individualism. I do think there is a place for both. We don’t want to go to the extreme on either end. Being different or a non-conformist is no great thing on its own. Being rebellious against authority isn’t a virtue.

But I just wish to see a bit more non-conformity around here. We can start by not giving a damn about what most of our elders think of us and our lives and saying “no thank you” to their advice. We need to stop giving so much respect to the advice and words of our elders. Especially so in an ultra pragmatic place like Singapore.

Dr. Cheong’s second advice is that life is confusing:

Outside the university, very little is plain and simple, black and white, and there is no all-knowing professor whom you can turn to for unambiguous answers.

There’s an important link between his first and second advice. Only if you realize that the world is complex and confusing and that many things aren’t so black and white - only if you realize that would you be be able to accept his first advice. If things are so black and white for you, then you may as well go to seek the “wisdom” of elders because surely they would have sorted life out after so many years and would have good advice for you. But if you know life is more complex, then when you listen to an old man’s advice, you’d take it with a pinch of salt and would realize you still need to figure a lot of things out for yourself and do things your own way.

So who are the people I respect? I respect people who hold strong to their ideals without compromising them - of course their ideals have to be worthy and good! Especially those who suffer because of them, because it shows they truly believe in them - however impractical they may be. Like Henry David Thoreau said:

Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth.

People with good principles and ideals are most worthy of respect. These are people who are hardly pragmatic. People like Mother Teresa, Martin Luther King Jr., Gandhi, Nelson Mandela and Aung San Syu Kyi. Even people like Jorge Mario Bergoglio. As for people closer to home and to my life, I admire opposition politicians in Singapore like JB Jeyaretnam and Chee Soon Juan. Regarding the later, I don’t agree with everything he says or does but I give great credit to him for standing up for what he believes and sacrificing so much for his cause. It takes guts to continue to do what you believe in despite so much opposition and humiliation. That’s what I admire about him. Singaporeans are too pragmatic a people to appreciate someone like him. As for someone I know personally, it would be my friend Zach and his wife Angie, whose faithfulness to God and the ideals of the Bible and His will put almost every Christian I know to shame.

And of course, regarding submitting to authorities, I try my best to submit my life to the authority of God. Yes, to God, and not to church leaders. Church leaders have to earn people’s respect. With most of them thinking they have a direct line to God and thus are somehow more spiritual than normal church members, with them thinking that their advice ought to be taken as that of God’s and that their interpretation of Scripture always the right one (a bit funny since so many church leaders and pastors disagree with one another’s interpretation of Scripture), it’s hard for them to earn my respect. Give me a Church leader who is humble, non-dogmatic, more keen to listen than talk and lives the Christian life out and you’ve found yourself a follower in me.

And for those who think all I’ve written sounds like the foolish idealism of a young person, I’ll end here with the last words of advice by Steve Jobs’ 2005 Convocation speech at Stanford:

Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

I went to the Global Day Of Prayer (GDOP) 2006 meeting at the National Stadium tonight. It’s been a long time since I’ve attended one of these nationwide Christian meetings where Christians from different Churches in Singapore gather together. I recall attending many years of what used to be annual “Day To Change Our World” gatherings at the Singapore Indoor Stadium - held a day before Singapore’s National Day each August, if I recall correctly. I thoroughly enjoyed those times: being in the cozy 10,000 seater indoor stadium packed with Christians from all over Singapore, worshipping and praying for our nation…etc. Haven’t done all this for years! Tonight, I was with about 20,000-30,000 other Christians.

I love gathering with all Christians from different Churches because it reminds me we’re all Christians and united in Christ. Indeed, such times are rare - when divisions within the Church ceases for at least a moment and unity in Christ is glimpsed. How I wish there were more of these times! How I wish less of the times when pastors speak out against other pastors and churches against other churches…when power-plays within churches and between churches become so obvious…when leaders of churches preach and act as though their church is the only true church of God or their interpretation of Scripture the only valid one.

Therefore, tonight’s meeting was pretty good. Aside from the fact that not that much time was spent on prayer (I’ve learnt through my years as a Christian never to expect much prayer done when attending a prayer meeting), everything else went on well. There was a time during the service when two well-known pastors (one representing charismatic evangelicals and the other non-charismatic evangelicals) repented for how each side treated the other. Then they washed each others’ feet. I thought that was a positive moment.

I commented to a friend that I hope next year Pastor Kong Hee of City Harvest Church and Pastor Joseph Prince of New Creation Church would do exactly the same thing on stage! For those in the know, though both churches are charismatic, both also teach stuff that are in many ways poles apart from the other. New Creation is strong in the “grace” message. City Harvest, on the other hand, sometimes go the opposite extreme and has often been very critical of the teachings of New Creation. I’ve written a bit about both churches here. Such divisions make me sick. It makes me embarrassed to be called a Christian. Why can’t we all just get along? If only we were all united in our cause and purpose. Then the Church of Christ would be so much stronger…

(Ahh yes…there’s ego, there’s pride, there’s the desire for power and fame. We’re still all sinners and so, yes, it’s all understandable. I myself am no saint! But ahh…still…can’t we just all get along?…)

Anyway, in response to my comment, my friend then added the name of Timothy Tow, one of the leading Bible Presbyterians in Singapore. The Bible Presbyterian denomination is, of course, a fundamentalistic denomination - and proudly so. Many years ago, I invited him to attend with me a Far Eastern Bible College course on “Calvin’s Institutes” which was taught by Mr. Tow. What we got instead was a lot of attacks on Charismatic Christianity!

My thoughts on fundamentalism - that’s for another day. It’s saddening enough to see two of the most influential charismatic leaders in Singapore at odds with each other. Really, let’s not bring a fundamentalist into the picture…

I hope there will be more GDOPs to come. I hope more and more churches would be involved. City Harvest had their Emerge Conference and so their members didn’t go. Let’s hope in future their conference won’t clash with the GDOP but they would make an effort to be part of this great gathering. And I hope the same for New Creation. Both are huge churches and I hope they don’t become too exclusive - thinking they can just do their own thing and not need to join together with other Christians from other churches in Singapore.

I also hope more conservative Churches would get involved. I’ve noticed a difference between this year’s GDOP meeting and previous “Day To Change Our World” gatherings. There has definitely been a conscious effort to make the GDOP meeting more welcoming to non-charismatic Churches. You can tell by the fact that there were hymns sung during worship and that no pastor prayed in tongues - something that would offend many non-charismatics.

[I used to hate it when tongues was used out loud (from the pulpit and the audience) during the "Day To Change Our World" meetings. Not because I am against the use of tongues. I pray in tongues everyday. However, I know non-charismatic Christians would not be comfortable with it. And for me, that's a good enough reason to cease using tongues in front of them. There's no need to offend others. If we want Christians from different churches and traditions who hold to different interpretatoins of Scripture to unite, then let's unite on the essentials. Don't play up any non-essential doctrine to the extent of offending other Christians. There's really no need for that.]

May God use the GDOP in future to bring more Christians together all over the world. Though I do think that the only thing that’s going to draw together extreme fundamentalistic Christians and extreme charismatics is intense persecution. Only then would we draw together in unity against the common enemy…

(from toothpaste for dinner)

What better way to start my blog with a little cartoon that so describes me and what this blog is going to be about! =)

Idealism is normally associated with young people - because, according to the “wise”, they are those who have not yet experienced the world and thus naively still hold dearly to their idealism.

However, I’m not that young anymore. I am not naive nor ignorant of how this world works. And while I certainly have a lot to experience in this world, I am not without experience in my life. Yet I still retain much of my idealism…

Rather than listen to those (mostly old experienced people who think they are wiser than they truly are) who look down on idealism, I’m so much fonder of these guys’ words:

It is through the idealism of youth that man catches sight of truth, and in that idealism he possesses a wealth which he must never exchange for anything else. (Dr. Albert Schweitzer)

The great challenge of adulthood is holding on to your idealism after you lose your innocence. (Bruce Springsteen)

The youth gets together his materials to build a bridge to the moon, or, perchance, a palace or temple on the earth, and, at length, the middle-aged man concludes to build a woodshed with them. (Henry David Thoreau)

[Ahhh...no one beats Thoreau for wit, humor and true wisdom! =)]

Yes, this blog will contain a lot of youthful idealistic thoughts. As it’s not easy retaining one’s idealism in this world, there will be lots of times I struggle. Struggle to live a life as close to the ideal and perfect lifestyle that I believe God desires all Christians to live. We will all fail because we’re not perfect and never will be in this age. However, the call is to strive towards perfection - i.e. towards living that ideal life. The call is to deny oneself, take up the cross and truly follow Jesus. The call is to trust in Him, rather than in our own strength. It is to love all - even if that meant dying for others, which Jesus did. It is a call to pursue justice for the oppressed and suffering, to show mercy to the poor, naked and hungry. The call is not to build our own kingdom nor to lay up treasures for ourselves in this age. Rather, it is to build His kingdom.

Simply put, the call is to live out that idealistic and ideal life. It is certainly nothing less than that. Surely, striving to fulfill that call in a fallen world is a difficult thing. Yet being pragmatic for Christ is not an option. And the early Church knew that. They lived a radically idealistic life - a life I pray I’ll be able to live one day soon:

All believers were together and had everything in common. Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need. (Acts 2:44-45)

All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of his possessions was his own, but they shared everything they had…There were no needy persons among them. For from time to time those who owned lands or houses sold them, brought the money from the sales and put it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to anyone as he had need. (Acts 4:32, 34-35)