CCF Sharing Night (F10)

Minutes for the Fall 2010 sharing night. A large majority of it, anyway. Towards the end, I lost focus due to fatigue and my batteries was low, and stopped typing. Whew...


AT (7.50p)

• Outreach ministry
• Went out to talk to random people -> Talked to a Buddhist. Learned about Buddhism. Was scary when first started talking, but got easier as time went on
• "Break my heart for what break yours"

JC (7.54p)

• Worship coordinator
• First year Optometry
• Never knew how to share the Gospel, but tried. Felt good, doing God's work. Want to be more comfortable talking to non-Christians

 
ML (7.59p)

• Difficult term: School was hard, lived with people who likes to party
• Realize that faith has to be active 
• need to be pushed to maintain faith
• If not, it sometimes doesn't feel Christian anymore. Life is routine
• Cling onto your faith

MC (8.02p)

• 1040 rally: "If you have nothing worth dying for, then you have nothing worth dying for"
• God placed certain people in his life. People who needed the Gospel.
• People who pursuit school or pride or whatnot -> realized need to pray for campus
• Frosh cell: Believes that God is raising a powerful generation, going to do amazing things
• Stay prayer focused

DT (8.08p)

• God is in complete control
• We like control and certainty. Trying to maintain control everything caused a bit of a burnout
• Family
• Don't get a chance to talk to them much
• Sister was talked to by a Christian
• now open to asking questions about Christianity
• Dad does not think much of Christianity
• but been going to church for a year
• God is working, even if we don't see it

DY (8.13p)

• Originally, did not like CCF/Waterloo
• Felt different in CCF, didn't like their way of doing things
• Didn't feel fitting into Waterloo
• Realized God is at work, and it's up to us to join Him. The current generation that is passionate, we didn't do anything to get that. God did
• God is at work! Think about the story of the... 
• bleeding woman 
• centurion
• feeding of 5000. 
• "Only God can, and God will." Our ministries isn't ours to begin with. It's all God's. God will do amazing things, if we are willing

M (8.22p)

• Went to C4C for a while, for a term
• Joined CCF again. It was hard, didn't know much people. 
• But volleyball and worship helped reintegration

D (8.24p)

• Lived with a person who was formerly Christian. 
• Wanted to talk to him about his lifestyle, serious rebuking. 
• But God told him that there is a better way. 
• One day, suddenly, his roommate initiated the convo. 
• They prayed, and his life changed
• God holds onto His children
• Another non-Christian saw something different in him, is now nvestigating
• Ephesians 2 (living as children of light ... [note: this is what he said, but I may have recorded the wrong passage. The children of light is Eph 4])
• We all have a lot of friends who claim to be Christian, but still need to be transformed by God

AW (8.31p)

• CCF is a group of people wholove each other, obeyed Matthew 28, spread the Gospel and are salt and light
• Before CCF started, UW had lots of Christian. Some are solid (firm in faith). Some are round (easily influenced). Some are confused (not sure what they believed in). Got together, prayed, community
• CCF was founded in the early 70s, by Terrence Lau
• Why do we need CCF? 
• Diverse background. 
• Breeding ground of thoughts. 
• Place where professionalism is nurtured
• Campus today: Tough, adventurous, stressful, secular, competitive, rowdy
• CCF today needs to be: united and have one voice
• Vision of CCF:
• University is not just a place to gain knowledge. 
• It is also a place to search for truth. 
• A place to train them to serve the church. 
• A place to evangelize. 
• A place to build up Christian character. 
• A place to network and build community. 
• CCF needs to be a city on a hill, not a ghetto.
• Bring CCF back to home churches

 
MW (8.42p)

• Rapped/poem

-- Break. Missed some people -_- --

GL (9.28p)

• Bible memorization was good
• Sometimes, it's 2 step forward, 1 step back...but it could also be 1 step forward, 2 steps back
• Jeremiah [note: didn't catch the chapter reference]: People don't actually turn to God...except when we're in trouble. Would you treat a friend like that?
• Are we cheapening God's grace? Don't do it. Don't take grace lightly. Reflect.
• Colossians [note: didn't catch this one either -_-]: Don't settle. Keep walking. Keep pursuiting Christ

CM (9.39p)

• School is boring and stressful
• Dad is agnostic. 
• Always seems disinterested in his family. 
• Difficult to reach out to him. 
• Spontaneously told him about Christ. 
• You cannot claimed to have loved someone unless you've told them about Christ

Z (10.01p)

• Transition to university has been okay
• Made lots of friends. Burdened to share
• Called to spread the Gospel

S (10.05p)

• Overall, feels that God has a plan for him
• Something special about CCF

MW (10.07p)

• Originally disappointed with job
• But it was nice to have co-op in Waterloo -> met lots of people
• Was told that he lacked passion
• So focused on mortal things, why don't we have passion on bigger things? "If you are not going to risk anything, you're not going to gain anything"
• Find a passion in God

JQ (10.13p)

• Continue to be used by God. God brought you to UW for a reason.
• Learned and challenged lots in and by CCF
• "As I have loved you, love one another" - 1 John
• Jesus showed us the way to love: servant leadership (John 15.13)
• Passion: "willingness to die for" in latin
• Remember your leaders. 
• Sometimes it's good and we can see fruits and results. 
• But can also burn out and be burdened, and that's why we rely on God. 
• Encourage your leaders
• After every storm is the sun

 

-- Break 2 --

 
JC (10.37p)

• We're not the ones that make it happen. God is
• God doesn't need us, He could've done it all Himself
• Made it this way so we depend on Him
• Committee...wasn't sure if he wanted to do it, but it came up a few times:
• Sunday message: Harvest is many, but worker is few
• Sunday school: Jesus sending out disciples
• Youth group: 1 Timothy 3 (Responsibility of the overseer)
• Wanted to do Bible studies, from upper year showing that there's a lot to get from the Bible
• The fact that a 2000 year old message can still be powerful is compelling
• Had passion, but no training. Those are times when you really need to depend on God
•  People lost the passion of living sacrificially for God over time
• But came back in recent years
• Want people to want to know the Gospel, Scripture
• School and academic advancement is important
• But so is using your talents for the Kingdom

D (10.49p)

• Hard to get in touch with people from home (HK) due to time zone
• School is hard
• Realized that she can rely on God
• Life can be frustrating at times
• Was sent people to help her through hard times
• His grace is enough

S (10.56p)

• Want to be more discipline in chasing after God, else will become complacent
• Got sucked into materialistic mentality of HK
• Why am I storing treasure here instead of in heaven?
• Discipline

L (11.01p)

• Wasn't sure if she should come to Waterloo (exchange student)
• Encouraged by sharing
• 4 months seems like a long time before coming, but it's been good

L (11.04p)

• Wanted to get deeper with relationship with Christ -> joined a bunch of CCF things
• But didn't feel any different
• Was pointed to a book on legalism
• God reveals Himself to who He wants to, not by our powers, but by His

B (11.06p)

• People didn't challenge his faith when he was growing up
• University is much more difficult than high school
• We need God

H (11.10p)

• CCF is humbling. Lots of people looking after each other
• Got really involved. Learned lots

RL (11.20p)

• See many professing Christians who don't act Christians
• Liked Waterloo when she visited -> decided to go to Waterloo
• HK friends made fun of her for wanting to go to Waterloo
• Friendship here seems more real

 
J (11.25p)

• How do I know that I love God?

Boundaries of apologetics

Summer of 2010 started with an encounter with Mormons, which emphasized the importance of apologetics and knowing the details about my faith. It led directly to the start of NNC (or BBW, or just Apologetics cell, even though our premise isn't really just on apologetics). After several months of apologetics and a few presentations, I was a bit amused to note that the end of Fall 2010 was marked by a case where apologetics just didn't work.

I was working with someone on a project the other day, when he started talking about religion. He talked a bit about meaning of life, then proceed to note that the Christian God is insane. Curious, I asked him to expand a bit. He pointed to the Old Testament, and the purging of Canaan. Oyy...

As the conversation went on, I found out that he grew up in a Catholic school, taught by people who simply told him to ignore apparent contradictions between OT and NT, and that didn't make sense to him. After telling him that I agree with him, that one should think about their faith and be active in figuring things out, we launched into things:

God of the Old Testament
I pointed out that major destructions of people groups were not unwarned: Noah was warned and had a chance to tell other people (Genesis 6), Canaan's purging was also forewarned (Genesis 15.16). Sodom and Gomorrah's issues were described as an outcry...other people were complaining about how bad the situation in those cities are (Genesis 18.20)! To top it off, Abraham argued for the cities, saying that there must be some good people there (Genesis 18.22-33), where God agreed that He will not destroy good people. I brought up that God was ready to destroy Israel (but still want to give humans a chance) when they worshiped the golden calves in Exodus 32 but relented. God didn't kill anyone there, Moses did (Exodus 32.25-29)!

I pointed to the healing of Naaman, a general of the enemies of Israel (2 Kings 5.1-19) and Nineveh, a city that pillaged and burned Israel. (Jonah 3). I stopped around there, even though I had more examples still. My point has been made already, and I realized one fundamental assumption I've made here, in my interpretation of the OT: the sovereignty of God. And although I've placed examples of God being merciful to contrast his view of an angry God, our difference in fundamental assumption meant we could not meet at a common ground.

I was just told ignore things that didn't make sense. How could that be?
Ah. Apologetics. I explained to him what apologetics is, and that most people don't bother with it, but that's not the proper attitude. Just as we investigate scientific principles that we believe, we should also examine the what our faith says as well. We talked about dinosaurs. Young Earth creationism and Genesis 1-2. Big bang. Evolution. Archeological evidence of Biblical events. Philosophy behind translation of the Bible. I mentioned that I grew up believing science, and things had to fit together before I can whole-heartedly accept this. I admit, I have not been able to figure everything out. Evolution and big bang arin't exactly easy concepts to grasp. But I'm at an okay place right now in terms of that.

...but how can you believe all this?
He asked me, what if God was just a made up concept and all these things just happened to have fit together?

Well...Voltaire believed that. One quote attributed to Voltaire is "If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him." Enlightenment era philosophies. Sure. He advanced the principles of Locke (Tabula Rasa, "the blank slate"), in that we are fundamentally bad people, but society forces us to conform to become good people, and that we can shape people's behaviour. Later on, Freud reinforces that idea, with the id/ego/superego.

I subscribe more to Hobbe's ideas (the Social Contract). We agree that people are fundamentally bad, but it is rather difficult make someone good. Can we actually just colour in the blank slate and make someone good? Or do we need a central governance to make sure people behave, implying that people cannot be expected to be good when left to their own devices? It's evident what our modern society believes...communism failed (a whole different discussion altogether) and democracy, which is an implementation of the Social Contract, is widespread. Our own society believes people are fundamentally bad.

But this isn't what we disagreed on. We disagreed on the solution. He said he wouldn't mind becoming a Buddhist. Buddhism believes that the individual had the ability to become a good person and be perfect, on his own accord. I didn't believe that. My life experiences tells me that I need Jesus, because if we can be good on our own accord, humans would've all been good already. So I shared a bit of my own stories and how I got to this point in my faith.

Concluding
I think, even though we've hit a lot of different topics and (hopefully), I presented a decent case, I've been reminded the limitation of apologetics here. I cannot expect someone to believe just because I could answer all his questions. Apologetics allowed me to present my case in a intellectual, logical way, to lend creditability to the hope of my faith, and not be stuck with a "uhhh I dunno"

I'll point to Mikee for a discussion about apologetics and Jorge for further thoughts on how to properly use apologetics. We're called give the reason for the hope that we have. We can plant things with our arguments and logical debates, but God is the one that makes the seeds grow.