Volunteer with Heart (but little Skill).
Don’t give up these people. They have the heart and its reflected in the promises and things they want to know and do. They perhaps lack the skill and often self discipline to match their enthusiasm. Treasure them as they are with you in the same journey together. Their lack needs our encouragement and our belief in them to overcome. They will often appreciate it if we can take ownership of our influence over them and work through those problems with them with care. With heart, skill will usually come with time. We need to be there for them to teach and show them the way.

Volunteer with Skills (but little Heart)
People with skill is great to have in the team as they add value immediately to the ministry. If they do not have heart, it’ll just mean that they will be harder to get along or work with. But don’t be in such a hurry to address their heart to the extent that their skill is not acknowledged and they are not celebrated as persons. Heart and character change is a long term process and requires partnership with God. You have to be patient with them and pray with/for them.

Volunteer without Heart and without Skill.
What? We may just rule them off. Why are we wasting our time? Maybe they are not hopeless but they are just without hope. When we involve them in ministry, we have a shot at helping them to be instruments for God. It’s a hope we can give them and its worth a shot. Their doors do not open on first knock, we have to be patient and keep knocking. Maybe they are in the wrong role. If so,faciliate to help them find a more suitable role.

Volunteer with both Heart and Skill
They will be Great instrument of God. Just get out of the way.

]]> http://www.ragsstudio.com/2008/08/26/flying-finger-2/feed/ http://www.ragsstudio.com/2008/08/25/flying-fingers/ http://www.ragsstudio.com/2008/08/25/flying-fingers/#comments Sun, 24 Aug 2008 22:06:14 +0000 Rags http://www.ragsstudio.com/2008/08/25/flying-fingers/

This is Yuja Wang playing some Mozart thingie.

Every good and perfect gift comes from the father above. You may not have the same but may yours also been given room to fly.

I prefer the God’s Promise Translation which says “… Do not be terrified in their presence or i will make you [even more] terrified in their presence”.

The Lord spoke this verse to us this morning at our VIP Huddle. It was so piercing that we laughed. Great cure for stage fright in children’s church.

So folks, never be afraid of what you do for God, otherwise what you do for Him will terrify you!

4 Things To Know So That You’ll Not To Be Scared of Kids
(or whoever you are scared of)

1. The Lord wants you to lead them. So Raise Up!
2. The Lord has something for you to tell them. So Listen up!
3. The Lord has given you courage to speak and lead. So Wise Up!
4. The Lord wants you to humble yourself to understand their world. So Buck Up!

I was blog surfing this morning and read a post about HopeKids and children’s ministry from irrevocable. It was so uplifting that it gave me an extra ounce of energy for our last LOST Sunday. If you read right down to the comments, you’ll hear from pastors, worms, former worms and hopekids all in there. It’s great to know the impact of our former team to folks today.

Irrevocable is blog you should check out of our youth pastor Shirley where she rants about dark chocolate, italian footballers and most importantly all that life in the Kingdom from an exciting, youth-minded and gung-ho perspective.

———

Meanwhile, on ground zero, things are moving. I received 2 mails (amongst all my spams and junk mails) from Andrew that the new North East bus is kicking off this week. Andrew and the team has been doing such fantastic job with the transportation ministry and its great to see it raise another level higher. It’s no easy job coordinating with the bus company, the parents, the care leaders and me (yeah, the biggest headache).

Jesus must be real for all these guys to do what they do.

All of us laughed.

A while later I realised one didn’t….

He literally did it.

Where does wool come from?

What’s the great use of wool?

The power of the church is not in the power of the building, finance or organisation, it is in the power of the people. And the power of God’s people is in the power of their faith.

Is it deeds or faith first? Some say faith without deeds is dead so deed must be emphasised. Some say both is equally great. But I have an inclination to say that faith tops it without a benefit of a doubt.

I believe in work too but it is a very focused work. It is the focused work of building unwavering faith. Our primary focused energy should NOT be on work of righteousness because righteousness can easily turn inward and bad. However work on relationship, on trust, on devotion to God, on believing in the power of Christ, on truth and eternal principles and values. True connectedness with God is paramount.

• What are we doing on a consistent basis to bring us to trust God in a whole-nother level?
• What work are we doing to make our faith unwavering?
• What mindset should change about how it is seeing God smaller than the collosal God that He really is?

So what type of work would you put your focussed energy on? One day when buildings and structures surrounding what we do collapses what does our faith look like?

Work without faith is dead, perhaps deadlier than faith without works. The latter just need some motivation, leadership and encouragement. The former has no chance.

Mong Cha Cha was an accidental visitor to the service 2 weeks ago. She works in the Pet Circus and was lost on her way to work. So she did a routine for us on stage and it was … quite interesting!

1. What is opening for you that you haven’t notice?

2. What is closed and you are still hanging on to?