It was inspiring to see what happened yesterday at the ReThink Community, my home church in Santa Rosa, Laguna. The Project Seekers, a community outreach project of the local congregation was finally launched with some 25 house helpers (kasambahay) as the invited guests. These are house helpers who are working at the Laguna Bel Air, our home community. Some of them have already developed some relationships for a good number of years with the local church through its children ministry — their children are part of it.
Senior Pastor Jina Raduban, explained to the guests that they are loved by God and that they are also giving God’s love to their employers through their household work like doing laundry, washing the dishes or cleaning the house. After the worship services they were provided with free lunch and some gift items before finally going home. Pastora Jina told us the next project might be the security guards who are working at Laguna Bel Air.
I’m happy to be part of this ReThink Community. May the Lord continue to bless his work through this community of believers.
The sixth session of our discipleship class started with a review of last week’s topic on “Strong Theology vs. Weak Theology.” After that the group watched two short videoclips coming from Dr. Gary Deddo. These are parts of his lecture in 2010 during a conference in Orlando, Florida. The first one was on “Christ, the Center of All Scripture”and the second one was on “Jesus Christ and Bible Interpretation.” Here are the videoclips for those who are interested:
Since there was a question from last week about Arminianism, I decided to also show a video interview which discusses this topic. This was an interview of Jeff McSwain by Dr. Mike Feazell. Here it is:
We also continued (although quite slow) with our plan to follow and finish the discipleship class materials provided in the 40 Days of Discipleship. For this session we discussed the topic on “Theology Affects the Way We Live.” I also gave the group again an overview of the 40 Days of Discipleship and how we plan to proceed with it.
Since some are following us online, I usually do a video recording of each meeting. But I have to apologize because I forgot to turn on the camera right away when we started. Thankfully, I had an audio recording all throughout. The camera eventually ran out of battery so I was not able to video record the whole thing. The audio recording is just fine though. Here it is:
Some years ago I bought a book by Jerry Bridges entitled, “The Discipline of Grace.” What stuck in my mind in that book was the chapter or chapters where he discussed seven points which he learned from Romans 3:19-26. He called this passage as the “gospel in a nutshell.” I made it into a sermon and I shared it to some local congregations years ago where I was once served.
Yesterday, I was requested to preach and I decided to share this message again with the ReThink Community, my home church at this time, a local congregation of Grace Communion International in Santa Rosa, Laguna. Here’s the video of that message:
A week or so ago, we found out that my 87-year-old mother-in-law is seriously sick. The doctor told us it was a stage 5 Chronic Kidney disease. For a long time now, my wife has been taking care of her mother. It’s no easy task to take care of someone who is old and is on a wheelchair. She has been caregiving for her mom sometime now.
I took a short video of my wife as she brushed her mom’s hair yesterday. She’s the one personally taking care of her mom. She’s the caregiver for several months now.
Caregiving for her Dad
When her dad got sick and eventually died after some 8 months later in 2009, it was also my wife who was the main caregiver along with a helper. Such is life. People get sick and some of us just needs to help and take care of those who are in need of love and care. I really appreciate my wife for the unceasing loving tender care she has given to her dad and now, to her mom.
For this session, we began with the two parts of a video by Dr. Gary Deddo entitled, “GCI Doctrines and How to Teach Them.” This is a more recent video than the one I showed last time which was a video in the year 2010 during the GCI international conference in Orlando, Florida.
After that we returned to the materials provided in the “40 Days of Discipleship” — a self-paced discipleship program. We discussed the article, “Strong Theology vs. Weak Theology,” an article by Dr. Joseph Tkach. Various issues and/or questions came out along the way as we discussed the subject matter on the value of having a strong theology compared to a weak theology. The videos also generated questions about the early creeds: Apostles Creed, Nicene Creed and the Athanasian Creed. It would be a good idea to get an understanding about these creeds.
Since some are interested to follow us, here is the video for that evening last Wednesday:
