Postmeeting 2

Hey guys, today was great! After meeting with Addie, Wee Koon and Shijia, and after that clarifying my thoughts with Clarice I feel like i got a better idea what im doing now. Thanks people! I must admit I haven't really been clear and just throwing things all over the place thats why confuse you guys.

The first thing is the main programme which seems so muddled up, but now I know the main programme we really wanna market is the skit + video, the video being the main means of sharing the gospel while the skit to link everything up and to provide a platform. What I haven't shared with you guys is why I think we should do from Creation to Jesus. Personally as I talk to ppl and observe from evangelistic programmes, two barriers we have to get across with today's youths are: 1) They are apathetic, the first thing many ask is, if my life is fine why should it matter whether I have Jesus in my life or not? 2) Morality seems to be subjective nowadays, many ppl think that if they don't rob or kill they are being good people.

To overcome the above barriers I propose the sharing of the gospel from creation to Jesus.
Creation to answer the basic questions about life and identity.
Fall of man to explain phenomenom like death / suffering which are common questions regarding Christianity.
Noah to put the fear of God in us. God seriously hates sin! The penalty of sin is death.
Moses to show them the law. Morality isn't pick and choose. God has a divine set of laws by which he will judge by the intentions of our hearts according to Jesus. And guess what? We all fail! For all have sinned and fall short...
Now that we know we are gonna die someday and face judgement. For it is appointed for man once to die... we better have our sins covered! But with what?
Tada! Suddenly Jesus never looked more attractive. The lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. Whoopee! Rejoice! Christmas is so much more meaningful!

As for the skit i wanna use it to link the ideas and also touch on basic apologetics to at least convince them that this is worth looking into and not just a fairy tale. Please pray for Holy Spirit to move powerfully in conviction of sin, truth and helping them to see the hope in Jesus and also for God to put the food/logistics/publicity together and to provide for the budget.

One more thing of great concern is the stones testimony. I believe it will be quite impactful, so please pray for God to prepare their hearts to share sincerely and whatever ways God has to equip and arm them for spiritual warfare. Its coming together... woohoo!

Can't tink of a title

hmm...tink I would prefer Sunday afternoon, cuz i usually have like a lot of stuff to do in the morning..wat say the rest? As for the video, yup i tink we can edit it down to something much shorter.. Was tinking of jus the creation part to introduce the idea of how sin came about and then we cut the rest and jus put in the portion on Jesus as the answer to sin..

Found a speaker

Here is some good news. Reuben has agreed to give the salvation message *applause*. I dunno if he needs us to come up with the message or let him decide. Ive been thinking perhaps the prodigal son would be good, because speaking to some of my friends I realized that one of the biggest hindrances to someone accepting Christ is that they tend to impose their own father figures onto God, im sure some of us do to. So many of them think that God is a cruel spoilsport who forbids them to go wild, have fun or swear and is bent on judging every mistake they make. Prodigal son shows the opposite, of a lovesick father only really has their best interests at heart and wants more than anything else for them to take their rightful place as heir to his great kingdom.

Thanks Wee Koon for being the only other blogger *hints*. I love the idea of a monologue. I think it can really connect with the audience. Im thinking maybe 3 characters would be managable. But then we musn't forget that the whole point is to really share the gospel, so how are we gonna incorporate it? I think the climax should be the part where the messiah appears. Maybe one character is lamenting and the other character is sharing the gospel and going through his doubts... I dunno really but I believe something will work out, so more ideas please!

We need to meet again? Sunday 8am again? Or some other time? Maybe afternoon?

skit suggestion

Hi all,

sorry i didn't attend the meeting. because i was playing for worship that day. :)

anyways, about the skit's scripting, i dug up some old stuff and found some ideas..

here is an idea that runs parallel to that of the lonely character in a pub. instead of having a dialogue, or multi-logue, i'd suggest having various "mono-logues." hmmm, basically it is to have a play that specifically aims to build up the portrayal of character. and i guess to facilitate such, we can have the character talking directly to the audience, whilst the goings on behind carries on. sort of like the skits we get so often in secondary school, when the act3 or something like that comes visit the schools.

since it is pretty close to christmas, what i suggest is portraying different ppl and their christmases. sort of like love actually.. ( i like that show a lot! "i feel it in my fingers, i feel it in my toes..") and we can have typical characters, which are close to each individual's function in a collective. to this is to facilitate the audience being able to identify with one character, so that the person in the audience would feel like "hey! that person seems like me!" and since it is one out of the many characters, they'd feel it's uniquely them. here are some possible characters to be portrayed:

1. rock-star wannabe.
2. lonely girl.
3. prankster/crapper.
4. insecure "normal" person.
5. shopaholic.
6. casanova.
7. loser.

we could portray each character to its extreme, so as to up the entertainment factor. of course, the above list is just an e.g. i think we would need other characters, and we can't have all the characters up there in the show. too many. we could end the skit with all of them coming together for a church event, and finding the answers to the qns their character has been pondering. (a little corny, haha. sorry i don't have too many ideas. i'm blogging in the midst of a break from studying.=)

well i guess the pro of my suggestion is that it is easier to speak directly to the audience whatever u want to communicate to them if we're saying it directed at them, and it is easy to write in situations.

cons:

1. we need strong scripting and strong actors. within such a short time frame, don't know if it is possible.

2. it could turn out pretty corny. especially if the actors cannot communicate with the audience, then it could be some silly wayang.



well, that's all for now! please consider the suggestion ok? God be with all of you and me and the audience coming for oasis!

Post meeting

Ive changed the title of this blog, put a verse instead, I hope people still know this is about evangelism. And I believe God is trying to tell me that evangelism is really his battle (must pray more), note the word in the verse is 'saves' which is kinda weird cuz David went to attack Goliath. Yea Im losing a little steam, but im really glad this is not my war *salutes general God*, whats your next instruction sir?

Im also really glad for my team. ALL OF YOU!! Im really happy there are so many who share a passion for evangelism. Why were you guys so serious the last meeting though, hope we can feel more comfortable, I think it had something to do with the rain in the early morning. Here are some things we discussed

Food: Shijia brought up sushi but its quite ex, anybody knows where to get it cheap? Its a good idea i think. The other one is Pastamania, which is good quality and I think pretty attractive, will wait for Addie to check out the price.

Location: Ruled out School hall which is quite intimidating cuz its so big. Third place still undecided, Anfu says its a good idea, but I think we aiming for a big crowd right? Last alternative is once again our creaky social hall. Its quite big and I think if Magdalene can make it classy, I really don't mind plus its free.

Video: Video could be too boring. Have you all seen it yet? Comments please? I took another look at it and I like some parts but some parts are draggy. But Im so thankful someone brought up the fact that Winston edited 'passion' for last oasis, I asked him and he says he can edit DVDs woohoo! Think God was part of this. We gonna have fun dicing the show down into something exciting yeah?

Skit: I think the skit needs to be really top notch, anybody wanna write it? So far the details we've discussed are that it should be about a person in a pub lamenting about her broken heart, and somehow the gospel is shared. Concentrate on God's gift of salvation during Christmas, but I think we should share about creation, fall of man, the promised messiah. Anyone knows how to link this? Some issues that should be addressed are: the reliability of the bible, creation not being illogical in the light of evolution theory, sin, death and judgement (something that's been neglected i think), anything else to connect with youths.

Testimony: The stones are willing to help us here... YAY! But I haven't really given them any details to work with. Its a video testimony, I told them to be creative but I guess we want to give them some guidelines and of course our focus must be on witnessing about Jesus. Any ideas? I wanna let them play too cuz I think music is a big part of their lives, its also part of their witness, any suggestions how it should be conducted? Perhaps WeeKoon can also tell us how the stones feel about this whole thing?

I really need all your opinions because I really want you all to own this thing as well, unless you are all convicted this is the best oasis we could possibly do there'll be no power in your service.

We have two new members, Scott and Jirong. WELCOME! Scott will be helping out in logistics.

Prayer list and updates

Heya all, more updates

Audrey has suggested hope centre to be used as a venue... I think its pretty ok but I haven't checked with them yet, will call them soon. But its a little inaccessible. Don't know how much it costs though.

The other venue I thought of is St. Andrew's Junior School, its really near Toa Payoh got direct bus there and its a new school so got pretty good facilities. I can only call the principal on Monday cuz they are having PSLE marking, Im really for this so please pray it will work out ok?

As requested by Clarice here's the prayer list

Venue, for God to give us an accessible, cheap location that has good multimedia facilities.
Team, that God will use each of us in a mighty way and we will all get a vision from God about evangelism and what role we could use in that.
Programme to be firmed up, I really dunno where to start writing the script, any takers? And also for the church to get the DVD video. Prayer specifically for the gospel to infiltrate through the hearts of whoever's coming.
The harvest, that God will be able to bring in many nonbelievers to hear his great plan of salvation.
For YF to be excited to pray and bring their friends.
For the ministry teams that are involved that they will participate with their whole hearts and they will be available on that day, that they will serve others with God's grace, and to fill in the roles of those not found yet. Worship team/ Stones/ Actors (not found)/ Speaker (not found)/ Ushers (Not found).
For YF camp, I realized its so cool we are focused on fellowship this year. If we want Acts style evangelism, we gotta have Acts style fellowship. Pray that God will really unleash the holy spirit upon YF campers just in the days of Acts that the power and love will be witnessed when Oasis comes along.
For the bait e.g. the food, publicity everything that we can use to draw people to hear the good news of Christmas.

Feel free to add in anything that might be appropriate.

Also, can you all make it for meeting this saturday 3pm in church? Pls reply on this.

Back to basics

That was a timely post thanks Wee Koon, I realized through all the worrying and planning I'd lost some of my initial focus. Of course I'd yet to share with you guys my personal conviction for oasis.

Ive been looking through acts but i really cannot find the passage i remember reading about half a year ago about how paul mentioned that

gospel + testimony + signs and wonders = salvation of many,

it just clicked in my head that there needn't be too many frills and just the plain gospel. Acts has always been what evangelism meant to me I guess, I know I have never witnessed that kinda power, perhaps the closest would be FOP, but always the gospel would be accompanied by signs and wonders and large number of converts. So I thought, we should do an oasis based on that formula.

So of course its really just getting the message across to a large number of people. The idea I get from reading acts is that the place was always packed to the brim because thats how precious the message of salvation is. So im pretty much willing to do anything to get the audience as big as possible this time. Actually i wanted to even include the adults but i had a dream about what a real mess it was going to be, perhaps I just havent the expertise to handle such a big crowd yet. So we'll focus on the youths this time as what Clarence said, but nonetheless pack the house.

Back to the main programme, just reading through acts has further confirmed me to use 'the hope' video which shares the whole account from creation to the law to the prophets to salvation in Jesus. Read Acts 13:13-40. Paul just addressed jews and gentiles alike about who God was, how he chose the israelites, and through the prophets the promised messiah of Jesus which is really what the video is about. Acts 17:22-31 is quite relevant to our Singapore's spiritual background in which we do alot of idol/altar worship, I haven't figured out how to put it in yet.

Then there is the testimony part which i hope the Stones will really play a big role in. This will make the gospel real to the audience.

It ends off with alot of music cuz I witnessed the power of worship evangelism in FOP. As for the two bands, thats because I understand the short time involved and I really didn't wanna over tax worship team or paradox because i think practice can be quite time consuming especially with quite a number of songs to prepare. Maybe what I can do is reduce the switchover to once.

As for the signs and wonders... I lack the faith to believe that, just haven't seen it around much I guess. Then again faith is being certain of what we do not see, anybody with that extrodinairy amount of faith? One thing I realized about acts, it was largely SUPERNATURAL. Evangelism is really almost all supernatural because we are talking about being born again and my CGL Johnson told us this week that for someone to come to a place of faith in Jesus there must have been something supernatural working. Here I emphasize again the importance of prayer, the most powerful supernatural weapon. Seriously, just the past 3 hours I had been struggling between prayer and falling asleep, I desperately need a strong intercessor... any volunteers?

Well, as I was looking through Acts just now, this struck me, perhaps Im hoping our church would be such a model....

He lived there two whole years at his own expense, and welcomed all who came to him, proclaiming the kingdom of God and teaching about the Lord Jesus Christ with all boldness and without hindrance. -Acts 28:30

some feedback

hmmm hi all ya oldies. haha sorry.

anyways, nice ideas kum weng. seems like a rather innovative Oasis coming up. sure looks exciting!

but perhaps a few questions u might want to consider:

what is most important for this event? a large number, a message to get across, a performance of good artistic quality?

i think it'd be good to let us know what message you want to get across before really planning. personally, i think it is better to have a clear concise statement you want to get across rather then throwing to the audience an entire truck load of perspectives of salvation. then from there, we could build a structure around that message, instead of fitting messages into the programmes we've planned.

however, if it is for numbers, or artistic quality, i guess the event would be done in a rather different way. just that in my opinion, the message is a first for evangelistic event. just speaking from experiences of screw-up i've personally orchestrated. :P

also concerned about the bands part. i don't think it is necessary to have two bands (worship team and paradox) to come up and have all the switch over and all. too much unnecessary mess. but either band can do both secular and christian stuff i think.

yeeaps, and thanks kum weng for catching the vision and carrying the torch. indeed we'll be making a difference, holding the torch standing between the living and the dead. :)

Venue

I called third place today cost $500 for one day, $300 for four hours. Max capacity 180 theatre style, 120 with tables. I suppose we want to go with tables? Actually i really don't know how much we are expecting.

Regular attendance of YF is 120. Camp attendance target is 150. I have yet to confirm with camp com what is the target attendance for camp afterglow which should be combined with oasis. But lets say we manage to get 100 YFers to come and each brings 1 friend on average. That would easily be 200. I really want to bring it out of the social hall cuz its getting quite sian and the acoustics and all that aint that good, given my plan i think the sound system and everything should be high standard.

Of course we need alot of faith to believe so many ppl will turn up and we'll get the funds for this but Im reminded of this story from 2 kings 4:3-6

Then he (Elisha) said, "Go outside, borrow vessels from all your neighbors, empty vessels and not too few. Then go in and shut the door behind yourself and your sons and pour into all these vessels. And when one is full, set it aside." So she went from him and shut the door behind herself and her sons. And as she poured they brought the vessels to her. When the vessels were full, she said to her son, "Bring me another vessel." And he said to her, "There is not another." Then the oil stopped flowing.

God blessed the lady according to the amount of faith she had. She brought little vessels and was blessed with little oil. So if you know another place with a larger capacity, accessible and good facilities, please raise up ok!

Btw, i forgot to mention Publicity where i need someone to take as well... perhaps shijia since she can only work before the actual programme? What say you? Its really impt cuz we really must get the youths excited for themselves and get them to bring as many friends. How was my publicity this wk honestly? Was the preaching boring? I know Clarice and Rachel were laughing when it wasn't meant to be funny and I saw them and wanted to laugh as well.

the plan so far

Venue: Third Place (need to call them this week)Church is getting boring this place has nice ambience. But worried about the accessibility and capacity.

Date: 18 dec, time not set yet perhaps 730, that will depend on whether we'll cater dinner for them.

Food: After speaking to some people ive realized this is of utmost importance, it could be great bait or a real turn off. Fill their physical needs and address their spiritual needs, but worried about the budget.

Programme: Skit preferably with music about two people in a club. Suffering from heartache (this should help youths identify). Questions about life and death are asked. Somehow it should lead to someone introducing the bible.

Video 'the hope' (have not bought it yet, but called Sksbooks to see if they could import it for me, have not received their call). Its basically a good quality production of the bible from creation to jesus. Check it out at http://www.thehopevideo.com/.Video will be interjected with various segments to make the bible relevant to life today. Perhaps news clips of recent tsunamis could link to noah's ark. Sept 11 could link to the tower of babel. The skits should also address common questions like the reliability of the bible/gospels, the laws of God, creation vs. evolution etc.

The video ends with the resurrection. Short message given at this pt (not sure in what form tho) about the resurrection and the second coming of Christ and the new jerusalem, it should end at a high point before the worship team takes over.

Worship songs with dance (havent ask): yours is the kingdom + first half of for all you've done

video testimoney of stones (ask kai already, will talk to the cg during next session. Addie and Wee Koon to note!)

Second half of 'for all you've done', Paradox takes over. Paradox leads in the next few songs: Shout your fame, salvation is here, and majesty. Lights dim and speaker gives a short message about Jesus being the bread of life, living water and light of the world

Paradox continues with 'there is a light' complete with candle (this will depend on whether they can pull it off, its quite tough but they are a talented bunch)

Salvation message, lights come on, worship team takes over with song ( cant decide between 'above all' and 'we are the reason')

This is the plan so far. As you can see there are many things to be firmed up.

Areas I need you guys to take over from this pt on so i can really concentrate on the programme: Logistics, im really clumsy with this. Food, yeah as i mentioned its really important so puhleez. Budget, yet to submit proposal, times running really short so we try to get this out. And other areas i might have over looked. Pls pray about what roles you have. Oh yes and the most important thing PRAYER!!! Pls note we are engaging in spiritual warfare and its so impt for all of us to pray concerns are below. Could I get a reply from each of you as to which area you would like to take.

Just explain how this blog works. I chose a blog cuz its more convenient and really its free space so PUHLEEEEZ write and make use. You can address any of my worries, give suggestions or share something or really any cock and bull story ok? So make use of this space, and just vomit out anythign that comes to your mind cuz we are a team and we shud know where each of us are at. Add a comment or blog, first time compulsory everybody to blog so i know you read this else i will call or msg u.

PRAYER: I need a Prayer IC but everybody must pray as well.
-roles in the team
-get the youth excited and catch the passion for evangelism
-God to prepare the fields for harvest
-Against any spritiual attacks physcially, emotionally, spiritually to us, the youths or their friends
-All areas that are yet to be confirmed e.g. budget, food, venue.
-For direction and guidance by the holy spirit.

Lastly, soemthing that i was reminded about today. We can get all tangled up in the activities, but lets not forget that this is all about LOVE. Do everything in love. Love is everything.

Unless the LORD builds the house, its builders labor in vain.
Unless the LORD watches over the city, the watchmen stand guard in vain. - Psalm 127:1