Sunday is one of the days to celebrate God’s wonderful works. A day of encountering Christ with our brothers and sisters in the Lord: believing, belonging and becoming.
This Sunday’s preaching was a continuation of our series: “CONNECT”
Pastor GP shared with us on how to be connected with each other. He mentioned the 4Ps:
1. Purpose – as mentioned in the previous blog (last Sept by Ate Flor), “Purpose defines why we exist.” Which, I believe is to honor and serve God. There are a lot of ways we can serve God. Good deeds, perhaps. Well, that should be the default status of a Christian. To be in a deeper connection, one more way is to make disciples. Matthew 28:19 instruct us to “go and make disciples of all nations.” One is to be a disciple, and another is to disciple.
2. Pattern – is something that one can follow. It is repeated, duplicated and passed on. And as one family, our pattern is believing (seeking growth), belonging (sharing with a group), and becoming (serving others with our God-given gifts).
3. Practice – refers to the process/actions that we do consistently to bring about the intended outcome. We’ve had several practices in our denomination: One2One, Victory Weekend, Life Group, and a couple more which I am really looking forward to: G2KU (Getting to Know You) and Spiritual Family Weekend. Practice also brings about 3 benefits:
a. Practice makes perfect – of course, this is the formula. Remember how the kids performed a dance number during the Church Anniversary? It took a lot of practice to synchronize, memorize and choreograph that very lively dance (KUDOS kids and to the teachers). And the outcome? Well, we all enjoyed it, I’m sure.
b. The more we master the practice, the closer we are to the purpose – it was every Sunday that the kids went through the dance steps. But they wouldn’t have wanted to do it, had they not known what it was for. Maybe for the 8-10 year olds, they understood that it was for the anniversary presentation. For the 5-7 year olds, it could have just been “play time” for them. For the 4year olds and younger, well, I am not sure. But in their young minds, their purpose was achieved: to dance in front of a crowd in a night of partying.
c. We reap what we practice, not what we preach – unless we practice what we preach, intentions will remain intentions if we do not act on it. One of the golden table manners I teach Chloe is “Do not talk when your mouth is full.” But sometimes I notice how I also tend to ask her questions when she is chewing her food. Sometimes, I even have a spoonful of rice in my mouth. If I continue this practice, I will not be able to reap the right purpose that I preach my kid, which is, good table manners.
4. People – hmmm… Pastor GP has not discussed this yet. He said that this would be for next Sunday. Now this is something to look forward to.
See you this Sunday!
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