A Warrior's Journey

This is Wide Angle Productions, 'live' from the Metamorphosis 05~ Expanding Your Vision.

I'm real glad that at least some have got it right. The Christian community has banded together to pray and pave the way for peace. Where are the aethists? Where are the skeptics? I wonder why my COFA forum has been so silent on this issue. Maybe (and I do say maybe) they are as Johnny puts it, 'white supremists.' Ah well...

I guess I should blog something about my recent trip to Perth to attend the OCF convention. T'was good (both the trip and convie). A coupla of us went for a short road trip before convie and we got to see a lil of the sights around Perth, including the Glouchester tree (which I climbed), the Jewel Cave, the jetty you see here whose name I have forgotten cept for the fact that it is the longest jetty in the southern hemisphere and is about 1.8km long.

Convention was great, I learnt heaps from the messages given by Pastors Eugene and Graham. I definitely have a renewed perspective of the book of Ecclesiastes. "Life is meaningless under the sun if you're not under the Son." OCF Sydney was made to think long and hard about itself and I think we have come out stronger as a ministry and ah well, I am optimistic of 2006 lah.

I kinda miss Australia now. I miss the clean air. The open spaces. I was Orchard on a weekday and it felt like a weekend to me. It was stifling to say the least. Ah well, I still prefer Singapore to Sydney any day. No prizes for guessing why...

Ok I have no idea why HOUSE is shown on AXN in Singapore... er, I digress. Anyway, here is my tentative timetable for you guyz to sync up. Sigh, I sometimes think the angmohs are more kiasu than us. They are so quick to get all the good timings.

SAHT3613 - Digital Theory & Aesthetics

4398         Lecture (L1)         Mon         9:00 am -         11:00 am         
4400         Tutorial (T2)         Mon         1:00 pm -         2:00 pm         


SOMA2608 - Digital Composite 2

4260         Tutorial (T2)         Wed         2:00 pm -         4:00 pm         
4262         Lecture (L1)         Wed         10:00 am -         11:00 am


SOMA3610 - Digital Studio

4279         Lecture (L1)         Thu         9:00 am -         10:00 am         
4314         Tutorial (T4)         Thu         12:00 pm -         2:00 pm         


SOMA3616 - Professional Practice

4283         Tutorial (T1)         Mon         3:00 pm -         5:00 pm         


Anyway, I don't really mind these timings so long as there's still the shuttle. Haha, my goal, though I know its impossible, is to take the shuttle bus 100% of the time to and fro COFA. I must save money cos I'm already incurring extra cost on my parents for wanting to fly back to SG in Winter.
Oh and I'm thinking I might not take Japanese for semester 2. I still have 6 units of GenEd so I'm thinking of spacing them out. I'm looking at

Design in Performance - GEND4211
This course covers the major elements of design in staging large scale events including theatre performance. Theatricalisation and design theming of public occasions, community ceremonies and sporting events is an established design trend. Students are introduced to the design process on which staging of performance events in various contexts are based. Through close examination of the characteristics by which such occasions are represented and communicated to audiences, students systematically investigate the crafts and contemporary theories of staging such events. A design brief is set for students to construct, draw, design and complete.

Its 3 units so I can just about squeeze in to take on 27 credits this sem. COFA ppl, let me know if anyone wants to join me. I've not enrolled yet. Just thinking about it cos it will be more relevant to what I'll be doing once I graduate and am back in Singapore.

I'm finally back in Singapore after being away for 9 months 24 days. First thing that happens if that my pouch got stolen at Changi Airport. Sigh, I'm so careful in Sydney wan and once I'm back, I get complacent and my pouch got stolen right under our noses as my family said grace before eating breakfast at the Macs in Terminal 2. I lost the new bible I bought, my journal, the new book I bought from Koorong which is the biography of Jim Elliot that I've not finished reading, camp notes from the OCF convention I just attended. Lost all the contacts of my group members in convention, passport. Sigh.

My mum hor, sigh, kept blasting me for losing my passport and not keeping a better lookout for my pouch. And she did this in front of E lor, haha. Funny how of the things that were lost to me, including the pouch which has been with me since sec. 3, the passport is the thing my mum was most concerned with while I was more disappointed with the loss of my bible and journal. To me, the passport represents a piece of paper which confirms me as a statistic in Singapore's population. The bible and journal were my life. I guess I can find consolation in the fact that I had just started that new journal so there were only a few pages in there.

In the end, I pray that God will still my disgruntled heart and that the lessons I've learnt in convention will stay in my heart. Romans 8:28.

This entry is actually being written in the middle of convention. Shimei and a few of the OCF SU sisters have entered into discourse with me regarding the matter of 'leadership.' It all started with the term 'Spiritual Leadership' which incidentally is also the title of a workshop which was available to us during convention. I did not go for that workshop because I've had my fair share of them and I see no profit for myself in attending it. That is not to say that leadership training is of no value. On the contrary, I believe it is of great value to young boys and girls.

Anyway, they were discussing about 'spiritual leadership' and I just mentioned off hand that I, personally felt, that there is no such thing as 'spiritual leadership.' I felt that there was only 'good leadership' and 'bad leadership.' They, however, classified it as 'spiritual leadership' and 'secular leadership.' When I pressed them for their definition of 'spiritual leadership,' they answered that it was

'a leader who leads by the example of Christ.'

So what then is a 'leader?' You have not answered the base definition, have you? I explained to them that a 'spiritual leader' as they (and I to a certain extent) see it simply means a 'good leader who adheres to biblical principles of leadership.' And the base definition of a leader is

'one who brings/leads a group of people together towards a common goal or purpose.'

For us, those who understand biblical principles of leadership, leading is serving. Leading is showing by example. Leading is communication. Leading is about relationships. The world, which does not fully understand these principles, naturally has a lot of bad leaders and many examples of bad leadership. Trust me, I've seen my fair share of bad leadership from the SAF.

But what about the leaders in the world who are not necessarily Christian but are good, even great leaders? They might adhere to many biblical principles of leadership, but does that mean that their leadership is 'spiritual?' Lee Hsien Loong is not a Christian. At least he doesn't profess himself to be. Does anyone doubt he is a good leader?

If spiritual leadership is about putting Christ's purposes ahead of one's desires and secular leadership is primarily concerned with one's own goals. If its a matter of one's character, a matter of the end purpose of one's leadership, then this is where I digress. To me then, the label 'spiritual leadership' becomes too broad and too sweeping a statement. It completely doesn't define what a leader is. For the record, I actually think what the girls have in mind, with regards to the way leadership should be, i.e. to say 'spiritual leadership', is actually much akin to what I think leadership should be like except I do not adhere to the labels 'spiritual' and 'secular' but to 'good' or 'bad.' And the reason I use the latter instead of the former is simply because I do know of good leaders who apply biblical principles of leaderships who are not Christians, and I've also seen far too many bad leaders who do not apply biblical principles of leadership who are Christians.

But you want to know how I truly feel about the matter? To be honest, I'm a little vexed by the amount of 'leadership training' that is happening in the church. I think the church doesn't need more leaders as much as it needs people who are willing to lay down their lives for Christ. Do we need more leaders? No...

We need more people who are willing to do 'whatever it takes.'