Making a Small Step
First of all, Happy New Year everyone from the family JGLE.
I'm sure most of you have already figured out what JGLE stands for: it's the acronym for John, Grace, Leo and Esther. We named ourselves this, because we feel it's important that we need to do things together as a family in our future ministries. For those of you who haven't read my earlier article, Why this site and newsletter?, I encourage you to read it to learn why it's important for me to include my family in my future ministry.
I was able to take two weeks of holidays on the last week of December 2017 and the first week of January 2018. Of course, I have to run regular youth ministry programs, including 30 hour famine and all, but at least I was able to stay home and spend some quality time with my family. My son, Leo, got a bad cold on the first day of my holiday, forcing our family to stay home all those days. I believe it's God's way of telling me to rest with my family.
At the same time, those who know me well know that I'm a bit of workaholic. I wanted to do a few things at home for my future. First of all, I sat down one day to write up my personal goal for the year 2018. In order to think about what I want to accomplish in the year 2018, I also had to think about the three years from now. Then, in order for me to think about the three years from now, I had to think about the five years from now, the ten years from now, the thirty years from now, and eventually, my line of thought went to "What do I want to accomplish on earth in my lifetime?" Think about it: what I want to accomplish on earth in my lifetime will inform what I want to accomplish in the next thirty years, and what I want to accomplish in the next thirty years then will inform my next ten years, then five, three... all the way to this one year. So, I sat down and prayed. And I wrote down my lifetime goals, then my 30 year goals, 15 year goals, 10 year goals, 5 year goals, 3 year goals and finally my year 2018 goals. I would love to share all these, but I believe there will be an appropriate time to share them, but not now.
I want to share, however, some of my year 2018 goals with you, because I used my holidays to start working on these!
First of all, I need to sharpen my theology and Scriptural knowledge. I really want to dive into the Scripture and grasp all the treasures hidden. In my future ministries, if I do not have strong and deep Scripture knoweldge and theology, my foundation will be weak and when the storms of hardship and challenge come, the ministries and I can easily collapse. Ephesians 2:20 says we are "built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the cheif cornerstone." This is the time allowed for me to consolidate the foundation of future ministries, and with God's help I decided to commit myself to study two chapters of the Bible each week. It usually takes 3-5 hours for me to study one chapter. So, it's the significant time of investment I am making. There are 1189 chapters in the Bible, so in order for me to go through the entire Bible, it will take about 10 years (52 weeks X 2 chapters a week). So, it's a long term commitment. I've been enjoying studying the Ephesians right now.
Second, we would love to serve and minister young couples. We believe God is calling Grace and myself into a season where we should serve young families with young children, and we strongly believe that marriage is the most core and critical ingridient in a happy and God-honouring family life recipe. Many of you know that I love Alpha and I have been known at OPC as an Alpha man. Did you know that Alpha International has also produced a curriculum similar to Alpha around the topic of marriage and parenting? It's a 8-week course and married couples would come and enjoy meals, watch talks on different issues in marriage life and discussion with one's spouse. It has great teachings and the concept of meal and fellowship from Alpha works well with this course as well. But, surprisingly, when I looked up, this Alpha's marriage course is not offered anywhere in Ontario, never mind the city of London. Grace and I thought that we might want to offer this course to any young couples who want to make their families the best. So, we decided to take this course first for ourselves. Because it is not offered anywhere in London, we are doing it ourselves first. On every Monday night, after our children went to bed, we would sit down, watch the talk with snacks and tea, and have a conversation. We just did one last Monday, and it was such a wonderful course. This is not intended for marriage therapy and/or counselling for those who are seriously struggling in marriage. This course is for anyone who wants to make their marriage better.
Lastly, I worked on creating a home studio to produce various contents and make them available online. I thought out the ways I can serve and minister young people today, and I had to conclude that it is getting harder to reach them physically. At the same time, I realized the technology made the resources available at the end of our fingertip anywhere in the world whenever they are needed. So, why not make helpful resources available online for people to access? Resources can be: 1) teaching material that stands alone and people can watch and learn, 2) teaching material that accompanies my future ministries - perhaps the detailed lessons that may not be able to be covered in in-person teaching or more appropriate to be done alone, 3) worshipful and meditative materials that can be used at home, work and anywhere to help draw listeners to God's presence wherever they are. I believe the applications are endless.
During the boxing week, I purchased various items online, including microphones, cables, interface (connects mic and instruments to my computer) and headphone. We already own guitar, keyboard and DSLR camera. And I already purchased a good laptop that can be used for home studio on Black Friday. Once all the items arrived, I began assembling them to create a home studio.
One huge challenge is its space. I do not have space for these items to go. Right now I set up and tear down the studio items on my dinning table every time I want to do something, but it's so much work to set up and tear down. I need to think of more permanent place. Also, I need to bring instruments like digital piano and guitar, but the space is so limited. I thought of using my walk-in closet, but I don't have space for all the clothings to go. So, I've been cleaning our closet as much as I can to make some space to set up the studio. But then, I do not want to spend any more money on buying things like desk and lighting. So, I'm beginning to look for second-hand items and donations. Furthermore, ultimately I need to find a larger home where I can make one room a permanent home recording studio room. This room can be where I can record teaching, music and worship materials with my wife and children.
So, continue to pray for us, as we are making this small but significant step forward into our future.