Gerbils scrambling all over the shop, miniature cars zooming around a track, shouts of “hole in one!” & “Goal!” coming from the same room and hundreds of people young & old running around on top of 48 Barker Road with happy smiles all over.

Yes, Barker Road Methodist Church turns 50 this year and an event called “Family Day” was held last Saturday to kick off the celebrations.

50 is known as the jubilee year and TONS of effort was put in to ensure that everyone shared in the joy. In my opinion, that goal was ensured when dinner was revealed, cause simply put, it was insane – I mean there were 3 friggin’ chocolate fountains la. No wonder people always say BRMC is a rich mans church.

Actually that’s the irony of it all, although BRMC may contain the influential and affluent, with regards to its spiritual wealth, I really find the place quite bankrupt. I’ve been going around visiting different churches for the past few months or so and the seriousness for God that some of the much smaller churches display has really made me wonder what on earth is happening at my home church, and what on earth am I doing there.

Thoughts have been drifting in an out of my mind with regards to my ‘Sunday morning’ future. Should I start my exodus from the church that has given me so much opportunity & helped me grow up in so many different aspects (minus the physical) simply because I think that I have ‘outgrown’ it? Or do I believe that I have something to offer to help solve the spiritual dryness which many feel?

At the moment, there are only 2 things that are keeping me in Barker. First is the youth music ministry which I am heading. I have been laboring for over a year now and remain driven with the vision of building a happening youth music ministry. It has been the joy of my life & the pain up my ass simultaneously but I must admit, it is a hugely fulfilling job. However my term ends soon so what happens next?

Second reason is the community. I honestly love the people of BRMC, young & old. But that’s where my meaning in church ends. Church has become a place for me to work & play, whatever happened to the learning & worshipping? That’s where my dilemma lies… If indeed what Church means to me is a place where I am to grow closer to God through the sermons & praising Him through the music, then I really should go cause I don’t really get it here. BUT, do I really need a Church to give me that?

You see for me, as far as the Christian walk is concerned, 90% of it comes from the daily communion with God & walking with Him wherever you go and the additional you get from “feeding” (sermons, bible studies, cell group etc) is just the remaining 10%. In fact, I find the point of all those sermons & stuff is just to inspire us to get into that personal relationship with God, cause that’s what being a Christian is all about.

So with that view, do I really need to find another church after all? Cause truly, Barker Road Methodist Church is family to me, and though it may be dysfunctional, it is still my home. And I love it!

The Bible, commonly known as the Word of God is the cornerstone of Christianity and the words on it are what our faith is based upon. It was put together by a few old geezers over various meetings over a period of time, so how on earth can we be sure that they got it right, not to mention base our life upon it?

Here are 7 reasons why

If indeed the Bible we have today is God’s Message to man, then we would expect it to have some particular characteristics:

1. It would be widely distributed so man could attain it easily

It is still the #1 best seller of any book - More than five billion (http://www.amyfound.org/articles/ss23.html ) compared to 255 million copies of all the Harry Potter books put together. (http://www.languagebooks.com.au/sitepages/page125.asp)

2. It would be preserved through time without corruption
To test an ancient document for its reliability, historians look for these things:
• number of copies of the text
• from where they originated
• their age and proximity to the autographs
• if the documents were quoted in other works
The Bible has many many amount of manuscript (copies of the originals) evidence to authenticate its message as it was originally written. Of every ancient literary or historical work, none can come remotely close to the huge amount of manuscript evidence for the New Testament. (over 5,300 manuscripts or parts of manuscripts we can examine today. If you count all the early copies of translations of the New Testament, the number skyrockets to over 24,000)

3. Historical Accuracy
If this truly is a book written by God, then the facts in the Bible must be mentioned by other trusted historical sources. We have many written sources outside the Bible that corroborate its documentation.

For examples:
http://www.christiananswers.net/q-abr/abr-a009.html

Archaeology also confirms the reliability of the Bible. Everywhere the archaeologist searches, he uncovers discoveries that bolster, not refute support of the Bible as being a true account of history

For examples:
http://www.christiananswers.net/q-abr/abr-a005.html
http://www.christiananswers.net/q-abr/abr-a008.html

4. Scientific Accuracy
A set of documents having their origin in the All-knowing God of the universe would not be prone to scientific inaccuracies. Here are some science facts written by people who existed even before the word ‘science’.
• Roundness of the earth (Isaiah 40:22)
• Almost infinite extent of the sidereal universe (Isaiah 55:9)
• Hydrologic cycle (Ecclesiastes 1:7)
• Paramount importance of blood in life processes (Leviticus 17:11)
• Atmospheric circulation (Ecclesiastes 1:6)
• and many others.

Those 4 points were the external evidences to prove that the bible was from God, now for the internal evidence.

5. Consistency
The Bible is a collection of different documents that were written over one and a half millennium, that are devoted to discussing the most controversial and emotionally charged topics man has known. The incredible thing is that they all agree. Taken together, the Bible presents a single, unified message of actions and attitudes by which man can live. This is an unprecedented feat.
To have sixty six books written by about forty authors, from kings and nobles to fishermen and soldiers, in three languages and on three continents, be of the same mind is just not humanly possible.

6. Prophecies fulfilled
The coming of the Jewish Messiah is the focus of the Old Testament. There are over 300 separate prophecies about the "Holy One of Israel" found there. They are so specific as to predict the city of Jesus' birth (Micah 5:2), His nature (Isaiah 7:14), His works of healing and miracles (Isaiah 35:5-6), His betrayal for thirty pieces of silver (Zechariah 11:12-13), His suffering (Isaiah 53), His style of execution (Psalm 22) and His resurrection (Psalm 16:10, Acts 13:35) amongst other things. These prophecies were written anywhere from 400 to 1000 years before Jesus' birth, yet they describe His life with the accuracy of an eyewitness. The odds against a living person meeting even a few of these predictions is so astronomical it is considered an impossibility. So surely, they were inspired by someone Higher.

Lastly, the authenticity of a message can be proven by how much a person believes in it. For example if believe whole heartedly that our Army is Always Ready! and even if you tempt me to renounce that fact by letting me ORD immediately I won’t. =)

7. The Authors stood by what they wrote to the death
There is no valid reason to believe that the men who wrote the Bible were lying or trying to deceive. History tells us that each of them suffered and were executed because they would not recant their position that the teachings of the Bible are true and accurate. If their testimony was made up for glory or fame, surely someone would have tried to chao geng to save his skin, but it did not happen. All the apostles and the writers believed unwaveringly that the Bible was 100% fact & absolute God.

So we should too.

A large part of this article was adapted and summarized from http://www.comereason.org/mobile/content.asp?article=cmp005

“Good morning and this is NeeSoonNEWS Today. Last night at around 7pm, a small Jewish shepherd boy with very non-Jewish features was spotted at a popular night club in Central Mall. He was joined but other strange individuals from all walks of Asia and this ain’t Malaysia…”

--Pauses as someone interrupts by whispering something into his ear--

“Oh SAF Music & Drama Company having their annual Dinner and Dance ah? Chey… no wonder there were also men dressed as women and vice versa”

Yes, last night was our D&D at Club Momo; the most “normal” venue so far considering our previous cohesion events were held at Happy (gay) bar and Gold dust. (Kumar’s place) And to my pleasant surprise, it was actually pretty damn good.

Firstly, and least importantly, the catered food was surprisingly very ‘mei wei ke kou’. 2 thumbs up to Siam Kitchen! 2ndly and more importantly and even more surprisingly, I THINK there was actually some inter-department bonding going on. Or maybe I was dreaming after one too many whisky + ginger ale & that damn shisha pipe.

That’s the funny thing, the participation levels of the different departments in the various games that were played is exactly how an MDC performance looks like; the Artistes are in the forefront hogging the spotlight, the Musicians are in the background, the Tech team is invisible and the Clerks are not there.

When I first came to MDC, being part of the clerks ‘which are not there’, I hardly mixed around much and kept my movement space to the office and canteen. But how things have changed, nowadays I continuously get scolded by my dear boss for not being around. Be it jamming with the musicians downstairs, or learning to sing from the choir or joining the hip-hop class with the artistes, my home in the office seems so distant now sigh…

Anyway nuff said, below are the pics of the best cohesion event so far. Enjoy.



























Many thanks to Chewable Productions (http://www.chewableonline.com) for the great photos!