williamtsoi.net

I haven’t had the time to elaborate from my late-night thoughts about this ministry, so I’ll try to tidy up some of the things in my mind and present it in a sort-of-meaningful manner.

What Yeahshow does successfully is to make Christianity accessible to the masses. It’s unfortunate that Christianity has often been shelved as an “established religion” and so people can choose to brush it aside and avoid the “important” questions altogether (is there a God? What is he like? What is the meaning of life? etc). An event like Yeahshow is effective in forcing people to think about these issues.

What I think isn’t so successful about events like this is in providing the answers to the big questions, or at least, I think the message that it delivers is extremely compromised for the sake of entertainment (in the form of comedy, music etc). The visitor is introduced to the questions in life, and is entertained in the process. When asked whether he/she accepts Christianity as the solution to the questions in life, he/she reflects on what he/she has heard over the night. He/she bears no ill feeling because he/she was entertained, and so accepts Christianity as having the ultimate answer.

A simplified illustration is as follows.

1. A man who has family problems comes to an evangelical event
2. He is entertained by the event (either through its music, the comedy value etc)
3. The pastor on stage challenges him about his family problems
4. The pastor says “believe in Jesus and you will have no more family problems”.
5. The man considers the message, and finds the pastor trustworthy because of the entertainment he has received
6. The man “commits” to Jesus with the motivation of getting his family problems solved
7. The man leaves the event in pure joy, thinking in his heart that Jesus will solve his family problems
8. Disillusionment sets in when the man realises that there is no “magic answer” to his problems, and that the pastor that day oversimplified the solution
9. Man leaves Christianity thinking that it’s all a farce

What the? That’s not how evangelism is supposed to work! But that is what happens a lot of the time. What’s the missing link? What is required to keep the man going in his walk of faith instead of suffering from disillusionment?

The answer will be revealed in my next post, or perhaps you can enlighten me with what you think.

Although I seem to give off the impression that I don’t do much at work, in fact, I do. This is somewhat a taste of what I do at work (except substitute 200MB with 13 gigs)

Wow. I can’t believe that I actually managed to import all the posts from my old blogs all into here.

I imported 2 blogs – one from my honours year (2004), and one from my time as a 3rd year actuarial student (2002).

I haven’t had time to look back on all my posts yet, but it’s interesting to see some of them. I can’t believe that I actually wrote some of those things. Some of the things I wrote seemed extremely profound (haha!), but yet some seemed to reek of arrogance and contempt – and it’s these posts that I think I want to be buried forever.

But then I might just keep everything, because it’s a good reminder of how my life has changed throughout these short years, and also how God has changed me in this time (from a arrogant know-it-all to… less of an… arrogant know-it-all). Who knows what I’ll become in 5 years!

For those of you who went to church/uni with me, the posts may be a bit nostalgic.

Should be some fun reading.

For those of you who happen to stumble upon here, you would’ve noticed that I now have my own domain! YAY!

Why did I get my own domain you might ask? Well, I’m not really sure, but one of the reasons is that I’ve noticed that when I searched for my name on Google, I don’t appear anywhere! I don’t have a web presence anymore!

I might try to import my old posts. We’ll see.

On another note, I’ve bought a Wii!!! It should be arriving by Fedex in 2 days. Can’t wait to try it out.