I am the Gate

Here is the third installment of 7 I am statements of Jesus in John.

Happy Super Bowl Day.

Here is the message.

Ottawa UBF Prayer symposium report

Matthew 6:10

“…your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”

Greetings in Jesus! For the past month, Ottawa UBF has focused on prayer. For four weeks in January we studied four lessons on the theme of prayer: (1) Mark 10:20-25 “Faith that Prays”; (2) Luke 22:39-46 “Jesus’ Earnest Prayer”; (3) Luke 18:1-14 “The Power of Persistent Prayer”; and (4) Matthew 7:1-29 “Ask, Seek, Knock”. Through these Bible studies, we learned many aspects about prayer. In order to put what we learned into practice, we held biweekly prayer nights where all our coworkers and student leaders knelt down and prayed aloud together for two hours after the Friday student meeting.

To conclude the month-long series on prayer, we held a Prayer Symposium at Carleton University on January 31 from 10 am to 1:30 pm. A total of 17 people attended the Prayer Symposium, which consisted of a Group Bible study on the Lord’s Prayer from Matthew 6:9-15 led by Ian Mui followed by a message delivered by Joshua Brinkerhoff. We learned that we must pray for God’s kingdom—which means God’s rule—to come in our personal lives, in our Bible students, in our campus, in our city, and in our nation. After that, we must pray and depend on God for our daily needs. Through studying the Lord’s prayer, we accepted Jesus’ command to pray, “Father…your kingdom come” so that Ottawa may become a spiritual capital city of Canada.

After the worship service, seven presentations were given by growing student leaders. Each presentation focussed on a warrior of prayer from the Bible or from Christian history, describing who the prayer warrior was, what his or her prayer was, and what the presenter learned from studying about him or her. The presentations were “Esther’s prayer” by Marlyn (2^nd year English), “George Müller’s prayer” by Michelle, “King David’s prayer” by Jarrod (3^rd year Policy), “Hannah’s prayer” by Heloise (graduate, Psychology), “King Solomon’s prayer” by Aneesh (Masters, Engineering), “St. Monica’s prayer” by Dana, and “Daniel’s prayer” by Ian. Each presenter studied the relevant Bible passages or biographies and wrote several drafts of the presentation in order to deeply understand and learn from the prayers of great prayer warriors in history. We thank God for helping each person to learn about the prayers of great men and women of prayer and make one personal application through their presentation.

Following the worship service, a world mission offering was collected for Haiti relief. And of course, after the symposium we enjoyed delicious and joyful lunch fellowship prepared by the University of Ottawa team. We deeply thank God for beginning to teach us about prayer through our month-long prayer series and through blessing our Prayer Symposium. We pray that 2010 may be a year of prayer in Ottawa ministry and we may experience God’s power through prayer this year. Please continually partner with us in praying for Ottawa to be a spiritual capital city of Canada. God’s kingdom may come in five Ottawa campuses as it is in heaven!

Coffee and Christ

Who has the best coffee in Champaign/Urbana? Not Courtyard Cafe at Union. In my humble opinion, McDonald has the best coffee. McDonald beats Starbucks anytime. The second best is Dunkin Donuts.

The best value coffee at U of I is found at Quad Shop. I can fill my thermo for 60 cents. Its coffee is as good as that of Courtyard Cafe. You can go green if you bring your own mug and save trees and drink a lot of coffee for 60 cents.

But you cannot beat Christ who offers the best value -the bread of life, the light of the world and the gate of salvation. Coffee has limits but Christ is far better.

John 10: 9-10 says of Jesus like this.

⁹I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved. He will come in and go out, and find pasture. ¹⁰The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.

His claim is true and he promises pasture and life when we enter through his gate. Not just life but full life. We will talk about Jesus, the gate this Sunday.

In addition, Miriam Cowen will give her report. Come and hear Jesus' claim and his promises as well as Miriam's report.

John Piper on C. S. Lewis

Several of us are reading Mere Christianity by C. S. Lewis.
Here is John Piper's presentation on Lewis. (From 2010 Pastor Conference, Desiringgod.org)

Miriam Cownen's Keyna Trip Report

Miriam's Kenya report can be found at A voice in Kenya site:
www.doroteapapa.com/avoiceinkenya

Jesus the light of the world

This is the part two of a series we are doing -Who Jesus is:

Jesus is the light of the world based on John 8.

Here is the link to the message.

Male Brain Hijacker

Albert Mohler has a helpful overview of William M. Struthers’s book, Wired for Intimacy: How Pornography Hijacks the Male Brain (InterVarsity Press, 2010).

At the IVP site you can read online for free the Introduction and Chapter 1: Saturated with Porn.

From the Gospel Coalition site.

Song of the week

Embracing accusations by Shane and Shane

Work out hours

In Champaign, one of the health clubs is open from 5 am. I have seen people coming to work out before they go to work.

Champaing and Urbana folks are very dedicated and know that without work out daily they cannot do any work so they excercize.

In our Christian circle, there are not many worship places that are open from 5 am every day.

We know how to take care of our bodies but we do not feed on the bread of life, Jesus.

Let's pray that we can eat the word of God by God's grace and pray that we can be transformed by the word of God through his Spirit working for us.

John 6:26-27 is our Lord Jesus encouragement for us to feed on his word that gives eternal life.

Jesus answered, "I tell you the truth, you are looking for me, not because you saw miraculous signs but because you ate the loaves and had your fill. Do not work for food that spoils, but for food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. On him God the Father has placed his seal of approval."

We thank God for his saving grace and for his bread from heaven.

Gospeling

Gospeling is to share the Gospel of our LORD Jesus.

Here are some tips.

Happy Gospeling.

Song of the week

Tenth Avenue North -By my side

Jesus the Bread of Life

Welcome back.

Deeper Roots in Christ.

We will study who Jesus is based on the gospel of John.

Today's message was based on John 6. Jesus is the bread that came down from heaven.

Here is the message.

Let's pray for the work of God here at U of I.

The Word Club at U of I

John Jeong is setting up the booth at the U of I Union and inviting students to sign up for the Word Club.

Let's pray for his word ministry at U of I.

Let's pray for the word of God. We pray that U of I students to believe in Jesus whom God sent for us as the bread of life.

Pray for North Korea -Pyongang University of Sci. and Tech

North Korea is opening up. Next Wed, Dr. James Kim, president of PUST is coming to Urbana. Here is the info:

If you are interested in knowing more on Pyongyang, click the image below.

Happy new Spring Semester 2010 at U of I

This is the first day of school. At the Union there were so many fun activities. You can take pictures of you at the photo booth. See the sample picture I took at the Union.

We will learn about who Jesus is from the gospel of John.

In particular, we want to study who Jesus was based on 7 I am statements of Jesus. Here is the tentative plan.
(Here is the study guides for those who want to look at the passages.)

1/24/2010 I Am the bread of life (John 6)
1/31/2010 I Am the Light of the World (John 7)
2/7/2010 I Am the gate (John 9-10)
2/14/2010 Special lecture- Nehemiah
2/21/2010 I Am the Good Shepherd (John 10)
2/28/2010 I Am the Resurrection and the Life (John 11)
3/7/2010 I Am the Way (John 14)
3/14/2010 I Am the Vine (John 15)
3/21/2010 Job 1 and 2
3/28/2010 Job 42
4/4/2010 Easter conf prep
4/11/2010 Easter conference?
4/18/2010 I am the suffering servant (Isa )
4/25/2010 I am praying for you (John 17)
5/2/2010 I am the bridegroom (Eph )
5/9/2010 I am making everything new (Rev 21)

As the wisest man Solomon said, it is the LORD who builds the house. (Psalm 127) We can plan and do work but ultimately it is God who does his work.

Let's pray for the work of God.
Again, happy first day of the semester.

The LORD's prayer by Shane and Shane

Special song, (The Lord's prayer) 17Jan2010 from Seongjin Park on Vimeo.

The Gospel -The Good News of God

We are kicking off our new semester with Rom 1:1-17.
Here is the message.

Happy new year.
Happy new semester and Happy Gospeling -that is sharing and living the gospel in our own context.

The LORD's prayer

The LORD's prayer

Concert at Assembly Hall Jan 23, 2010 (Sat) 6:00 PM

Winter Jam 2010 Tour Spectacular- Christian Music's Largest Annual Tour

Jan 23, 2010 (Sat) 6:00 PM

Assembly Hall

Featuring Third Day, Newsboys, Newsong, Tenth Ave North, Fireflight and guest speaker Tony Nolan.

Christian music’s largest annual tour, the Winter Jam 2010 Tour Spectacular, will hit 44 cities beginning in January and is slated to feature some of the top artists in Christian music. Hosted for the 15th consecutive year by GRAMMY-nominated NewSong, the Tour will also include multi-platinum Reunion recording artist Third Day; internationally-renowned Inpop recording artist Newsboys; Dove Award-winning Reunion recording artist Tenth Avenue North; acclaimed Flicker recording artist Fireflight; and guest speaker Tony Nolan.

Admission is $10 at the door, and in addition to the main show artists, the Tour will include a Pre-Jam Party, which will begin around 5:20 p.m., with Sidewalk Prophets, Robert Pierre and Revive