Failure... is an option.

Pre-service prayer started off the evening/night, with one exceptional note:

This guy led prayer!

(photo is from Facebook: creds to Lim Yimei for this awesome pic)

Pre-service prayer is to prepare for service.

So, pre-pre-service prayer is to prepare for pre-service prayer, and I can tell you, Indy went through it well!

We prayed for:

1. Parents.

2. God's purpose in each of our lives to be revealed as we grow.

3. fireBRANDS' head leaders (Pr Victor, Aunty Rama, Aunty Eunice xP)

4. Ourselves, that we will not become numb towards God as we age.

And another super-exceptional note?
God listened to us:)

Post-pre-service prayer, is time for.....

(I would cred someone for this graphic but I don't know who made it up.)

But of course not everyone goes to the toilet during toilet break so instead for them it's...

...fellowship break!

Oh and guess what, we had ICEBREAKER again! Having it so often we're gonna run out of ice to break soon but anyway.

Icebreaker was lead by the mysterious person holding the microphone.

And how was icebreaker? It was...

FUN FUN FUN FUN.

There's just something about awkward arm signals that's so hilarious:D

The Black [bunnybunnybunnybunnybunnybunnybunnybunny]BUNNY!

And a nice shot! Creds to Eulene Ooi.

(Creds to YouTube for having plenty videos with icebreaker suggestions, because that's where these two came from.)

Now that the ice has been broken, it's time for chains to be broken=) and I'm not just saying that because it sounds cool, but because it's true.

Worship was led by Pr Victor:)

And it was... *insert your own adjective here, if you were there*

But then again, if you really wanna know what it's like..

..try it yourself:)

Okay, announcements, and first, most importantly, foremost: Newcomers!

...and everyone says "Hi Kevinnnn!"

Welcome to fireBRANDS, guys; stick around yeaah!

Important announcement!
Next week is forum PART TWO. This time the experts are:

1. the amazing Gary Lee.

2. the brilliant Daniel Tan.

3. the thoughtful Sarah Khoo.

4. the wise Eunice Lee.

(no seriously, they do deserve those adjectives in front of their names, don't you think?)

So, prepare ONE question to ask about... anything! I mean related to Christianity la. Don't bring your Physics questions all come.

And it's HI THERE to some old people who came back for awhile, including:

Ming Yen:) who learnt how to put on makeup in KL.

So what's next?

Preeeepareeee yourselves!

For the preacher to make her appearance; tall, good-looking and... tall.

!Y-naY

HOW TO FAIL

*piano intro of that classical Beethoven (?) piece that goes dum dum dum dummm!*

We've all failed tests before, kan.

What is 'fail'?

- to disappoint / prove undependable to

- abandon; forsake

- leave undone; neglect

- unsuccessful

Why do we fail?

Because we don't prepare.

Okay enter PETER, a man who disowned Jesus. (Luke 22:54-62)

The thing is right, notice, Jesus had already issued a warning to Peter beforehand!

In Matt 26:36-45, prayer strengthened Jesus as He surrendered to God's will. But, Peter (and the other disciples)..... slept.

The problem with Peter is that he was all about himself.

Peter was self-confident, self-sufficient and self-dependent; and this leads to self-deception.

²²Quit scraping and fawning over mere humans,
so full of themselves, so full of hot air!
Can't you see there's nothing to them? (Isaiah 2:22, The Message)

⁹ Man as such is smoke,
woman as such, a mirage.
Put them together, they're nothing;
two times nothing is nothing. (Psalm 62:9, The Message)

¹⁸ First pride, then the crash—
the bigger the ego, the harder the fall. (Proverbs 16:18, The Message)

Powerful verses.

So Peter's failure was not denying Christ. His failure was being dependent on his own strength, and as a result, he denied Christ three times.

We deny Christ when we miss our mark.

We deny Christ when we succumb to doing things under peer pressure that we know displeases God.

BIG EXAMPLE: Facebook! How many times and how long do you spend clicking 'Refresh' or just staring at the News Feed then go "Oh, notification!:D" when you know it's better if you'd spend that time with God.

Why choose Facebook over God's Book?

When have you failed in your walk with God? *think*

So, how to fail?

Give in to temptation.

Don't seek God's power, provision and protection through prayer.

⁴¹ “Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.” (Matthew 26:41, New International Version, ©2011)

You'll definitely fail if you don't pray.

It's easier to go up a hill than to come down a hill. Passing a test takes WORK.

Guitar Stringing for Dummies.

Guess who's back? Doesn't matter. Anywayyyyy, after a long string of events we're finally back to our regular awesome youth service! Feels kinda nice after a while.

Started off with a time of prayer.

Girls and Guys.

And then we had.. .. .. . .. ICE BREAKER!!!

She's way friendlier in person. xP

Ok the game was, we split ourselves into groups, and then we had to make an image of whatever the game master *points to the top wants.

Here's what we made. (lots of imagination required)

A foot.

Got ankle some more.

A hand.

A nose.

Complete with booger.

'and I am the finger!'

Not sure what that is.

After that we had a short break and then entered into a time of worship lead by Sharon Leow.


Announcements.

The big boss.

Ok, firebrands has a new official website now, myfirebrands.com

And on the site we have a section called 'fuel'. Its a place where you can post up interesting articles and maybe your own testimonies of how God is working in your life. Cool right?

SOO, if you're interested to post something up PLEASE do and e-mail firebrands.irri@gmail.com

Our sports head.

This year, we have our very own RUN FOR PENANG prayer run.

FGA will be participating, duh and we want YOU to join us!

Do you believe in change for Malaysia? Then pray and believe for it to happen. Do something about it.

See you there!

And now, He stands tall, statement t-shirt fan, has an adorable assistant, our speaker for tonight.. LEROY!!

Totally potong right?

Lets try again,

LEROY!!!

Much better.

His title for the night was interesting and relevant, How to tune your guitar?

Ok imagine yourself as a guitar, and the strings are your life.

For a guitar to sound nice, the strings have to be tuned properly correct? So, if you want your life to be 'nice' you have to make sure it is in tune with God.

To be in tune with God all the strings of your life have to be perfectly tuned.

"E"xercising love. -Do you care for the people around you?

"B"ible centric.

my people are destroyed from lack of knowledge. "Because you have rejected knowledge, I also reject you as my priests; because you have ignored the law of your God, I also will ignore your children.
Hosea 4 : 6

"G"erm free.- God can only use the pure

"D"-en Brandherd ( thats German for the 'fire source')
- You need friends/companions that are in God that will help you light the FIRE.

"A"fter the lost. - The Great Commision (Matthew 28 : 18-20). Its not called Great for fun.

"E"ngaging with God. - You have to constantly engage with God so that you may recognize his voice, know his heart, and be pick up your cross and follow him.

Cute right???

Have you been spending time with the musician(Jesus) to get in tune?

Or maybe you've been a Christian for a long long time. You've been in tune before but are you in tune now?

Think about it.

Take care!

2.4.11

WANT TO BECOME A TRUE WORSHIPER???!!!

Youth service was great! All of us got the answers of how to be a true worshiper. You just need to honour God, the one and only God living, worship directly to Him,

and be connected to God. Isn't that easy? Oh,come on! It can't be that hard.............right??? So,here we go!

The worship team led worship and I think most of us had a encounter with God. We all begged for the presence of God and... you know, it all happened! Isn't that amazing? Oh yeah! I almost forgot! I bet all of you want to know where all the hint of being a true worshiper comes from right? Here it is! By watching a simple and short video!

The video was all about being a true worshiper,but

don't forget that the answers of being a true worshiper also comes from the Bible. In fact , the answers are more in detail. Oh, you know that all right! After worshiping,we quite of played a game... maybe not sort

of a game, but kind of like a quiz. Something like that.....................

Nevermind! (the Ed: it's a forum!)

We're allowed to ask random questions like who created the Earth?Hmm... maybe that's too easy! You can ask are we from monkeys? Or how did dinosaurs became extinct! Something like that. Four experts we're chosen out to answer our questions.

There were Sharon Leow,Tania Loke,Tan Leroy and James Tan. For your information, when I say experts, I mean real EXPERTS!!!

Aww...! Look how cute these innocent peoples are! Eager to know the answers for every single question!

Some questions that night were:

1. What is Christianity?

2. How do we know that the Bible is the truth? How would you convince your friend that it is?

3. How would you explain the Trinity?

4. Why were some mighty men of God in the Bible adulterers too?

After that,we were informed that James is going

to China soon to film a documentary. What a sudden thing right?!

We prayed for him to arrive there safely and ask God to let him wisdom to understand their language. Hope he comes back soon! I think that's all for now, bye! See you in the next blog.

Wait!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!I've got a question to ask u. Do aliens really exist??? Think about it,BYE!!!

Ombak Challenge!

fuhhhhhh. power sungguh title itu, kan?

So on the 26th of March, 2011, fireBRANDS had no youth service. Instead they were busy sweating it out and stinking themselves up all the way at Balik Pulau.

Trading air-conditioning for a stuffed hall, trading carpet for mud, trading sleep for an early morning wake-up.

And it was so worth it, rightt?!

fireBRANDS took part in Captainball (both men and women), Dodgeball (women) and Floorball (men).

..

Photos thanks to Benson Teoh:) (yes, i ripped them off facebook.)

So where do we start?

Hmm.

Y'know what let's just go all random:D

Okay Wave Challenge is a time when a cup of Pepsi (WITH ICE) looks soooo good:

he's so handsome ain't he

especially after sweating it out. Which is why, like last year, fireBRANDS had their very own supply of Revive:D (i think it was revive lah. or some other isotonic drink. no diff la, all taste the same. haha.)

The objective of Wave Challenge is not for players to lose weight. (It's not for players to not lose weight either. Get it? Haha. Meaning to say, losing weight is not all that relevant.)

I mean if you eat all that fattened, oiled chicken after running around; well then you might end up gaining weight instead.

Sebagaimana you boleh nampak, Wave Challenge is a time when KFC's sales get jacked up and the burger aunty across the road gets lots more business.

BUT THAT'S NOT THE POINT.

The point is, evangelism through sports!

Check out the camaraderie yo:

It's a day when usually-non-sporty people serlahkan their bakat in sports. Or just have fun trying.

It's when winning doesn't matter, but would be nice.

It's about having fun!

fireBRANDS' very own Julia in action, playing for SWAT FC.

Soo, Wave Challenge. You can read last year's post if you wanna know like what happened and all, because it's basically the same each year EXCEPT:

we had dodgeball this year!

Dodgeball was fun to watch. Especially guys' dodgeball where they'd throw the basketballs with NO MERCY. It's the i-don't-care-if-this-knocks-your-head-off kinda throwing. It was ruthless because it was all guys, so Ruth couldn't join.

BUT BUT Ruth could join women's dodgeball! Well i don't think she did but fireBRANDS' team, led by Capt Sarah Wong, got silver!:D

Speaking of achievements, fireBRANDS also raked in bronze for women's captainball. Nice rightt.

So whether you were a spectator (background) or champion (his team got gold for men's floorball)..

..i hope you had fun!

Unless you were being a fun-spoiling ref. xP kidding! Referees are (part of) the reason why sports are fun, so thank you refs and secretariats for all 4 sports for a great day:)