The Annoying Orange

                       Hey,hey,hey..if you're reading this don't stop! And if this is your first time reading                fireBRANDSs' blog, keep on reading it.You'll enjoy it :). So, service started at 7.30 pm with a blast starting with ICEBREAKER!

Ice breaker was led by our Joshua Tan and Jonathan Choong.

There will be two teams (male and female)

Each team is required to pass an orange with hands joined together.

But if the orange falls, you'll have to start all over again.

                                                   Spot the difference! Both Joshua Tans'

The girl team...

vs 

The boy team...

                                                               Let The BATTLE Begin.

                                            Finally, the male team won. Who wants the orange?

                                                 And next, we had Benjamin Yeoh for the details of
                                                            cook-off .(combine celgroup)*AHEM*

                                                                   Venue: FGA North Zone
                                                                     Date: 30th March 2012
                                                                            Time: 7.oopm  

                                     Then, it's time for worship..Lead by Leroy and his team.

                                                                         

                                               Pre-service prayer was combined with worship. All of us
                                                 prayed for one another according to their needs.

             After worship,we had announcement for THEME NIGHT!

By Brian Bian Paul and Isaac Stephen Huang.

Are you excited? Cause I am.

And for ladies no short skirts and spaghetti stripes please..

If you happen to loss your ticket,you could print it out.

                                                                               

Our speaker for the night is none other than Pastor Chong Leang.

              Aunty Boon Leng was warmly welcomed when she 

introduced herself.

So,what did Pastor Chong Leang shared?

Jesus is our Lord.

• He gave up His live just for us.
• He was the son of God
• He came down from  heaven to Earth to save us from slavery.

Jesus is our baptizer

• John the Baptist said that he will only baptize us with water,but the one who is far more greater than me is going to baptist you with the Holy Spirit.
• The Holy Spirit is still with us till this very day.
• God sent the Holy Spirit for us after He laid His life on the cross.

Jesus is our Saviour.

• Let me tell you this,Jesus is our Savior!
• We are the reason He laid down His life.

After the awesome sermon by Ps Chong Leang,youth service ended with people having fellowship.

What is Love??

Hello people and welcome back to another edition of the fireBRANDS blog. YAY!!!! 

Alright, as usual we started with pre-service prayer. 

And a little time for those who needed to use the loo. 

When everyone was done answering nature's call, it was time for ice-breakers. Wheeee!!!!

And that night, ice-breakers was lead by Lester and Ken-Jeen.

How the game goes: Well its like this. Someone will be standing in the middle and will randomly shoot people (finger shooting) and the two persons on his/her left and right will have to say each others name or age or both. 

Samantha giving herself a facepalm....

Jesher shooting an unfortunate victim

After ice-breakers over, it was time for worship.

Led by Samantha 

Next, Leroy made a few announcements. One of our fireBRANDS members will be leaving us to further her studies.

One of our fireBRANDS members will be leaving us to further her studies. Ms. Chew Yan-Y.
 All the best :)

After praying for Yan-Y, it was time for the sermon and that nights speaker was non-other then.......

Our very own Gary Lee, woohoo!

    

Gary preached about Love.

What is love?? 
Love is the foundation of Christianity.

Matthew 22:36-40(NIV)

³⁶ “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”³⁷ Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.³⁸ This is the first and greatest commandment. ³⁹ And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbour as yourself.'⁴⁰ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.

So there are two points here which are "Love the Lord your God" and "Love your neighbour as yourself".



Love the Lord your God
What does it mean to love the Lord?

1. Give Him your best. Sometimes people use spirituality as and excuse to not give God their best. Imagine what would other people think if we don't give out best? If you can do it for a friend or loved one, what about God?

2. To love God means to put Him first. Is God your number 1 priority?? Your first option should be God.

3. To love God means to respect Him. Like when during sermons, don't text or do something else. If you can put your phone on silent during a movie, then why not in church?

4. Protect the Temple of the Holy Spirit. Your body is the Temple of the Holy Spirit so, don't do something that will ruin it. Like cutting yourself purposely. Feed your spiritual body with His food. You are allowing the Devil to attack you if you don't.

1 John 4:20 (NIV)
²⁰ Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen.



Love your neighbours
1. To love your neighbours means to love everyone. Love everyone including your enemies, serve everybody. " The church does not revolve around you, you revolve around the church" - Pastor Chong Liang 


2. To love your neighbour is to have empathy for the poor and the sick

Mark 2:17 (NIV)

 ¹⁷ On hearing this, Jesus said to them, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”

Matthew 25:42-46 (NIV)
⁴² For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink,⁴³ I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’

   ⁴⁴ “They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’
   ⁴⁵ “He will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’
   ⁴⁶ “Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.”

3. To love your neighbour is to love the lost.

Matthew 28:16-20 (NIV)

The Great Commission

 ¹⁶ Then the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go. ¹⁷When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. ¹⁸ Then Jesus came to them and said,“All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. ¹⁹ Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, ²⁰ and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”

4. Love your enemy. Its easy to love someone who loves you but, its harder to love someone you hate. We are all born self-righteous. To love your enemy is to learn to be humble and accept their differences.  

5. To love your neighbours is to love your brothers and sisters. Why do we want boyfriends and girlfriends?? We need love and want attention. Humans can only supply physical needs, not spiritual. Nothing is everlasting but our God.


Psalm 37:4 (NIV)
⁴ Take delight in the LORD, 

  and he will give you the desires of your heart

If you are in a relationship there must be limits. Keep yourself holy. If you love God, you put Him first. Don't let your partner go above God. And if your in a relationship it'll either end in a breakup or marriage. If your unsure don't! 

Well that's all for today. See ya :)

Self control & Faith.

HELLO there, a warm welcome to all you readers :)

As always, youth service started off with prayer led by Nick Choong.

Everyone had their own partners (guy&guy, girl&girl)

In case you're wondering why the picture quality is a lil blurry, pictures for this week's update were taken using the famous, amazing, wonderful, useful, awesome..

Produk Epal!

(iPad)

Worship led by Eulene & her team

Before heading for announcements, its ice breaker time by Vanessa and Samantha.

After that, announcements by our very own floorball coach, Mr Gary Lee.

Reminder! There is Theme Night this month! (5th Saturday of the month)

Everything you need to know is in this picture *points below.

Yes, do bring your friends for this event!

                                                           Our two main organisers.
                                                   if you have any questions, do contact them.


Yesss, it was Young Preachers Night, something which we have every month :)

This month's speakers : Faith Kung and Isaac Huang.

                                                      The iPad user searching for her sermon notes.

So what did Faith share about?

Self Control. 

So what is self control?

- Control of one's feelings over desire by your own will.

Example : controlling the amount of time you spend staring at your computer screen (facebook)

- Control of one's external reaction or feeling

Example 1 : Joseph (Genesis 39 : 7-10)

and after a while his master’s wife took notice of Joseph and said, “Come to bed with me!”

 ⁸ But he refused. “With me in charge,” he told her, “my master does not concern himself with anything in the house; everything he owns he has entrusted to my care. ⁹ No one is greater in this house than I am. My master has withheld nothing from me except you, because you are his wife. How then could I do such a wicked thing and sin against God?” ¹⁰ And though she spoke to Joseph day after day, he refused to go to bed with her or even be with her.

                                Example 2 : Jesus (Luke 4 : 4)

Jesus answered, "It is written: 'Man does not live on bread alone.' 

So, how to have self control?

1. Get yourself nearer to God

Close relationship with Him will help you to know what God wants for you in your life and what is good and bad for you.

2. Planning

Plan to avoid from all temptations, learn how to reject Satan's temptation.

3. Moderation 

Learn how to balance your schedule, learn to manage your time with discipline and self control.

Consequences from not having any self control.

- Adam & Eve.

Because of their lack of self control, they ate the apple. And what happened after that? :)

- Esau.

Because of his lack of self control, he had lost his birthright.

Conclusion :   Obey His commandments to build the right foundation and    prevent from falling into sin again.  

                                             


Next, its none other than Isaac Huang,

Sharing about Faith :)

(awwwwww)

No but seriously, he was sharing about Faith

So what is faith?

- Confidence or trust on a person/thing.

- belief not based on proof.

It is through faith, we do crazy stuff for Him . Good stuff, of course.

It its through faith, we believe in miracles in the midst of darkness.

It is through faith, we overcome our greatest fear in life.

Hebrews 11 : 11. By faith Abraham, even though he was past age--and Sarah herself was barren--was enabled to become a father because he considered him faithful who had made the promise

Faith is being sure of what we hope but cannot see, it is believing something you have that isnt there.

Therefore, remember that faith as small as a mustard seed can go a long waaaaayyyyyyyy!

Another Night with the Firebrands

Alright, apologies for the late post. Let's get straight down to business, shall we? 

As usual, we started off with Pre-Service Prayer by breaking off into pairs this time with the various prayer points at heart. 

Then it's time to have some fun with an ice-breaker led by Brian Bian Paul and Isaac. 

This week's game: Never Have I Ever

So the gist of the game is that small facts about people will be revealed by the end of the game. 

How we play: 

1. Sit in a circle.

2. One person stands in the center, begins his/her sentence of things he/she has never done with "Never have I ever...." 

3. People who HAVE done the said fact need to get up and switch places with others who've stood up as well.

4. Last one standing without a seat is next to have a go at the line, "Never have I ever...."

Sorry about the blurred pictures, we were constantly moving around, it made things difficult for our photographer to get sharp shots. We're all here to learn, so forgive us! :)

Next up, praise & worship session led by youth leader, Le Roy and his team. 

And on to announcements by Gary Lee. 

LISTEN UP & TAKE NOTE PEOPLE! 

1. THEME NITE is happening on the last Saturday of THIS month (31st March)!!

So get geared up for a night of fun and bring along your friends! The more the merrier, right?

While no further information has been given out about the night yet, let's not let that stop us from going out to inviting our friends for that night already alright? :) Get moving and start talking!

2. WAVE CHALLENGE 2012 is coming soon! 

In the wise words of Gary Lee, Wave Challenge is "a challenge of different kind of ball games. Captain Ball, Floorball, Dodgeball and No-Ball aka Ultimate Frisbee"  

Wave Challenge is set to take place over two Saturdays this year, 14th and 21st of April at Balik Pulau Indoor Stadium. 

If you are interested in taking part in any one of these games, please let Nicholas Choong know.

And so, we finally arrive to the main event of the night with Pastor Cowan as our speaker! 

Pastor Cowan's message that night focussed on Psalm 51.

Click here if you'd like to read it beforehand :) 

Pastor Cowan also made referrals to Bathsheba to make his message clearer to us. 

If you don't have a clue about who this Bathsheba person is, please don't hesitate to click HERE to read an excerpt from 2 Samuel 11:1-5. 

Main points to pick up from Pastor's message:


-sin comes very subtly but the question is, how do we deal when faced with it?
-it is not easy to overcome temptation but it does not mean it is impossible

If Nathan had not confronted David about what he did with Bathsheba, his actions would have been hidden.

-in God, no sin is hidden. The things in us that are not clean or not pure, God will still know
-nothing stays hidden under the watch of God

Psalm 51:10

New International Version (NIV)

 ¹⁰ Create in me a pure heart, O God,
   and renew a steadfast spirit within me.

-if you want to resist the Devil, you have to build up your "new man"
-whatever we feed the "old man", the "old man" only becomes stronger. The problem with this is that we feed the "old man" more than we do the "new man" 


How to build the "new man": 
-if anything is good, and you do it...it is good.
-recognize the Holy Spirit that lives in you. The Holy Spirit will never leave a person


What we have to remember:
-God will discipline us for every sin no matter big or small. The consequence for every sin may not come immediately but eventually it will
-the Lord will discipline us whether we like it or not but we must know that the discipline does not come without LOVE
-God will not despise a broken & repentant heart




And with that, I bid you farewell =)