coming soon !!!

have you heard of the latest happening in singapore?

no? no one told you about it?!?!?!? hmm... -.-

keep scrolling down...








well.... let me tell you.

click on this!

SYNOD YOUTH CAMP 2007 is coming to town!!!

it's a gathering of many like-minded, fun, energetic youths like you and me for a 4 days 3 nights camp!

so what are you waiting for?

join us today! :D

The faithful prayer warriors of the Synod Youth Camp

SYCamp2007 Video!!!

SYCamp2007 Poster

The peaceable kingdom

All of creation belongs together in the arms of its Creator. The final vision is that not only will all men and women recognise that they are brothers and sisters called to live in unity, but all members of God's creation will come together in complete harmony. Jesus the Christ came to realise that vision. Long before he was born, the prophet Isaiah saw it:

　

The wolf will live with the lamb
the panther lie down with the kid,
calf, lion and fat-stock beast together
with a little boy to lead them.
The cow and the bear will graze their young will lie down together.
The lion will eat hay like the ox.
The infant will play over the den of the adder;
the baby will put his hand into the viper's lair:
No hurt, no harm will be done
on all my holy mountain,
for the country will be full of the knowledge of
Yahweh as the waters cover the sea
(Isaiah 11:6-9)

　

We must keep this vision alive.

(Taken from Bread for the Journey by Henri Nouwen)

Looking for more local presbyterian youth blogs...

Hello youths in our Presbyterian churches...if you know of any local presbyterian youth blogs, please send me the links. I will like to consolidate all here at our Synod Youth Ministry.

Two new editions this week:
1) GUM (Glory Presbyterian Chinese YM)
2) Prinsep Lighthouse (Prinsep YM)

Keep it coming! Thanks

Synod Youth Camp 2007: Plug-In

Brief details of the Synod Youth Camp 2007:

Theme: Plug-In

Date: 5^th – 8^th December 2007

Venue: Kuo Chuan Primary and Secondary School

CWM News: Malaysian Christians raise new religious freedom concerns

Malaysian Christians have expressed fresh worries that the government may be infringing their religious freedom after the country's deputy prime minister described Malaysia as an Islamic state.

The Christian Federation of Malaysia issued a statement on 19 July urging Datuk Seri Najib Abdul Razak to retract comments he made two days earlier when speaking to reporters. The deputy prime minister had said: "Islam is the official religion and Malaysia is an Islamic state, an Islamic state that respects the rights of non-Muslims, and we protect them."

Head of the Christian Federation of Malaysia Bishop Paul Tan Chee Ing said: "The Christian Federation of Malaysia appeals to the deputy prime minister to retract his aforesaid remarks, and to the government to refrain from the use of the term Islamic state in the description of Malaysia, and instead to vigorously advocate the description of Malaysia as a secular constitutional democracy."

The federation said the description of Malaysia as an Islamic state contradicted the country's constitution, which guarantees the right of all religious communities to co-exist and relate with each other on an equal basis as citizens of a one and united country.

Recently, in a number of high-profile cases, some Malaysians have failed in attempts to get the state to stop recognising them as Muslims.
Ecumenical News International

Video of the Synod Youth Games Day (by Yih Hwa of Amazing Grace PC)

Yahoo Videos

Equipping Course: Presbyterian Distinctives

Synod Staff 2007

20070619_SynodStaff 1
Originally uploaded by silverthorn11

Front Row - Eld Richard Chong (Synod Executive Secretary), Rt. Rev Tan Cheng Huat (Moderator), Rev May Tan (Synod Development Executive Secretary), Pr. Kim Tan (CP Executive Secretary)

Back Row - Pr Wilson Tan (Synod Youth Executive), Ms See Siew Kee (Synod Finance & Admin Manager), Pr. Lim Chye Peng (Synod Education Executive), Miss June Phoon (Synod Development Admin Asst), Ms Lau Jen Sin (Synod Communication Executive), Ms Goh Huey Huey (Synod Admin Asst), Ms Hao Bao Hui (CP Secretary), Mr Eddy Leo Kasman (Care-taker)

Not in picture - Rev Timothy See (EP Executive Secretary)

The Impact of the Digital World on our Youths Today!

Report on the Youth Mentors' Get Together
Speaker: Dr. Liu Yi Jiang (Asia Theological Centre), in Mandarin
Date: 7th Apr 2007
Time: 7:00-9:00pm (snacks provided)
Venue: Glory PC

This year, the Synod Youth Ministry specially prepared for two sessions of Youth Mentors' Get Together (one in Apr for CP churches and another one in November for EP churches). The first one conducted on 7th Apr 2007 at Glory Presbyterian Church and it was largely attended youth leaders and some youth mentors from 4-5 CP churches. Many churches received news of this event late because there was a email communication failure which I only knew about about a week before the event. And also the date clashed with many churches' celebration of the Easter event and so many mentors were not able to come.

Nonetheless, about 30 odd people came and Dr. Liu Yi Jiang spoke passionately on, "The Impact of the Digital World on our Youths Today." Intermingled with his own life stories and interesting anecdotes, Dr. Liu shared that as mentors' or teachers in youth ministry today, there is an urgent need to engage our youths in their digital world if we want to minister to them. We also need to re-assess our old methods of doing ministry. Take for example, encouraging our youths to read the Bible during quiet time has always been a difficult task for many churches and mentors, but maybe by first encouraging them to build up a personal relationship with God through prayer might be more suitable. And when they form this closeness with God, they would eventually want to read what God says in the Bible in their quiet time.

Dr. Liu offered many practical and insightful suggestions into how we mentor our youths in the digital world. For example, firstly learning what their world is all about through enagaging in their "plugged in" activites, the iPod generation, blogging, MSN chat, online gaming. The need to stay relevant in our ever-changing culture is much stronger today but the core of our identity stays unchanged. That is, we are still called to be a disciple of Christ, even in the digital world. We must stay true to our calling and help our youths to find this identity.

In designing a game (Part 1a)

I know I have promised to submit Part 2 of my installment soon, but it will take a while more.

Meanwhile I chanced upon a website that is exactly what I endeavor to do when I design a puzzle hunt, just like the one I did for the games in Youth Leadership Camp 2006.

Enjoy, but please keep the methods to yourself so that I can get to use them when the need arises.

Synod Youth Ministry - Adventure Race

Synod Youth Games Day 2007

IMG_9403
Originally uploaded by silverthorn11

What a wonderful day of fellowship and games last Sat, 26 May 2007, at Kuo Chuan Presbyterian Sec. School. On paper, we have close to 280 youths from 11 churches participating in this year's Synod Youth Games Day 2007. Praise God that it all went smoothly as planned and the rain clouds came and went very quickly too. Thank you all for participation and we look forward to next year's challenge. Many thanks to Pastor Kien Seng and his team of helpers from True Way PC! You guys were simply amazing! Thank you all!

It's our third year running this friendly competition. In our first year in 2005, we did not even had a trophy and we played football and basketball. In the following year, we added two trophies for football (guys) and capt's ball (girls). This year, we divided the age group further (13-18, 19-25) for both games, soccer for boys and mixed gender for capt's ball (only girls can score though) and added two more trophies to our tally. The winners this year for the following category are:

Boys Soccer 13-18: Amazing Grace PC (first time participants!!!)
Boys Soccer 19-25: Ang Mo Kio PC (defending champs for the last three years, but count as two because first year no trophy. Next year, if they win again, they can keep the trophy)

Mixed Capt's Ball 13-18: Covenant PC (I think Covenant youths play Capt's Ball every week issit? A clean sweep of top honors for Capt's Ball)
Mixed Capt's Ball 19-25: Covenant PC (also defending champs for the last two years, as the first year we did not have capt's ball. Next year, if they win, they can keep the trophy)

The Runners' Up are:
Boys Soccer 13-18: Glory PC English
Boys Soccer 19-25: Glory PC Chinese

Mixed Capt's Ball 13-18: Glory PC English
Mixed Capt's Ball 19-25: Glory PC English

Glory PC combined English and Chinese wins the most overall runner's up prize! Amazing! Hopefully next year they can win the top honors!

See ya next year!

TTC Public Lecture: The Peace that Surpasses All Understanding: A New Testament Theological Reflection' by Dr John Yieh

Dear Alumni,

INVITATION TO A PUBLIC LECTURE

I bring you warm greetings from Trinity Theological College.

I would like to invite you to a public lecture on Wednesday 30 May at 8pm at the TTC Chapel. The speaker is Dr John Yieh. Dr Yieh is Associate Professor in New Testament at Virginia Theological Seminary and obtained his PhD from Yale University. He will speak on 'The Peace that Surpasses All Understanding: A New Testament Theological Reflection'.

Dr Yieh researched on the Dead Sea Scrolls at the W. F. Albright Institute of Archaeological Research in Jerusalem. He also compiled a Concise Greek-Chinese Dictionary of the New Testament (1989), commissioned and published by the United Bible Societies and contributed to the drafting and editing of a study edition of the Chinese Bible.

He has published essays, articles, and reviews in the area of Gospels studies and cross-cultural hermeneutics and his most recent book is entitled "One Teacher: Jesus’ Teaching Role in Matthew’s Gospel Report ". He is now writing a book tentatively entitled: The Sermon on the Mount: a history-of-effects inquiry.

This public lecture is part of the programme of the Second International Congress of Ethnic Chinese Biblical Scholars (ECBC) to be held at TTC from 29 May – 1 June 2007, the first being held in Hong Kong's Chung Chi College in 2004. The theme for the Congress 2007 is Shalom: Biblical and Chinese Perspectives.

The public lecture is open to all and we encourage you to invite other interested persons to attend as well.

Yours in His Service,

Ngoei Foong Nghian

Principal

What is Intellectual Pride?

We are supposed to be praying against intellectual pride on 19th May. This sermon by Phillips Brooks should be of great help to us. The relevant section begins with the paragraph "I would speak again on what is called intellectual life..."

Creative Youth Ideas

Do check out this amazing youth resources website. It's absolutely free!

http://blog.creativeyouthideas.com/

Who was greater, Thomas A. Edison or his mother?

When he was a young lad his teacher sent him home with a note which said, 'Your child is dumb. We can't do anything for him.' Mrs. Edison wrote back, 'You do not understand my boy. I will teach him myself'. And she did, with results that are well known.

Hee! Hee! Quite funny!

"Bringing Significance Back Into Leadership" by Pamela Simpson

Leadership is a common word. We hear it used in business, church, politics, and everywhere else imaginable. So what? What's the big deal? Why is this word so common...and the real question is, how many times is it used with virtually no significance?

It's time to change that. "Leadership is influence...nothing more, nothing less." This phrase, used by many and coined across the globe by Dr. John C. Maxwell, really brings this word into focus. Leadership = Influence. Seems simple, right? And yet so many of us feel like we fail as leaders so often...or, even worse, feel like we've never even gotten to the point of being a leader.

But if this is true--that leadership is influence, then neither of these statements is really truth. No matter if we fail or not, we are still influencing. No matter if we have a leadership position or not, we are still influencing. Therefore, its no longer a question of success or position and this one truth becomes clear--everyone is a leader!

Everyone will influence someone in their lives and chances are that they will influence a whole lot more than that. In fact, some studies have shown that even the shyest of people will influence 10,000 people in their lifetime! Did you hear me? 10,000 PEOPLE! That's a whole lot! So, the question is no longer IF we will influence, but HOW we will influence.

I don't know about you, but I want to influence for good, not evil. I want to influence on the positive side, not the negative one. And even more than this, I want to influence those that will then influence even more...so that my 10,000 becomes not just 20,000 but multiplies into 100,000 and more! And even more than this...I want to influence the next generation of leaders, our youth, so that their influence will go beyond my lifetime. That's leadership. Let's make this word significant. Are you ready?

Pamela Simpson is the Project Coordinator for Equipping Leaders for Asia. She is currently coordinating 3 local events here in Singapore that will being the process of youth leadership training, with author and speaker of leadership, Dr. Tim Elmore. Check out the events! www.equippingleadersasia.org.

Synod Youth Games Day

Registration Form and Rules are on the right!

Date: 26 May 2007
Venue: Kuo Chuan Presbyterian Sec. School
Time: 1:30-6pm

Dateline: 12 May 2007

Each church can only send in max four teams, one for each of the four categories:

Boys only (street soccer style, boots required on the field)
- 7 aside soccer (13-18 year-olds)
- 7 aside soccer (19-25 year-olds)

Girls (min 3 girls) and Boys Mixed (only girls can score!)
- 7 aside capt's ball (13-18 year-olds)
- 7 aside capt's ball (19-25 year-olds)

Please contact Pastor Kien Seng for future enquires:
HP:
Email: kienseng@trueway.org.sg