This is mainly for people that I know, at least that I’ve met through Shatin Church.

Some of you may have heard that Anna and I have decided to move on to another church. This has been a long and painful decision, not least because I’ve been there so long, served there so much, and like a lot of you a lot!

Its been hard because I can’t explain all the reasons why I feel its right to move, but I want you to know:
- I have no ill feelings towards anyone currently at Shatin Church.
- While I have been hurt about things in the past, I also know my reaction to things has been less than perfect too
- God has used everything I’ve been through, being hurt, burnt out, depressed to grow and mature me
- I love God more than ever, even though at the same time I realise more than ever, how much I still have to grow and mature
- I do feel that there is a hope and future for both Shatin Church and myself, only that now the future is different for both of us

I want you to know I enjoyed serving with all of you, and have great affection for you and the times we spent together, especially in Solid Rock. I want you to know you’re still my friends and the last thing I would want is for you to feel you can’t ask me about this.

I am a Christian
I believe in Jesus
And I believe Jesus is the way
And I believe in heaven and I believe in hell
And I believe the Bible is God’s word
And I’m not a universalist because I believe God’s love is so great, God lets you decide

I believe in the community of the saints
I believe the Church is the fullness
I believe in the new heaven and the new earth
I believe in healing
I believe in miracles
I believe in salvation
I believe in the power of prayer
I believe that God is alive and working
I believe that there’s been a resurrection, and there’s a whole new creation bursting forth right here in the midst of this one
-Rob Bell

Christian holiness is not, as people often imagine, a matter of denying something good. It is about growing up and grasping something even better.

Made for spirituality we wallow in introspection.
Made for joy we settle for pleasure.
Made for justice we clamor for vengeance.
Made for relationship we insist on our own way.
Made for beauty we are satisfied with sentiment.

But, new creation has already begun, the sun has begun to rise. Christians are called to leave behind in the tomb of Jesus Christ, all that belongs to the brokenness and incompleteness of the present world. It is time in the power of the Spirit, to take up our proper role, our fully human role, as agents, heralds and stewards of the new day that is dawning. That, quite simply, is what it means to be Christian. To follow Jesus Christ into the new world, God’s new world, which he has thrown open before us.

Because sometimes the truth isn’t said enough.

If weakness is a wound that no one wants to speak of
Then “cool” is just how far we have to fall
I am not immune, I only want to be loved
But I feel safe behind the firewall

Can I lose my need to impress?
If you want the truth I need to confess

I’m not alright, I’m broken inside
And all I go through, it leads me to You

-Sanctus Real

The thing I mean can be seen for instance in children. When they find some game or joke that they especially enjoy, a child kicks his legs rhythmically through excess not absence of life. Because children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free.

Therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. they always say “Do it again!”, and the grown up person does it again until he is nearly dead. For grown up people are not strong enough to exalt in monotony.

But perhaps God is strong enough to exalt in monotony. It is possible that every morning God says;

“Do it again!” to the sun, and every evening;

“Do it again!” to the moon.

It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike. It may be that God makes every daisy separately but has never got tired of making them. It may be that he has the eternal appetite of infancy for we have sinned and grown old and our father is younger than we.