The VOICE Conference > the VOICE staff blog

Brotherly Love in Bible Lab

Posted on December 2, 2016 by Tim Chen

“Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity!” (Psalm 133:1)

In recent years, one of the greatest things that I am thankful for is being a part of Bible Lab. What is Bible Lab, you might ask? Bible Lab was started by my sister Karen originally as a time for her and another VOICE student to study the Bible together in English, and they came up with the term “Bible Lab”. I decided I would start doing the same thing, and so I and another VOICE student (who just happened to also be the younger brother of the first VOICE student) began to meet as well. Though at first I wanted a different name for the boy’s Bible study, the name Bible Lab name stuck.

Over the years, the people who make up Bible Lab have changed a lot. At times, the change can be sudden and difficult to adjust to. I remember back in 2011, when many students from that year’s VOICE joined Bible Lab, and suddenly, Bible Lab felt very different. At first, it was tempting to look back and wish that things could remain the way that they once were, to look down on the new students as immature strangers intruding in our close-knit group. At that moment, us older Bible Lab members had a choice: would we love and accept these new people as a part of us?

I am so thankful that together, we chose to love, and through that choice, God’s love became more real to me, and to all the people who attend Bible Lab. Because of that conscious choice, we have set a pattern where we continue to choose to accept anyone who comes to join, no matter what their age is, even if they haven’t been to VOICE. Currently, the people who come regularly to Bible Lab come from a variety of different years of VOICE— and even some who haven’t ever gone. We come from different churches, we are all different ages. What unites us is our love for God, our love for each other, and our desire to grow closer to Him.

While Bible Lab may only be in Taipei, remember, the body of Christ is all around the world. Don’t worry if you start small, because God’s love is contagious. Make the conscious choice to open your heart to others, and see how God’s love transforms your life and the lives of those around you.

Oh, and if you’re in Taipei? Let us know. You’re welcome to come to Bible Lab!

Bible Lab Thanksgiving 2014

Post-Election Peace?

Posted on November 13, 2016 by Camara Fedoriw

The first thing I wrote was partisan and bit self-righteous, so I’m trying again. I believe it’s important to work to mend the divide that has become apparent in this election. To me, it seems that Christians have been the most divided by this election than any other in my memory. In my Facebook news-feed alone, there were radical supporters of both candidates, sharing both rational debates and illogical fake news.

One late night show host, Stephen Colbert, said this about the divide:

By every metric, we are more divided than ever as a nation…. How did our politics get so poisonous? I think it’s because we overdosed, especially this year. We drank too much of the poison. You take a little bit of it so you can hate the other side and it tastes kind of good and you like how it feels and there’s a gentle high to the condemnation.

I know I overdosed. It helped me feel good about myself. It still helps me feel good, until I realize the hypocrisy and self-righteousness in my own heart. One of the main problems with the poison is that it isolates me from people who think differently than myself. I call myself a tolerant person, but I become intolerant when people tell me their reasoning for acting/voting differently than I think they should. But I want to be able to love. How do I?

On Thursday night, I had the words of Handel’s Messiah running through my head “and He shall reign forever and forever.” So I started listening to the complete Handel’s Messiah and I now recommend it as an antidote for believers who are experiencing fear of the future. If you take my advice, don’t miss the solos, which often are in minor keys but end on a major chord. “Unto Us A Child is Born” especially struck a chord with me, with the lyrics “and He shall be called wonderful counselor, the mighty God, the everlasting Father, the Prince of peace.”

As Christians, we have more that brings us together than divides us. We have a King who is known as wonderful counselor and the prince of peace.

We believe these things about Jesus, that He:

Became a man, entered our dark world, and suffered with us.
Was rejected by the majority, unjustly accused, and sentenced to death.
Arose from the dead, defeating the final enemy–death.
Hears the prayers of the downtrodden.
Calls us to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us.
And much, much more…

Since this is a post-election follow-up to Luke’s post, I would like to quote him: “Very concerning things are happening, but because of that, God will make all things well.” I am concerned, but when I am, I think about our King Jesus, who is a wonderful counselor and Prince of peace, and try to live like it.

All Manner of Thing…Even Trump or Clinton

Posted on November 2, 2016 by Luke Kallberg

According to Wikipedia, Julian of Norwich was the first woman to write a book in the English language. She said that she had a vision of Jesus in which he comforted her with a phrase that has become famous:

“In my folly, before this time I often wondered why, by the great foreseeing wisdom of God, the onset of sin was not prevented: for then, I thought, all should have been well. This impulse [of thought] was much to be avoided, but nevertheless I mourned and sorrowed because of it, without reason and discretion.
“But Jesus, who in this vision informed me of all that is needed by me, answered with these words and said: ‘It was necessary that there should be sin; but all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.‘”

I’m not sure what to say about the legitimacy of this story. But granting for the moment that this is God’s perspective on things, I’m tempted to wonder why Jesus speaks in the future tense. If things are not well now, how could they become well? Even a future heaven will no doubt include our memories of sadness and sin, and of course the wounds upon the Divine Person – by any account a shocking reflection of our sin against God. The usual answer is that those things, while reflections of sin, are also reflections of love. When, in heaven, we remember our sadness and sin, we will remember how desperately we needed Christ’s love and how undeserving of it we were. And when Christ displays his wounds, he displays the depth of his love for us. But if that’s all true, then why not go all the way and say the same things about the bad things in the world right now? Why not say with Alexander Pope that these wrongs are “well” because they display God’s love?

I think the genius of Julian’s quotation is just that it holds back from such a justification of the wrong in the world. The bad things that happen really are bad. Jesus’ suffering was bad. But the world will be well partly because of that – the depth of Jesus’ love will not be revealed unless bad things are done to him. That doesn’t make the bad things good, because his love isn’t revealed unless they are bad. This means that the future “well” is not merely what people have called “pie-in-the-sky-by-and-by.” It’s not just that God steps in and makes it all better, it’s that the pain now is part of the happiness then. And there is pain right now – right now, things are not well.

Sometimes we can’t avoid bad things. In a few days, America will elect a president who many people fear will bring complete catastrophe. It doesn’t matter whether it’s Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton – both have large groups of opponents who fear the worst if they are elected. No matter which is elected, we have a very contentious and upsetting next four years to look forward to. Things are not well in American politics. One way to trust in God’s sovereignty is like this: “God is in control, so there’s nothing to be concerned about.” But that’s not what Julian of Norwich would recommend. I think her advice, and the more correct and realistic way to trust in God’s sovereignty is more like this: “Very concerning things are happening, but because of that, God will make all things well.”

A Life of Worship

Posted on October 17, 2016 by Camellia Chan

What does it look like to worship God? Is worship restricted to a song set on Sundays, to volunteer work with your small groups, and to reading your Bible?

When I began teaching 9^th grade English at a Texan public high school, one of my greatest fears was to cross legal boundaries. As a university student, there were no rules against inviting my classmates to fellowship gatherings, no eyebrows raised were I to wish my professor the joy of Christ on a Christmas card. A country’s education system, however, is often its most politically charged and micromanaging organization, so as a first-year teacher, I wondered how I could live my life in worship within the classroom.

Aw man, I thought when I read the educator’s handbook warning against religious music and decorations, how can I show my kids the love of Christ when my 48 daily minutes are devoted to grammar and state-mandated tests?

Oh dear, I muttered when I saw my schedule, I have barely enough time to microwave my food, let alone pray conspicuously over lunch in the Teacher’s Lounge.

Aha, I said to God when I met my 130 kids, they need exactly what only You can offer, so I’ll be the best channel I know how to be.

For each person, a life of worship looks different. For me, it means taking extra time and resources to care for children falling through the cracks. It means knowing these kids’ names, their needs, their likes, their dislikes. It means stopping to listen when there’s only time for me to speak. When students ask the same question for the 7^th time, it means taking deep breaths and choosing to be patient.

Is it easy? Oh, goodness, no. When my students steal my supplies, try to physically intimidate me, talk back in class, skip my course, and blow up in my room, I sense a redness within me that I’ve rarely felt before. That, however, is when I must faithfully be an ambassador of Christ.

It is not “our job” to make people come to Christ. We are called, no matter where we are, to be a mirror of Jesus Christ. And there is no law against beaming his love, grace, and mercy into the lives I meet.

I fail often, no doubt about that, but it is my desire that my entire life gives glory to God, government-restricted job or not.

Is your life a representation of Jesus Christ? Do your actions and words speak Who you belong to?

Pray about what God has for you, specifically. As friends, children, parents, mentors, mentees, co-workers, leaders, employees, and employers, we are to be faithful where He has called us to be. He is worthy of our worship. Are you living it out?

God is real. Die like it.

Posted on October 5, 2016 by Anna Petersheim

“And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.” –John 17:3

Life. This is life –to know Him.

Our VOICE motto is “God is real. Live like it.” I read it often in the mirror when I wear one of my VOICE t-shirts. I look at the logo of the heartbeat beginning with a cross and I realize that true life starts with Christ. Isn’t it interesting that it is a symbol of death by which we, as believers, are recognized?

The cross is a symbol of a terribly cruel and painful death, yet we decorate our homes and buy diamond studded jewelry of it. I think perhaps many have grown a little too accustomed to seeing it, a little too familiar with its shape. So, lest it be trite and meaningless in our eyes, let’s take a moment to recognize what it means again.

Would you climb with me up to Golgotha, the hill on which Christ died? Let’s stand at his broken, bloodied feet. Let’s look up and see a dying Savior, bearing all the sin –all our sin. And, let’s hear him speak these words: “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.” (Matthew 16:24-25)

Do you want to have eternal life? You must know Him. Do you want to know Him? You must die.

The words Jesus spoke in Matthew 16 are significant. He said “take up your cross”. Don’t just wear a symbol of His death –take up YOUR cross! It’s time to die, if you would like to live.

“Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abides alone: but if it die, it brings forth much fruit. He that loves his life shall lose it; and he that hates his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal.” –John 12:24-25

I’m not talking about a future physical death. Right now, you can have eternal life flowing through you like a spring of water that cannot be stopped. How?

We must stop trying to do “right” things; we must stop living out the goodness of our own hearts. We cannot live for ourselves and also have eternal life.
We MUST let His Words abide in us and kill off the thoughts of self. We must quit thinking our own thoughts and let His Spirit speak His thoughts in us.

Will you die with me today? More importantly, will you die with Christ, and live?

Looking Down or Looking Up

Posted on September 3, 2016 by Timothy Feig

In the past few years, I have dealt with a number of people who I felt were doing their jobs wrong. When I looked at the actions they took, I thought of many different ways that they could act and think differently. By differently, I meant “better”. I looked down on those people because they did not think or act as I thought they should. I lost sight of the people themselves because of the “glasses” of arrogance that I wore. My pride told me I was better. That pride led to anger. Frustrated, I would ask myself why they did not do things as they should be done (as I would do them.) I began to despise them. Whole groups of people became no more than targets of my distain.

This morning I was reminded of Proverbs 6 verses 16-19, which says:

There are six things that the Lord hates,seven that are an abomination to him: haughty eyes, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked plans, feet that make haste to run to evil, a false witness who breathes out lies, and one who sows discord among brothers.

In my arrogance I looked on my neighbors with haughty eyes. I spoke of them in pride and anger, and not as God sees them, so I spoke with a lying tongue. I was angry without cause, which is the same as shedding innocent blood. Looking at the rest of the 7, I realized that in my arrogance, I acted out each of these 7 abominations to God. That is not a good place to be. It is a scary place to be. God made it pretty clear that I am not lining up my life with the gospel.

I want my life to reflect the gospel. And what does the gospel say? “All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all.” —Isaiah 53.6 “They” are not the ones who are messed up and worthy of judgement, it is “we”, or, me. I am just as deserving of judgement and distain as those I looked down upon. I am more deserving of judgement if Jesus’ treatment of the Pharisees is any indication. Thankfully, judgement is not where the gospel leaves us. Even as my actions have been an abomination to God, Christ has taken my iniquity upon himself.

Wow. That is pretty cool to think over. Again, God has chosen to lift me out of the pit of my own slime, take the slime on himself, and clean me.

With this renewed perspective, how do I go forward? Micah 6.8 sums it up very nicely:

He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.

This is what God showed me in the mirror of these verses. Take a look for yourself.

Striving

Posted on August 28, 2016 by ethanfeig

“What are you striving for?” a guest speaker at my church asked.

Frankly, I’m a little surprised I even heard him. I often zone out, get distracted thinking about all the things I need to prepare for work on Monday, or am too busy critiquing what is being said to actually let my heart listen. But I heard him this time and my mind made the connection that he had been pushing towards throughout the entire sermon while at the same time my heart told me this was something I needed to hear. We all are striving for something. We’re all spending effort chasing after something. It could be entertainment, parties, friendships, romantic relationships, money, power, prestige…it could be all of those things.

I know what I currently AM striving for, but what SHOULD I be striving for?

The thing that hit me while sitting in church that Sunday was this: the things I’m striving for, they might not be bad things, but they’re not the most important thing. The most important thing is knowing God and knowing He knows me, personally. Everything else comes second. Am I striving to know God? Do I spend effort, actual effort, to know God more?

So yeah, God is helping me readjust how I think about my time and effort and what’s important. To be honest, I will probably need God to adjust my thinking again, soon. And again soon after that, and again after that.

Realign, refocus, renew, restore, redeem.

The Sourness of “Cherry Picking”

Posted on August 5, 2016 by Lauren Chen

I admit, lately I’ve been having a hard time not getting really frustrated by “Christian” society/culture. Before I tell you why, let me say that I know I am deeply flawed. I have so many things that I need to let God change in my life. I’m not denying that. Still…

I wonder if you’ve noticed the same situation too? It’s when so-called Christians “zero in” on one sin, and treat it worse than others.

In English, doing something like this [i.e. talking about or choosing only what you want and disregarding the rest] can be called “cherry picking”.

This kind of cherry picking gives unbelievers the wrong impression! They think all Christians believe we’re better, or without sin. But, if we are serious disciples, we know that the Bible condemns such ideas as hypocritical and prideful.

Moreover, others won’t be able to see God’s TRUE JUSTICE if we only tell them that God judges the sins that we consider bad, while pretending that He ignores the ones we want to hide! That’s deceptive (and ignorant).

Often, recently, I’ve had to explain to several people that “No… homosexuality is not the only sin God hates. Any sexual activity that is not between a husband and wife who are in a committed, lifelong marriage-covenant-relationship (ex. having an affair, sex before marriage, incest, polygamy, etc.) is all against His perfect design… AND, in fact, lying, gossip, anger (uh-oh) :(, cheating, gluttony, lust, and a bunch of other things are also sins. ……
……
BUT FURTHERMORE, because of Christ, all of these things can be forgiven!
Washed clean, forever.

I should add that, sometimes the problem is that we Christians ADD things to the list that God never said were sins… legalism. — Nevertheless, whether we “add sins” or take them away, others can’t see God’s TRUE GRACE if we pretend like our “goodness” has anything to do with our salvation.

Either Jesus’ blood washes ALL of our sins, or NONE of them.

*sigh*

I don’t think that this problem will ever go away. I think it’s one of Satan’s tactics.
But it just seems like it’s so hard to share the gospel with people when almost everything they ever hear about Christianity is false, flawed, only half true, or told by people who only half-follow Christ…

Do you ever feel this way too?

Who’s in Control?

Posted on July 21, 2016 by Wes Dudley

Jesus asked his followers a startling question one day: “Why do you call me ‘Lord’ and not do the things that I say?” Jesus was essentially saying, “Why do you insinuate that I am your king but don’t do what I’ve asked you?”

This question should pierce the heart of everyone who calls themselves a disciple of Jesus. Who is Jesus to you? Is He real? Is He someone you turn to only when times are hard, or merely someone that you look to because you had parents that steered you in the direction of Christianity? There is no way that we can declare He is real, and the Lord of our life, and still consistently withhold a portion of the control of our lives.

Jesus wants a relationship with you so bad that He was willing to die to get it. But living up to the greatest potential of that relationship requires a shift on your part. A shift in your thinking and in your doing – living your life as though it isn’t yours at all. Realizing that your life belongs to Jesus and He is in control. The Lord is a friend to those who fear Him – shifting your entire life to be a faithful follower of the only One worth following.

Recently I had the privilege of getting to know a Christian man who had lived under an oppressive communist regime in Europe for many years. He shared many harrowing stories with me about various hardships and how he smuggled Bibles without the authorities catching him. Although communism has since dissipated in that country and everyone living there has experienced freedom for many years, he said something that really hit me. He stated how he has realized that the hardest thing for any Christian is to just be faithful to Jesus. The temptation is always there to take control of our own lives, but our responsibility as a follower of Christ is to be faithful in our freedom or in persecution.

Let it be said of us
That the Lord was our passion
That with gladness we bore
Every cross we were given
That we fought the good fight
That we finished our course
Knowing within us the power of the risen Lord

Let the cross be our glory
And the Lord be our song
By mercy made holy
By the Spirit made strong

Let the cross be our glory
And the Lord be our song
‘Till the likeness of Jesus
Be through us made known
Let the cross be our glory
And the Lord be our song

(Steve Fry)

I Need Help

Posted on July 9, 2016 by Camara Fedoriw

When considering what I would write about, I had a small internal crisis. What can I write about that is actually me being authentic, not just writing a fluff piece about something slightly deep that’s safe to share? You see, I have a problem that’s actually skewing my perspective on the community of Christ and causing me to question anything anybody says about Christianity. I go to church and sing the songs and listen to the message and the whole time, I’m constantly condemning others based on my paranoid assumptions.

I do the following:

View every Christian leader with suspicion, especially if they sound confident. (Because confidence is fake)
Hear a happy song and instantly assume the singer is a fake.
Think people are fake when they’re crying during worship.
Don’t give my money to charity, because I’m worried that it’s fake.
Read a church sign and instantly jump to conclusions about the church.
Assume I’m part of the spiritual elite because I’m better than that other fake person.
Think, that person clearly does not understand _______. But I do. (Because I’m not a fake)

And I realize, I’m not really loving people. I’m using the many examples of public Christian failure to bolster my condemnation of people I don’t even know. It’s causing me to miss out on the beauty of Christian community.

It’s like the dwarfs in C.S. Lewis’ The Last Battle who refuse to see the new Narnia because of their paranoia and unbelief.

“[The dwarfs] will not let us help them. They have chosen cunning instead of belief. Their prison is only in their own minds, yet they are in that prison; and so afraid of being taken in that they cannot be taken out.”

Part of the beauty of the Christian community is that we all come together at the foot of the cross. We have all sinned, and we are all loved by the same Savior. “There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” Galatians 3:28

Some ways that I’m going to try to deal with my condemning paranoia (not in order of importance):

Write this blog post. Say the words “I don’t know. I’m struggling. I need help.” Especially because I don’t want to admit those things. I want to be independent and fix my own problems, thank you very much. But I’m sick of staying caught inside my own head trying to sort this all out… The second one is closely related, and better, because it involves community.
Go talk to people in real life about this problem. Even though I’m certain that nobody can understand me the way I understand myself! Oh wait, I don’t understand myself either.
I don’t know! I’m struggling! I need help! But the confusion is less having written this.