Mark your calendars now.
Those in Singapore: 11-14 September 2008 7.00pm at Singapore Indoor Stadium. Visit http://www.stemi.org.sg/whoisjesus/ for more details.
Those in Jakarta: 19-21 September 2008 18.30 WIB at Stadion Utama Gelora Bung Karno. Visit http://jakarta2008.com/ for more details.
As any other weekend, it started on Friday night, I went for Kung Fu Panda movie, which I highly recommend you to watch. It’s hilarious. On Saturday morning, I went for Heryanto (Nyile) and Christine (Santos) wedding until around 2PM, then I headed straight to PC Show at Suntec. I accompanied a friend to get a highly discounted new, just-released HTC Touch Diamond. Retail price is $1,098, but Singtel is selling at $498 for 2-years contract. By the time we reached there about 2.45PM, everywhere in Singtel booth, they put up this sign that read: “HTC Touch Diamond Out of Stock. Contact us for reservation details“. No choice, my friend had to reserve a set which Singtel will only have it ready by Thursday earliest.
For me, I managed to buy a pretty decent $5 laptop sleeve case for my Macbook, as well as an in-ear headphone in Sony MDR-EX32LP for $38.
Few hours later, we arrived back at NBC for young adults fellowship, and after that, we dropped by CK Tang for a while before went to watch The Incredible Hulk. The movie was pretty slow, and there wasn’t enough action to thrill us, the viewers. Only three smiles from me for Hulk 
I didn’t even realised I was sitting at the same seat number in Lido and GV for different movies on different day, cool coincidence eh?
Today, a friend from Australia came, so I’ll meet her with Dian at Vivo City for lunch, before heading to church for cell group and Sunday service. Hopefully I’ll still have energy to spare to accompany my colleague to Newton Life Church for Mandarin Sunday service. Now I need The Incredible strength
Now, if we think that is tiring, imagine our pastor, Rev. Dr. Stephen Tong, who cares so much for us, that he, at the age of 67, will have session for teens at Cibubur from 5 AM today, then preached in Indonesian language at Jakarta at 7 AM, followed by 9.30 AM sermon in Mandarin, then fly to Singapore for Indonesian language sermon at 5 PM (which usually ends about 7.15PM), then continued to Newton Life Church to preach at 7.30 PM. Early Monday morning, he’ll fly back to Jakarta to teach those teens again in Cibubur, and rushed for an afternoon flight to Kuala Lumpur, and continuing his usual journey to Taiwan, Hong Kong, and back to Jakarta on weekend. Phewwwww….. Now, that’s tiring !! If it is not for God and His truth and all of us, no one in the world would ever done that.
After our fellowship on Saturday, no less than 84 of us went to watch The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian at Lido. Our fellowship ended close to 7.30pm, and immediately all of us rushed from Bugis to Lido for the 815pm movie. Most of us reached there around 8.05-8.10pm, quickly queued for whatever junk food there are at Shaw House I settled for two pieces of Bread Talks.
After all the adverst, the movie started proper close to 8.30pm, and here’s what I thought about the movie.
Warning: potential spoiler ahead.
The movie started as many movies, not as fast, to get the story into the audience. Some messages were sent across fine, like when Narnians can’t fight themselves, no matter what kind of tactics they employ, without the help of Aslan. It was made very clear in the movie, the moment Aslan came into the movie, how he reversed the battle for Narnians, from the position of almost losing to a clear victory. The message drive across was like our lives, no matter how much, how hard we tried to do things in our lives, without God, we will fighting a losing battle.
The second important point that the movie tried to send across, but probably didn’t succeed as good. After the movie, I felt that it’s though Aslan left Narnians to their own fight and Aslan was nowhere to be found in Narnians. The truth is Aslan was there in Narnia all along. It’s just that Narnians refused to believe that Aslan exists, and thus unable to see him. Similarly in our lives, it’s not that God doesn’t exist. He exists whether you believe in Him or not, but until you believe in Him, you’ll not be able to “see” Him.
Some sentences spoken were changed in the movie from the book, losing some important message in the process. I’ll just quote from Stand to Reason blog, who mentioned this fact too.
Changes in two key lines from the book greatly weaken his character. The first one happens when Lucy finally meets Aslan face to face. She remarks to him that he’s bigger. In the film, Aslan says that every year she gets bigger, so shall he get bigger. But here’s the actual interchange in the book:
“Aslan,” said Lucy, “you’re bigger.”
“That is because you are older, little one,” answered he.
“Not because you are?”
“I am not. But every year you grow, you will find me bigger.”
This is actually a very profound idea and one of my favorite moments in the book. When we deepen with age and experience, we’re able to see further into the rich depths of God, and our understanding and awe of His greatness grows. It’s very clear in the book that the change is happening all on Lucy’s side, but the film leaves the impression that Aslan has changed (whether that was what they intended or not)
The second change is even worse (being more explicit) and involves another of the ideas most memorable to me–one that recurs throughout the series. In the book, when Lucy realizes she’s failed to do something she should have–and could have–done, she asks Aslan what would have happened had she done what was right: “Please, Aslan! Am I not to know?” Aslan responds powerfully, “No. Nobody is ever told that.” Aslan has authority and perfect wisdom–rebelling against his command has consequences, and Lucy’s not doing what he had revealed for her to do causes new difficulties for everyone. But make no mistake, Aslan is quite aware of what would have happened had she obeyed. Compare this to the film version where Aslan’s response to Lucy’s plea is: “We can never know what would have happened.” We? Yikes! I’m not a fan of open-theist (open-lionist?) Aslan. These changes are small–just a few lines here and there, but they have huge implications that weaken Aslan.
The last part when Susan kisses Caspian was the worst part of the movie. I agree, a simple kiss on the hand will be much more noble and romantic.
Overall, the movie was good for 2.5 hours, I didn’t even feel the movie was that long. Despite all my criticism above, it’s a good movie. It’s just that some subtle changes to the sentences and the movie, that weaken Aslan, in turn weaken the movie message compared to the book.
Highly recommended. FOUR stars from me.
1st verse
They tell me Jesus died
For my transgressions
That He paid that price a long, long time ago
When He gave His life for me
On a hill called Calvary
But there’s something else I want to know
Chorus
Does He still feel the nails
Every time I fail
Can He hear the crowd cry “Crucify” again
Am I causing Him pain
Then I know I’ve got to change
I just can’t bear the thought of hurting Him.
2nd verse
It seems that I’m so good at breaking promises
And I treat His precious grace so carelessly
But each time He forgives
What if He re-lives
The agony He felt on that tree
Chorus 1x
Holy, holy
Holy is the Lord
Holy Holy
Holy is the Lord
Do You still feel the nails
Every time I fail
Have I crucified You Jesus with my sins
Oh I’m tired of playing games
I really want to change
I never want to hurt You again
Holy, Holy
Holy is the Lord
Holy, Holy
Holy is the Lord
Only for those who understand Bahasa Indonesia unfortunately, but as usual, everyone are welcomed 
See you there.
If you’re a teenager or a young adult or know anyone who would like to attend, everyone are welcomed to our Gospel Rally this coming Sunday. The details are below. Do come, and hope to see you there.
For teenager, the gospel rally will be in Bahasa Indonesia, translated to English.
For young adults, as the service coincides with our normal Sunday service, it’ll only be held in Bahasa Indonesia.
Come to this year Christmas Gospel Rally on 16th December 2007. One in Bahasa Indonesia will start at 4pm, while the Mandarin translated to English will start at 7.30pm. Both sermons during the gospel rally will be brought to you by Rev. Dr. Stephen Tong. There are various versions below, feel free to download and share through email, print-out, blog, friendster, myspace, facebook, any way you can get your friends through. There are version below that you can use for MMS too.
Indonesian version poster. Click here for the original A3-size poster. Warning, it’s 2.2 MB in size.
Mandarin/English version poster. Click here to download original version.
To be used with mobile phone sending through MMS.
Click here to download 240×320 version, or 480×640 version.
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