Our struggles and HIS miracles!

We, as COLLIDE team, wanna share a little bit testimony of what we had been going through in these past few months leading to the July event.

You know, the vision that God gave us for Collide is sooooo BIG, colliding with the rest of other youth Christians in the whole Spore, and HE said, this will be a platform for revival in this city. Wow. Really cool!

When we first started out, we were so excited, seemed like ‘yeah, we can do this man!!’. But as weeks went by, and THE GATHERING is getting closer and closer. We met a lot of challenges. Some of us started to feel the heavy burdens to carry this vision. Some of us were challenged in the faith area. Some of us started to question, as we are only a small group of people abt 60 in total, how on earth we going to fill up the space in Expo with 1000 people?

And also, there are a lot of walls that we have to face. You know when there is a collaborations between churches, there will be different opinions, there will be inside motives etc. Some even think that we might steal their youth from them (i’m being honest here), but we believe we have to keep our heart and spirit pure. We don’t care how many people, who go to the event, will go to your church, or our church. What we know is that this is for JESUS’ CHURCH. Thats what we have to keep in mind. What we wanna do thru Collide is just glorying Him, and nothing else.

For the first few months, it was pretty hard for us to approach other churches. Yes, we got a few replies, some of them good, some of them not so. We really can only depend on His grace to carry this vision. At one point, we felt that this method of approaching the leaders of the churches are not working, so we changed it to ‘from the bottom up’. What it means, the youth itself that has to carry the vision and burn their leaders with it.

Other than that, we have this Collide prayer meeting every month. What we do is just we pray and pray together. And we are really encouraged to see that our youth group members are willing to invest their time in praying for Collide. As what some of us know that for youth, praying is boring . But from this, we can see that the youth are really hungry for God.

And in our last prayer meeting last month, we were kinda crying out to God on how fill up that place with 1000 people. But God reminded us not to think of numbers but to keep looking up to Him. Some of us prayed for our faith not to be shaken, what most important is we meet HIM during Collide. We should not lose focus on what the real core of this gathering. And we thank God for giving us the opportunity to see His miracles thats going to happen, as the vision is big and we are small.

During the prayer, I thought abt the cost that we have to cover (it is not a small amount, man), the people we have to reach, the things we have to plan and do. So many things, so little time. Seemed like the burden was getting heavier. But Jesus said to me, “Is anything too hard for Me?”

And after that prayer meeting, there are breakthrough after breakthrough. All of a sudden, some youth pastors contacted us. Out of nowhere! We were very encouraged by them. And they are very in tune with what Collide all about. We actually kinda need 70 ushers for the event, and we had no idea how to get that many people for ushers alone! Its like more than our group! But this pastor from other church, is willing to help us with anything. He said he can supply that 70 ushers and even counsellors! WOW… And other churches also chipping in by involving their leaders and their youth to help in Collide. Either in decorations, prayer leaders, music etc. Man!!! They are really God-sent!!!

At first we didn’t know how to carry this vision, but now, the puzzles slowly come together. We are very excited to see how God will make this happen. It is not by our strength, but He is the one who do the impossible for us! Praise God.

That’s all we wanna say for now. Please pray fervently for the event. We still have a lot of things to take care of. Will not survive without your prayers.

GBU and LETS SPREAD HIS FIRE!!!!!

The Designer.

Collide in Chemistry Class

An email from a guitarist…

 

I was in Chemistry class the other day and I learnt somethings that I think relates to COLLIDE =p so I wanna share it wit you guys!

A reaction takes place when reacting particles collide with enough energy to break the existing bonds ……..
 
and this is the coolest part,
 
factors affecting the rate of reaction :
1. Temperature -Heating the reactants make the particles gain more kinetic energy and collide more often
2. Particle size   -Breaking the solid into smaller pieces will make the particles collide more often
3. Catalyst       -Catalyst provides an alternative path for the reaction to take place, one which requires a lower activation energy.  So more colliding particles will have the activation energy to form products. Thus, incerasing the rate of reaction.
4. Concentration -Increasing concentration of a reactant in solution increases the number of particles so collisions between particles can take place more frequently.
 
Does it make sense?
 
Collide is not just a one day event , the event itself is just the catalyst.The real collide should be done everyday in our daily lives… rite?!
 

End.

 

 

Wanna see how small we are?

You just have to check out this link!

Click here!

More of You, less of me…

Lately, the whole team has been really busy getting the COLLIDE website up and running and making everything more alive and kicking, as our web-man puts it. Being the perfectionist that I am, I just had to check on the website everyday as it underwent renovation… and add a FACEBOOK group, a YOUTUBE channel, this blog you are reading right now, a flickr photostream… and you sort of figure out that these past few days I have been going back and forth many times to each thing and making it perfect. Perhaps its a disease, a compulsion to be perfect and in control at all times, not wanting to see a single little mistake on these things that will be people’s window to COLLIDE. Really, I just can’t help it… (i think I’ve even annoyed some of the team members with my constant criticsm about the website these last 3 days haha sorry..) i think there’s just something in me that tells myself that if I really make sure everything is perfect, then it will all be just that, PERFECT. However, today, my mother said something that just caught me… it floored me… all she said was – “remember, this is ultimately God’s event.”

My first reaction was… sheesh mom, off course, I know, that’s something that I don’t ever forget… but then looking back at my actions these past few days, I have indeed forgotten that this is “ultimately God’s event”. With all my stressing to make things perfect, I have placed my confidence of success on my own shoulders instead of God’s shoulders. All the pressure seemed to be on me… COLLIDE’s fate seemed to hinge on the website’s perfection and the popularity of COLLIDE’s facebook group… but in truth, it does not. Nothing really hinges on us or what we do because we are actually really really really really really small compared to God… (check this out for Astrological proof of our miniscule-ness, make sure you read till the end) Everything hinges on God! And we should rejoice at that fact! Sometimes we put more pressure on our own shoulders than we need to, be it during exams, when you are applying for University or when you are organising an event.

I’m not saying that we just laze around in front of the television all day and not revise for our final exams because our grades depend on God and not us. That is not right… in the bible it says that “faith without action is dead”. Yes we need to try our best and work hard to achieve all that we want to achieve, but why don’t we do so remembering that God is ultimately in control and that the final result ultimately depends on what God does and not what we do, and God never messes up… now wouldn’t that just make you worry less and have more peace in your heart. Yeah you can choose to depend on yourself and study like crazy till u drop dead and put your confidence in your own ability, yet no matter what, you can’t be perfect, no matter what, there will still be gaps in your knowledge that will make you worried-sick of failure… no matter what, we humans are always at risk of messing up… you can’t last long depending on yourself, and even if you succeed in the end, you would have paid the price of countless sleepless hours spent being worried. But when our confidence is in a mighty and HUGE GOD, you can feel at total peace eventhough after trying your best, what you have done might still not be all perfect, because you remember that really, the outcome does not depend on you but on Him.

You know, Simple Plan’s song PERFECT comes to my mind, the one that goes.. “I’m sorry, I can’t be perfect”… i think that is something that everyone in the world is usually afraid to admit… Today I admit that I CANT BE PERFECT, that is who I am becasue I am a human, i mess up…  But it’s ok… In our weakness, God is strong… in our imperfection, God is perfect… Though we mess up, GOD does not… so my prayer tonight shall be – God, as we carry out our responsibilities everyday and do things to make you famous, help us live a life that finds confidence and security in YOU and not in our own abilities. Teach us to depend on You more Lord as we work our butts off in this world… Replace our worries with peace and replace this compulsion of always wanting to be in control, with a heart willing to surrender and depend on You. COLLIDE is YOUR event and You never mess up… in all I do, let there be more of You and less of me…

Riso

COLLIDE-ing with Bethany Church

On 5th April 2008, we COLLIDE-ed with our friends at Bethany Church at their event called ‘Campus Day’. It was awesome! We were all pretty nervous because we have never been to Bethany Church and we don’t know many people there haha but as soon as the lift doors opened to the 7^th floor, maaaan we were welcomed so warmly that we did not feel out of place or awkward.

And then the praise and worship! Wow! The songs that the Bethany youth uses are the same songs that we use in our youth group! That was really cool, it shows just how similar we are actually despite our different church backgrounds and stuff. You can just feel so much excitement and passion for Jesus in that place. It was cooool…

Then it was our turn to present 2 songs haha and this was the awesome part…

So we sang ‘Counting on God’ by Desperation Band and ‘More of You Less of Me’ by Frontline Generation. Honestly man… it was one of the coolest worship experiences in my life. Nothing spectacular happened, no giant fire fell from heaven and consumed the stage or no earthquake shook the building but you know when we sang the chorus of ‘More of You Less of Me’… “This is my life I give… all my life I offer you…..” I really felt something just coming down into the room, I believe it was God’s presence, His ‘kabot’ which literally means ‘God’s weight’ in Hebrew. It was heavy… I think if more of it came, I would have fallen to my knees. I believe it wasn’t because we played a good song or we sang loudly, but I think God’s heart is stirred when, He sees His people gather together in unity, destroying the divisions of churches and doctrine to simply come and seek His face and worship Him. And when we are able to stir God’s heart, great things happen.

Maybe some of you guys are still asking what COLLIDE is and what’s it all about.

Well, what we just had today was a glimpse of what’s in store. Today was a mini-COLLIDE, just two youth groups, Bethany youth and IFGF youth. It didn’t matter which youth group you were from, it did not matter which school you were from, all that mattered was our passion for Christ, which unites us all the same. Just imagine this times 100 more youth groups and 2000 more people, doing nothing but worshipping God as we did just now and COLLIDING with God’s presence head on!

We came to Bethany as strangers but we can happily say that we left with many new friends, more passion and ideas to raise God’s banner in our schools, and a bookmark saying “Revival in My School Starts With ME!”.

Let’s emerge more boldly for HIS fame guys!!!,

The Collide Team

Did you feel the mountains tremble?

a song by Delirious?

 

Did you feel the mountains tremble?

Did you hear the oceans roar?

When the people rose to sing of

Jesus Christ the risen one.

Did you feel the people tremble?

Did you hear the singers roar?

When the lost began to sing of

Jesus Christ the saving one.

And we can see that God you're moving

A MIGHTY RIVER through the nations

And young and old will turn to Jesus

Fling wide you heavenly gates!!!!

Prepare the way of the risen Lord!!!

Open up the doors and let the music play

Let the streets resound with singing

Songs that bring your HOPE

Songs that bring your JOY

Dancers who dance upon injustice.

Do you feel the darkness tremble??

When all the saints join in ONE song.

And all the streams flow as ONE river

To wash away our brokenness.

And here we see that God you're moving.

A time of jubilee is coming

When young and old return to Jesus

Fling wide you heavenly gates.

Prepare the way of the risen Lord.

 

 

A movement!

I was typing some email and it occurred to me­ that COLLIDE shouldn’t just be a one night event!

It should be an act that we do in our daily lives.­ Colliding with God, with people and with other christians,­ so instead of doing all we are doing to invite them to one event where they do this, what if we change the mindset?

What if we invite people into what collide-ing is and invite them to live a life that does this in their daily lives.­ A lifestyle… of continously colliding with God, people and other Christians,­ and we celebrate this in THE GATHERING we call COLLIDE or THE COLLISION!­

So instead of collide-ing in one event for one night, we invite people to capture the idea of COLLIDE so that they can start collide-ing now and after the gathering.­ And we gather just to celebrate these COLLISIONS.

We can be like a movement to promote collide-ing and unity among youth groups and the website can eventually be a centre where youth groups collide with each other: (wherewecollide.com)

I guess this is what COLLIDE can become eventually.

Got to launch and spread the vision first and this Gathering in July should help Greater things are yet to come. Wouldn’t it be cool if the website can be a centre where youth groups just collide?

I imagine in the WHAT’S UP section, all the different youth groups of various churches in Singapore can post what event they each are having. And through the website, we invite people to help pray for these events, eventhough its not their youth’s event, and get to know or help each other more as God’s soldiers, part of ONE generation! Then each year we celebrate and remind ourselves what COLLIDE is by gathering together for a night

A UNITY that youth groups in Singapore has never seen before shall be birthed out!!!

Riso.