Showing posts with label people. Show all posts
Showing posts with label people. Show all posts

Monday, June 1, 2009

1a.m. MAY ENCOUNTER

There is amazing development in what God has been doing or speaking to us in our journey in wanting to do Change Your World (CYW).

On May 3rd - 5th , the team went away for 3 days just seeking God on why “Change Your World”. One of the reasons why we did that is because we’re not sure if it was really God or us being man trying to be heroes. To be honest, there are too many uncertainties and these are just a few things on how we felt:

  1. We are nobody in Malaysia - no one really knows who 1a.m. is.
  2. We don’t have the finance as it takes at least half a million if we want to do 14 States. Yeap our church is too small and do not have such finances to run this.
  3. We are a small church and the amount of man power needed to do this needs what maybe Hillsongs or Planetshakers kind of capacity. Maybe we are too ambitious.

But after a burning bush experience with God, I am not only fired up but the whole band is totally consumed by what God spoke in our retreat. This is the summary from Cuzario, Neil and Kelvin.

Two weekends ago we set for the mountainous hiding place, away from the city, to seek and hear from God hoping that He would reveal His immediate action plans for us in 1am as we unfold yet another new and interesting chapter of our ministry.

This year He is entrusting us with a 2-year project, our biggest so far, called Change Your World; due to kick off in August. Honestly speaking, though fully driven by our childlike faith (as always), we didn’t quite have the clearest picture of what the whole thing should be like. Crazy ideas were aplenty and scattered everywhere but pieced together the effect of braving the approximately 18 degrees centigrade Malaysian winter for a latte night at Starbucks, close to 6000 feet above sea level.

Things weren’t the same after we got our caffeine shot that night

Early the next morning as we battled against our growling tummies, God began to speak to each one of us mostly through His living Word, some pictures. The next few paragraphs are just a few of the amazing things revealed to us

In Luke 5:5 we observed that despite the many hours of trying, Simon did not grunt when Jesus told him to drop his net on the water for what would probably be one of his last attempts that night. Without complaining he did exactly as told saying, At Your Word (some translations because You say so) I will let this net down. Just like Simon we, for most of the time, have no slightest clue of what it takes to labor for or partner with God we come to a dead end without knowing it; typically choosing to stop, drop everything, quit, forget about it and never ever make a come back. But Simon was not a quitter. Instead, as a reward of his obedience, he was able to have the last laugh that night catching most likely his biggest catch in his entire fishing career. More than that, he was able to share the spoils with his buddies too! Being in the boat with Simon, we can’t but so wanting to emulate his feat and of course his great servant hood attitude. We want to obey Gods command like Simon did, believing in His every word without any hint of doubt. It didn’t require much and there’s nothing to lose, really. Because He said so, we will go

Moving on to verse 17 of the same chapter, the sentence that caught our attention was, the power of God was present.

Well, in all honesty, this is our truest desire for all the things we do in our ministry. Never in our mind will we ever take pride in the things we are doing or called to do. Our up most prayer is that for His power to be present so evident that others can’t deny that it is truly by His work we are able to execute everything put into our plates, be it in our small productions or gigantour concerts! All we are about is bringing His presence to every single life around us.

Lastly for this entry then He showed through one of us an image of a compass, one that has a hand as would an analog clock. Clockwise, the hand ticked beginning from the North proceeding to the East; then making a way passing the South at the six o clock mark before wrapping its not-so-complete cycle up in the West. Frankly, none of us knew what this exactly means (and yes, we are still trying to decipher the illustration) but in my humble opinion, I felt that this could probably be the route He wants us to take for this tour. As far as my geographically-challenged mind can go, I remembered we first introduced this tour in the Northern part of our country followed exactly by another state in the West. The third stop was a city in the Southern part of Peninsular Malaysia and the next, but not the last just yet, was in yes you got it right it was arguably to the West (actually North, depending on where and how your standing position is while reading this) of the previous city! So there you go, need me to say more?

Stay with us for more news

Tuesday, April 14, 2009

1a.m. NEW WEBSITE LOOK

What a crazy month March turned out to be for us at 1a.m.! We are currently in the midst of fine-tuning a project we dreamed of embarking months ago called Change Your World, among others.


Concurrently, we are also in the last phase of upgrading our main website temporarily replacing it with the Change Your World website. If you would like to explore and check out the content, simply log on to our existing address at www.1am.com.my; you might just find something that will trigger your curiosity.


Just a little snippet of what you will find:


Facebook: Join us here and be a part of the 1a.m. community;

Twitter: To get instant updates about what we are up to;

Wordpress: To get details of our daily chores;

Indieheaven: Listen to our music and find out more about other Christian musicians near you;

Merch: Buy our merchandise;

Youtube: Watch our videos; Embed our new promo video to spread change!!!

Nominate Your City: Invite us to come to your city.


Well that is all we have for you this round. Have a great day! God bless..

Thursday, January 29, 2009

RISE of the LEADER


So it was a Friday afternoon, I had an Intro to Business class and my word, did I enjoy this class.


A little side note here.... when I was in high school I purposely chose the science stream coz I hated Business. Who would have known that I'll be learning a bit on Business in college again...wahhhhhhhhhhhhh ... definitely not me.


I kinda felt like Jonah where you like try to run away from what your suppose to do or face only to find yourself submit to whatever you are running from =)

Anyway, You got to love God coz for whatever reason you think ain't worth knowing is worth knowing In God's Eyes!


In other words, just move with the flow knowing that God is in Control!!!


We had this game which the teacher kinda like asked us to play in a room with 5 students (The rest must be running away... hehehe). It was a "Survival simulation game".

Now I don't know if it’s true but it’s the same game that companies use when hiring managers. In short the scenario is that you along with your people where in a plane, crashed landed somewhere up north of Canada (How north can you get?!?! =p), its cold, 25 below zero during day time, 40 below zero at night, the nearest town 20 miles away. So you and your surviving buddies manage to salvage a couple of things in the plane....


WHAT DO YOU DO?


The list are (not in order)


A ball of steel wool

A small axe

A loaded .45 Caliber pistol

Can of Crisco Shortening

News papers (One per person)

Cigarette lighter (Without Fluid)

Extra T-shirt and pants for each survivor

20x20 ft. piece of heavy duty canvas

A sectional air map made of plastic

One quart of 100-proof whiskey

A compass

Family-size chocolate (One per-person)


Try doing this and see whether you are manger material =) (Comment or email me personally if you want to know the answer to this)


Anyway, I did mine... And guess what?!?!?!?!


I'll be the first one to die in the COLD!!!! Oh man, that just dropped the nuclear bomb in me and I can hear God say "..... ... ..... . . . . ..."


In other words, sometimes (or most of the times) I get the best of me (overconfident side) to act upon my life rather than listening to Him first and consider the thoughts of others.

When I thought about it, ask me whether my fellow "plane crashers" where part of my survival plan, I'm ashamed to say "NO".

Wow that was an eye opener, heart opener, can opener (however you want to call it) for me. I can see my "humble status" rising as it left a scar in my heart and mind as it’s gonna be one of those memories that you'll never forget. I can be very selfish.


But you know what.... Praise God! He reminded me that He is the perfector of our Faith!

Don’t ever think “that because things are going great for you everything is ok”. We need Jesus all the more.

I'm still amazed with this scene in my life. I still have a lot to learn. I thank God that He's never given up on me despite how many times I feel like giving up.


“A thousand times I failed still your mercy remains,

should I stumble again, I'm caught by your Grace" (plays at the back of my mind when writing this =) )


So I "died" in managerial skills but that’s all part in Leadership training so I guess I'm in the right class in life.


To be a leader is to go through failures not because you’re destined to fail but destined to learn so that you can be a better leader not for yourself, but for God and others.


Rise up!


Neil1am

P.S HAPPY CHINESE NEW YEAR EVERYBODY!!!

Thursday, January 22, 2009

WAKE UP SCREAMING!!!

‘YYYARGH!!!!’


Wake up screaming..sometimes that’s what I do..Well…not really like yell at the ceiling and jump up run into toilet to wash up, but that would be cool…just freak out my roommate once in a while.

RECORDING FOR RELENT HAS BEGUN!!!!

Well…for drummer Cuzario to be exact…I did the guide tracks though…and...some other things…things…Do keep us in prayer…My turn comes when I come back from CNY in KK…

Which means I have to practice without my normal equipment at home…

Anyone wants to sponsor me a rig or two? (another guitar would be nice…)

ANYWAYS…

Yesterday night I took the guys out (Cuz, Dan, Neil, and Kel) for a steamboat buffet dinner on me…since it’s better to give than to receive…we had the most…um…weird experience of eating in Yuan (yes the chicken wing place…it’s not all that..if you go there JUST for the chicken it’s ok…but the buffet stuff suck so much it can clean the house…) where people just QUEUE UP to get them wings…and in the end return disappointed because they only have ONE on their plate and about 6 thousand other wings on the floor because people just can’t…um…make them go to their plate.

And Daniel made spicy ice cream fudge!! Check it out!!

It’s so gruesome and awesome and endearing in a way we had to blog about it…

(I’m really not into this way of blogging…it’s just not my thing…)

Anyway…ingredients are:

Yam ice cream

Vanilla ice cream

Corn ice cream

Tom yam soup

Chicken breast meat

Chicken gizzard

Chicken heart

Fungus (black and white)

Egg

Some overcooked Veg

Onions

Shrimp

Shrimp Shell

Chilli with lime and some other condiments

1 extremely experimental Indian

1 Indian saliva

1 Filipino saliva

It’s intriguing yet disgusting at the same time so it was a bet on fire!

RM100 bucks to the guy who finishes it…


No one barely even looked at it..


And since Kel was there he decided to do some discipleship with us…as he usually does:

Came a time when he ask:” What do you think is your life message? “

You know…like…if you were on stage suddenly and a group of people wants to hear what made you who you are…what made you do things the way you do…what speaks most loudly in your life that you believe in it and you don’t have to prepare a full length sermon to tell of your message….

I felt my life message is kinda obvious that time…music has always been my thing…and I wanna use this God given talent and use it for his glory…

I want to be such an influential musician that I can grab people’s attention,

and then God will take over from there.

Then Kel ask an extremely simple question:

“Then what?”


Those are two words that changed the way I think…”Then what?”

Really there are so many possible answers…But only one will matter to God…

I thought and thought and thought for the next few mins…

“WHATS NEXT!?”

I screamed in my heart…like I do waking up…nothing…

Nothing rang in my spirit…

Nothing sounded the bells in my head…

Nothing made the Jude inside respond…

Can that be it?

Play music and….and…what’s the next sentence?

GOD!!! HELP!!!!

I DON’T KNOW!!

Never in my life I felt so uncertain..

I need God more than ever now…

I need his directions even more clearly laid than ever…

I need his wisdom more than bread…

I need his grace more than the song meant…

I am weak…

Frail..

Brittle as hair..

Momentary as vapour…

Small as insignificant….

Where was my confidence..

Where was my zest..

Where was my passion..


I went home…bamboozled as monkeys on branches…Went to bed asking God..

“What now God?’”

“And then WHAT God?”

“I need you…”

I’m probably the only one in the band that listens to weird music (when I say weird, I mean things that scream, have weird odd time signatures, 45 min length songs, saxophones bleating and nose blowing a tower full of cabbages in upstate downtown sunrise!), I was listening to the song ‘A Small Spark Vs. A Great Forest’ by Norma Jean..

And some of the lyrics that got my attention (besides being a cool song):

Rip this tongue out by the root.
Shake the walls of this pale grave.
A blaze, a blaze is set upon the hills.
An open grave from which a great forest will rise, the fire collapses.
The corpses I've made.
This should not be.
Oh, how we curse.
The tongue is a flame.
Let there be grace.
Fight fair.

I wanted to be like the small spark..igniting the WHOLE forest…letting the world know how awesome is my God..

Oh how we curse ourselves…I speak of things I know not of myself..LET THERE BE GRACE


In this season of Chinese New Year to come…I pray God will show more grace…and slowly reveal “WHATS NEXT”…

I want my life message to spark the great forest out there…But until then…I’m in need of him..more than ever…

What’s your life message?

“then what?”

Jude1am