ran.dom.ness

Thanks to my highly productive habit of surfing randomly, these are the few gems that I’ve come across these few days.

1. Dating Delilah: Purity from a New Perspective

I’ve heard about it sometime ago but today’s the first time I read it from cover to cover. An easy read. A fantastic reminder.

2. Your Pictures: Autumn

God’s whimsical creativity at its best. It tempts me to blast $1,500 to fly there and sit on those roll-able grass under a huge tree, reading the day away till dusk comes.

3. Flashmob: 100 Japanese

Some of you have seen Spore Flashmob that took place last week. Not too bad, Spore! Nevertheless, nothing can beat the wacky Japs…

when atheists believe

In recent years Great Britain’s chief export to the U.S. has been a payload of books by atheist authors such as evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins and literary critic Christopher Hitchens. They contend that faith is irrational in the face of modern science. Other prominent British atheists seem to be having second thoughts. Is there some revival sweeping England? No; they are examining the rationality of Christianity, the very beliefs Dawkins and others are so profitably engaging, but are coming to opposite conclusions.

Read When Atheists Believe by Chuck Colson

What does this tell us? People today have a caricatured view of Christians, seeing us as followers, often hypocritical and judgmental, of an outdated book of mere illusions. But if we can explain why Christianity is so reasonable, our faith becomes a very winsome proposition, which will at least open the mind, if not the heart, of many a doubter.

blistering

The evil hot, sticky weather is back in full force!! Al Gore might be right after all. I wonder if the polar bears in Spore Zoo are doing fine.

When I think about my friends who’ve escaped our tropical terrible humidity – Zach in Montreal, Derrick in New York, Seng in Dublin, Eve in Cairns, Freedy in Melbourne – and are enjoying breezy 13 degree, I just want to say… I hate you guys!!!

youngest headmaster

Around the world millions of children are not getting a proper education because their families are too poor to afford to send them to school. In India, one schoolboy is trying to change that. In the first report in the BBC’s Hunger to Learn series, Damian Grammaticas meets Babar Ali, whose remarkable education project is transforming the lives of hundreds of poor children.

READ MORE HERE

Since I read this story two days ago, I’ve been mulling over some thoughts:

- What the heck was I doing at 16?

- There is no required minimum age to start changing the world.

- The hunger to learn is what all – and I mean ALL – successful people have in common.

- The best way to learn is to teach others.

- If you can’t teach 800 people, then just teach one.

- How I can be an opener of doors for more people who’d come after me?

- The richest are not those who keep most but those who give most.

- A lack of compassion and a great deal of pettiness stem from our inability to see what’s happening outside our little bubble ME-world.

- If these kids were to hear us complaining about our studies, would they throw chicken poop at us?

- Give this young man a Nobel Prize!

What are your thoughts on it? Cmon, the best comment may win a free trip with me to West Bengal, haha! I think they deserve some classrooms, hey.

10 lessons from lead summit

Sorry for the lack of updates. Just couldn’t muster enough motivation to type more than 140 characters at one go. But recently I managed to attend LEAD Summit 2009 – and there’s stuff that’s just too good not to be shared.

So here are 10 lessons that struck me (not in order of importance) in nutshells:

1. Have an adequate replenishment strategy. What adds up to my life? What drains away? Work it out.

2. During crisis, the best thing a leader can bring to the table is a faith-filled heart.

3. Classes don’t make leaders. But they make you aware of leadership principles and role models.

4. The challenge is not how to teach leadership but how to create a culture of leadership.

5. Briefly distance yourself from a decision in order to find reflective space and gain clarity. Look at the situation from a different reference point.

6. Review leadership decisions after they’re implemented: What went well? What went wrong?

7. Big change starts with a small idea.

8. More opportunities = higher chance to divert from original mission

9. Failure is useful for it’s a valley of insights.

10. Leaders don’t just do ministry. Leaders equip people to do ministry.

(I hope to elaborate on them when I have more time. Maybe we can do it in our next Care Leaders Meeting. Hopefully.)