Fat bank account. Lovely family. Gorgeous car. Good reputation. Healthy body. More than five-thousand Facebook friends and much more followers on Twitter.

Well, how do we exactly measure true success? ‘Measure’ in a sense, that when we gauge success, we know it’s not bogus. We know it’s not merely on papers and by mere name or status altitude. It is the success that is the real thing. How then, do we then gauge success?

It was a good thing to have listened to Pastor Joe last Midweek service as we tried to measure ourselves on whether we are on the circle of the successful or not. Pastor gave us a little bit of the church’s history years backtrack – as he was just new to this so-called ‘BCCB’ ministry with its thirty attendees. Before, as he recalls, he was   one of those who would go to church with his cigarette still clipped on his pocket and the sinful smell of the world with him. Not until missionary Jerry Osbron got his guts up and disciple the attendees which birthed to the senior pastor we now have and the Ikthus Bacolod Inc. we now enjoy. However, pastor Joe was blunt. Success is not the thousands of members and the many more who attend this church. Success is not how big your church is. Success is never the statistical upgrade. Success is never us being a mega-church or the likes. It is simply inked on the life that was transformed by God. Success is the Holy Spirit changing the lives of individuals for the glory of God. As to the apostle Paul – when people ask him of his credentials, he would gladly point to the miraculous changing of the lives of his parishioners. For Paul, this was success. Even in our generation, it still is.

“You cannot argue with a changed life,” says pastor Joe. And in a sense, it is the success that no one could ever question. In fact, it is the only success  available.

Week 2 (July 13-19)

Aim: To intentionally pray and seek the Lord’s blessing for our city. It is also a good time to exercise and have fun with your small group.

Direction:  Set a time where you can gather at the New Government Center. Early Saturday morning, or maybe early evening at any day of the week sounds good.  Be in your running/walking shoes and attire. You may want to plan for a picnic or bring cold drinks and light snacks.

Walk around the perimeter of the New Government Center. You group can decide how many times you can walk around, or how fast, but as you go, remember to pray for the city. Lift up in prayers our city government, the citizens of Bacolod City. Pray for peace and order. Pray for economic prosperity. More importantly, pray for spiritual revival to blaze through in our city.

End with some picnic, or refreshments. Remember to have fun!

Week 1 (July 6-12, 2011)

Aim: This activity helps recall the many things we should thank the Lord for.

Direction:  Distribute lined paper and pencils to everyone in your group. Ask them to write the words “Thank You, God, for  . . .” at the top of the paper. Down the left margin of the paper, they should write the letters of the alphabet, one per line.

Instruct the members to spend 15 minutes listing things they are grateful for in the space next to each letter. Remind them to consider the various ways God blesses us: spiritually, physically, mentally, emotionally, materially, and relationally. Try to record at least one blessing for each letter.

At the end of the time limit, ask the group members to share some of their blessings as you go through the alphabet. Encourage them to save their lists as reminders of God’s goodness or for use in personal devotions.

For fun, you might have people add the number of blessings they listed and give a prize to the one who recorded the most. End the game with prayers of thanksgiving using your lists for inspiration.

July 10, 2011 / 7:30 AM / Ikthus North

CLICK TO WATCH VIDEO

God dreams for His Children.

He dreams no just for their occupation or accomplishments, but dreams of the kind of person they will become and the life they will live. God desires His children to become “mirrors” to reflect His character and glory.

God desires His children to become disciples.

If you yearn to become a true disciple who mirrors Christ’s character, if you want to live God’s dream for you, embark on a life-changing journey through Romans 12 and discover what it really means to life and please God.

Series Outline

1. Surrendered to God: Your Spiritual Act of Worship
2. Separated from the World: How to Get God’s Best for Your Life
3. Sober in Self-Assessment: How to Understand Who You Really Are
4. Serving Others in Love: How to Experience Authentic Community
5. Supernaturally Responding to Evil: How to Overcome the Evil Aimed at You

R:12 Christianity (Article)
How will the R:12 Campaign be conducted

Schedule

July 15 – 6:00 PM to 9:00 PM
July 16 – 8:00 AM to 4:00 PM

About r12

r12 is a relational profile of an authentic disciple based on Romans 12. r12 is not about being religious, keeping rules, developing programs, church growth, self-actualization or spiritual formula’s for success. more

About the Speaker

Pastor Philip Tarroja is the Training Consultant for WorldTeach International.

“When I survey the wondrous cross, on which the Prince of Glory died…” and so starts our favorite song entitled ‘Wonderful Cross’. (Try searching YOUTUBE and listen to it) In fact, the song itself starts with the realization that the cross is ‘wondrous’. But the next lines are quite another picture: it is where Jesus died. It is good to sing ‘the wonderful cross.’ But it is better to know the real score why the cross is so wonderful.

While writing this, mushrooming stories of ‘death’ come out of nowhere.

Two of my friends’ mother died just last month. While you are reading this write-up, the burial of my mentor’s beloved nephew (stabbed by gang members) has proceeded. In fact, one of our beloved family members here in Ikthus, tito Nonong Alcala has just passed away days before this write-up is published. We grieve for all of these incidents. In addition, three Filipinos were just lawfully killed in China. Who would ever say that death is a joyful rendition of saying goodbye? Who would ever say to the lethal injection used to kill those three Filipinos abroad, wonderful? That’s somehow absurd to say. How can we say then that the cross, used to torture and kill an innocent Rabbi, wonderful? What is so beautiful about the cross?

In fact the cup that Jesus was trying to share to the disciples before he was executed was a sign that His followers too will have their own crosses to bear. Wonderful? What is so wonderful with dying? We too are to partake of the cross. What then is so wonderful about it? To pin the point, it is wonderful because it’s not about the cross. It’s about the Man hanging there. His death was the irony of ironies – for our lives began there. It is in the cross that life truly begins. For Jesus, God’s will of redeeming mankind was perfected on that sacrificial act on the cross at Golgotha. It is wonderful because by it, we live. We are given eternal life through it. It is so wonderful that the sufferings of Jesus, the bruises in His body, the marks of the nails, the lashes of the whips on His skin – all opened the way for life to happen in us. In the cross, the terrible is made wonderful. That wonderful cross is our life. And the life we now live will always embody our own personal deaths, via Jesus’, on that terrible cross.

Or as the song goes – “O the wonderful cross, O the wonderful cross, bids me come and die and find that I may truly live.”  Let us offer our lives to where the death of Jesus took place.

Life-change, or transformation, happens when there is life. And life begins at the foot of the cross of Jesus Christ.
The Scriptures were not given, paraphrasing D.L Moody, for the transfer of information, but for our transformation. Studying the Bible as believers is simply like breathing-in spiritual oxygen. But unless it transforms us like Jesus Christ, it will be mere empty words of information, and we will end up faking Christianity. And it shouldn’t be. Like a caterpillar worming its way up a tree and start its metamorphosis towards becoming a butterfly, we climb up Calvary and start our spiritual metamorphosis there to become more like Jesus. The apostle Paul, truthfully declaring the concrete picture of our salvation in the first-eleven chapters in the book of Romans, moves to “transformation” in the twelfth. “Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.” (Rom. 12:1-2) Transformation (metamorpha) is deeply rooted in this simple truth: it’s in view of God’s mercies. It is our act of surrender; offering our lives as sacrifices to the God worthy of it. It always starts to where grace and mercy meets: at the cross of Jesus Christ. Without the cross, life-change wouldn’t be possible. Transformation reminds us that it is God’s job lest we boast of it. It is still part of God’s grace and mercy. We surrender; God transforms. The cross of Christ is a reminder that we are supposed to nail the world and our selfish desires to the cross and let God transform us for the better.

The cross is already a finished work – all we need to do is surrender. Without that total surrender, transformation is but an empty, faking of good deeds. We can be honest, and caring, and virtuous, but not have Jesus. The cross reminds us that the goal of the cross is relationship with God through His Son, and transformation is but a result to it. Life-change is possible, because Jesus made it possible on the cross. Oh, the wonderful cross!