Leadership Thoughts

I arrived at our church for the worship practice around 4:00pm because I have to pass by our grandma's house to see the kids. As soon as I sat down where the group was, I heard Sani sharing something about leadership and his passion. I later found out that Sani was pouring his heart out as he shares his passion, the current situation he is into and how he sees the youth ministry as a whole.

Sani was crying. I truly believe that ministers cries a lot especially when they are touched by the Lord. Be it a burden or peace that comes from Him, our initial reaction is to pour it out by crying. Sani, with tears in his eyes spoke of a true leader. A leader who is not ashamed to speak for the ministry even to the point of showing his emotions ( be it holy anger or crying).

I admire his being outspoken and zeal to serve the Lord.

What Sani shared reminded me of my own experience as well growing up as a leader. Seeing the need and the burden to do something about it is the first step in becoming an effective leader. I often felt being unworthy and frankly speaking, useless as a leader when I started out and everyone was not paying attention.

But these times were opportune time for the Lord to mold me and entrust me with the few that I may become trustworthy of many. And indeed, the Lord did just that!

For Sani, and for any youth leader experiencing barrenness for the moment, it's a time to trust the Lord and see how He works even amidst the hardest of time. It's not just in the season of plenty that we can measure our effectivity, but in the times of wants and uncertainty that we see how small we are and how big God is.

Our being servants means following the trail of our Master and Lord, and reaping the same experiences as we journey with Him.

And oh, before I foget, we may sometimes think that we are the only ones left working so hard like Elijah after confronting the Priests of Baal but let me just change that thought -He is the LORD of the MINISTRY and HE will sustain it, no matter what. ;)

The InterVarsity NORSU Chapter

"Let us not give up in meeting each other, as some are in the habit of doing..." - Apostle Paul

Viz and I decided to spend some time in one of the internet shop somewhere in downtown when a familiar face seems to be eying Viz for quite some time.

It was Junmar Cabio, a fellow InterVarsity leader in our campus way back 2002. He was one of the first few leaders who spend some time praying for leaders to emerge and become faithful to the ministry. We were answers to their prayers so to speak.

It was a nice opportunity to exchange numbers and discuss about an opportunity to have ameet-up later on with some InterVarsity alumni from NORSU as well.

I love it when I meet people from our previous core leaders in NORSU, it is always a joy seeing how the Lord has blessed them and the opportunities to work in the marketplace.

InterVarsity-NORSU has long been gone and pioneering work is being started again. I wish we can go back to that school and spend time to pray and see the need to support the ministry.

I hope we can organize a dinner meeting with some InterVarsity friends from NORSU and be encouraged, be blessed and be challenged to what's up ahead for the NORSU Chapter.

Being A FootSoldier

“God’s FootSoldiers” by Ate Joy Solina is one of those challenging books that makes you think if you have the guts to do something great for the Lord. It pushes you to make the most out of our young lives.

Ever since I started to learn how to stand in front of a crowd, I wanted to bring impact to their lives more than ever. Of course, I was just a kid back then but I was sharing my heart out and challenged my generation to do the same.

My passion is to see my generation rise up and use their full potential to something exciting and useful. I always prayed that God will use my gifting and energy for a godly cause.

God gave me an opportunity to not just share my gifts but be trained in becoming a servant leader. I am honored and blessed to be trained by many people close to me and how each shared a special lesson all through my life.

InterVarsity is one good avenue for me to be trained. It was the perfect timing of getting right again with God after a month of so many bad experiences. It was through Ofelyn, a former classmate in High School that I got involved to this particular youth group.

The first four months in InterVarsity was an energized season wherein my twin brother and I started sharing to the new comers in the group. It was so exciting seeing fellow classmates and drop-outs come to know the saving grace of the Lord.

That was 2002 back then when I accepted the challenge to become a campus missionary, I believed with all my heart that this was an open opportunity to serve the Lord and bring impact to society.

Whatever I learned before with InterVarsity has been shared with every youth and youth groups I get connected with. Everything I learned from InterVarsity is a treasure to ponder and share with.

I was like a soldier in training for the coming war. I was excited to learn new tricks and trades of becoming an effective Christian at the age of 21. And I’m more excited to share that at the age of 26, I’m still in the process of learning many things from God and other people to become an effective minister for His Glory.