How to connect with God?

I remember Mark Conner as one of the speaker who always have a deep impact to my thinking. He was also the guest speaker for the first service when I came to CHC. I still remember he talks about the passion killers then and how our passion for God would fade on us for the four reasons he identified. It was great then. And yesterday again I learnt something great that I wanna share it here.

As we all know, God made each and every one of us in the most unique manner, implementing in us different personalities, beliefs, and spiritualities. Even christianity is seperated into different doctrines and we come to worship God in many different ways. I have been in an Anglican church for close to two decades of my life and I can tell you it is almost the opposite of what I have come to know when I come to CHC which is a pentacostal and charismatic church. I decided to stay in CHC because of the changes in me.

Hence, we can see that we all connect to God in different ways because of our differences. And here's the 5 styles that Mark Conner identifies:

1. Contemplative Style - love solitude, slient environment when
experience God; like meditation which will help them to connect with
God

2. Intellectual Style - love to study the bible, the history;
thinking of the God's words and the plans He has

3. Serving Styel - love to be actively in making a difference in other
people's lives (eg. Mother Theresa)

4. Relational Style - love to do things in groups or in a
community

5. Charismatic Style - spontaneous, come alive when they see a vision;
need something that can be said and feel about

Personally, I am an intellectual style person in which I love to read beyond the bible verses. Hahaha...well, I guess Shuhui and Brian should know me well enough in my ability to ask all kinds of questions that I come up with as I read my bible.

To me, I believe that just reading the bible alone is not enough. If you merely reading off what is written there on the bible and not knowing where it comes from, who is the person writing it and how is he like, what is the actual situation then could have caused the event to happen, you may have come in a different reception of the actual idea that the author is trying to tell us, and in danger we may have misunderstand the true meaning of what we have come to know.

Yet I do agree that even knowing more about God, we may have come to know of many other facts that may contradict to what we initial believe to be true. But in a way, it will lead us to think more and wanting to know much more too. Oh well, or it is just me trying to find a balance here and there always. But many times, this is how I get to receive a revelation from my readings and studying too... :P

So in a sense, the sermon also taught us how to putting it into practice:

Step 1: Identify your primary style.

Step 2: Arrange your life around it.

Step 3: Understand and accept others who are different from you.

Step 4: Learn other ways of communication with God.

Step 5: Consider the implications of this model.

Mark encourages us to have a balance of all these styles in our lives coz when you are incline to only one or two of it could lead us to differ in our thinking too. For example, if a person is too into the contemplating style, there will be a tendency that he or she will isolete himself or herself from others and only focus on their thoughts and not about their actions. Well, you need to work with the community always.

If a person is too intellectual, he or she may become very objective. It is also important for us to acknowledge God with our feelings. Try to recall this: how do you come to know God? What motivates you to make your decision to give your life to Him?

For me, I don't believe anyone of us will come to understand God's words or his past or what the history has taught us when we first come to accept Christ. Or even if so, I don't think many of us will make our decision to accept Him or give our lives to Him if we only based on what we understand about God. Oh well, that's so unless you are not serious about being a Christian. You may still be puzzled as why you make your decision to accept God in our lives, but I believe you know the cause of it is mostly the feeling that we feel so real inside us that it is juz so hard to explain by anything else.

I totally agree with Mark Conner today that you have to know that faith is NOT reasonable. You can NEVER understand God by what YOU know. God is much wiser than you and this can be seen from the bible as we all know that it is a book that is full of complications. Don't ever think that you have understand what is said in the bible fully no matter how many times you have read it.

As for a relational person, he or she may become too dependent on the others too. Well, that's why you may need to think about God's words on your own in a contemplative environment...his revelations may come much more clear to you then.

I like the fellowship after the service today as we shared about the different styles that each of us has. And it is clear that we are all different and hence we need to learn from one another. God certainly puts us together to make a balance in our lives. We will never be able to do it juz on our own... :)

"When I am holding a dying person in my hand, that's when I feel the closest at God's feet. ~ Mother Theresa"