ICF Functional Block

Salah satu komponen yang paling penting dalam suatu organisasi adalah program-program yang dijalankan oleh organisasi tersebut. Tidak jarang bahkan program yang dijalankan oleh organisasi tersebut mendefinisikan atau membentuk persepsi masyarakat tentang apa sebenarnya organisasi tersebut.

Tapi sayangnya, ada kecenderungan dalam suatu organisasi untuk mendefinisikan diri mereka hanya dengan program-program saja.

Pemahaman tentang organisasi seperti ini akan sangat-sangat berbahaya bagi kelangsungan hidup dan perkembangan organisasi tersebut. Akhirnya apa yang akan dilakukan adalah terus memperbaiki dan membentuk program-program yang baru tanpa tahu esensi dan fungsi dari program itu sendiri.

Masalah yang juga nyata dalam organisasi ICF adalah program-program yang selama ini dijalankan ICF ternyata tidak mampu menghasilkan manusia-manusia yang dicita-citakan dalam visi ICF. Melihat keberadaan masalah seperti ini, Kami coba berikan proposal pemetaan tenang proses apa saja yang sebaiknya dilewati oleh suatu organisasi (khususnya ICF) sebelum kita membuat program-program kita. Peta ini kami sebut dengan “ICF Functional Block.”

For full document & presentation, click here

Medium Group: A Community Model

Christians are designed by God to grow within the context of a community - this is clear in the pastoral epistles where body life is highly emphasized. But, throughout the years, ICF struggles in finding the right model for a community where people can be involved enough to be able to exercise ministry, gifting, abiding in Word, role-modeling, as well as as receiving love from others.

Without a doubt that the right attitude is the bottom line of the problem in a healthy Christian community, but having a supportive wine-skin is also highly beneficial to spur productive and healthy culture in creating an awesome community.

ICF Columbus, in LM 2004 shared about an idea (it was not implemented at the time) that has been incubated for nearly 2 years about a model community. This presentation is about sharing what we learned during our brainstorming, trial, and some steps of faith we were about to embark in 2005: creating Medium Group.

Why "Medium Group"?  Simple, since we have a larger group meeting called Saturday Night Fellowship as well as "small group" or "cell group". So out of lack of creativity, born "Medium Group".

Full ppt presentation can be viewed here.

A Struggle of a Lazy ICF Leader

This is a personal struggle and study about complacency in leadership for ICF. The passage is from Jesus' letters to Sardis (Rev 3). There letters are important for us because:

• They reveal Jesus' priorities for Christians and churches through His praises and rebukes
• Jesus also explains how to address weaknesses and restores health to these churches through His promise of loving presence and power
• In other words, these letters could very well be for ICFs!

This teaching is adopted from Gary DeLashmutt's expositions on the seven letters series from Xenos Christian Fellowship. You can view and listen to the series here.

Get the ppt here.

Dealing With Failures & Disappointments

Christian work is hard work - and the bible does value perseverance and endurance. A good Christian worker is one who has been trained in those areas. On the other hand, often in process of those training, what happen is that our heart become "tough" as well as "strong". This means it numbs our hearts - this is certainly NOT a biblical picture of a good Christian worker. The bible speaks about a strong but yet tender-hearted workers of God - just like Jesus.

This power point is adopted from Dennis McCallum's essay/teaching on "Cultivating a Tender Heart".

Get the full ppt here.

Commissioning

What is commissioning?

1. Commission means a group mission. In Christianity, we sometime refer to Matthew 28: 19-20.

2. Commissioning is an act of commission.

Last time, I propose that we intentionally commission our ICF-ers to go to a particular battlefield. By being intentional, we start to think strategically about the battlefield and on how to call, equip, and send our people. The battlefield in ICF could be an unbelieving mind, a hardened heart, or a particular mindset that bore sinful culture. This understanding about a particular battlefield will force us to call the right people, equip them with the right skills and send them with the right character and attitude toward God.

Leonard

ICF as a Movement

Why is it that some ICF seems to be moving along as a movement and some are more stagnant? What are some factors that influence some ICF better than others? What does an ICF that striving well as a movement look like? This paper’s aim is to provide an observation about some factors why some ICF are growing as movements while some become more institutionalized. Throughout the paper, we will unfold together three factors that currently play major roles in ICFs:

1) vision/direction
2) reality check
3) strong work-force & leadership, as they are striving to grow as movements.

Read full paper and power point presentation here.

Cultural Relevance Is Not an Option

What is the purpose and design of our life? Just as a computer is designed to do certain stuff according to its design, so as we as God’s creations are designed to do something according to our design. Just as a computer has a manual how it can be used and operates properly within the boundary of its design, so do we have the manual to be used effectively according to the way God has designed us. This manual is what we called God’s moral absolutes. God’s moral absolutes are the template, the form of God’s design for us. Just as we can use a computer as a seat but it will not function as it has been designed, we can violate the instruction or manual, and will not function properly as God has intended.

Within its intended function, a computer can be used for word processing, email, spreadsheet, web developing, etc. It still has an area of flexibility or freedom within its intended function. In the same way, we as human beings, God’s creations, have a freedom within that moral absolutes. God does not forbid us to wear a red t-shirt today or buy Nike shoes instead of Reebok.

Galatians 5:1, “It was for freedom that Christ set us free; therefore keep standing firm and do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery”.
In essence, in these areas, God does not give us absolutes, thus we have the freedom to choose and decide how we will deal with them.

As Christians, we need to know the difference between form and freedom. Form is God’s moral absolutes, the original design, the template. Freedom is freedom, the area within the form. Many Christians are confused about this. Therefore, as a result, they declare almost everything absolutes. We need to be careful regarding this matter, because if God does not declare any absolutes for certain things, who are we to think that we may know better? As Christians, we should not declare absolutes which God Himself does not.

“To require people to embrace anything beyond what is written in Scripture is to put a yoke on their necks that they will not be able to bear. Anything more than Scripture is too much”1

Read full paper here.

The Church

Where does the church begin? Some believe that the bible defines church from the very beginning or from Adam and so on. Therefore, they include O.T. traditions in their practices. Others use the definition derived from N.T., where church started from the Day of Pentecost. They distinquish the N.T. church from the O.T. church which is Israel. The basis of the definition is primarily from Jesus’ teaching on the church, the epistles, and Rev 1-3.

Read full paper & power point presentation here.