Commitment to the Way of The Cross

What is the way of the cross? When we say “Doing a Jesus driven ministry” or “to minister like Christ” or “in following Christ’s example of ministry”, what does it mean? Is it just a Christian jargon, something to validate our activities, categorizing our life as godly? Is it just a validation of our lifestyle as a Christian?

John White wrote about this as such:

“The way of the cross is a magnificent obsession with a heavenly pearl, beside which everything else in life has no value. If it were a case of buying it, we would gladly sell all we had to do so.”


In a sense, this is what commitment is – a determination to orient our lives in such a way that pursues a magnificent obsession. A commitment to follow Christ is just a manifestation of our orientation of life centered on Christ and His purpose. This is hard, requires a lot of sacrifice, risk, etc. But commitment also implies that the pursuit must be done with the same passion, intensity and rigor throughout – hence the “magnificent obsession”. It is easy to have a burning zeal during the beginning phase of our commitment, but then it usually tends to fizzles out. Is it then possible to maintain the zeal, rigor, passion throughout? It is indeed possible – only if we are obsessed throughout.

Click here for full paper.

Building Supportive Culture

What is ethos or culture? Ethos probably easier to be described as “character”. So when someone asks you about to describe some characters of your ICF, what would they be? To put in a definition form:

Ethos is intangible but yet very real set of values, convictions, priorities that a group of people hold

How do you assess the current ethos of ICF? The easiest way it to ask yourself this question, “Describe some of characters about your ICF?” It is also useful to ask this kind of question to non-ICF member or guests. A more complex way of assessing ethos in your ICF is by observing and watching carefully and constantly about the habits and trends of and in your ICF. A leader must be able to do this to be able to lead effectively. Some people may have an uncanny ability in doing this because they are gifted. But, regardless of gifted or not, a leader must learn this skill in leading their people.

For full paper, 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.