Posts by Ryan Seow (Page 9)

Back when I was in Overflow (youth ministry), we used to have intercession meetings on Friday nights in the church office. In some ways, having intercession meetings together was a good excuse for the young people to get together on a Friday night. But more importantly, intercession was a huge part of who we were as a youth group. Though we didn’t call it “listening prayer” at the time, that’s what we spent most of our time doing. We’d sit…

Over the course of 2020, we did 3 memory verses together as a church (10 commandments, fruit of the Spirit, 2 Peter 1: 5-8). The pastoral team also did a few extra verses together. Here are some highlights: Galatians 5:22-23: But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace… gentleness and self-control.2 Peter 1:5-8: For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness… and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance.2 Timothy 1:7: For God…

Christmas 2020 is turning out to be a Christmas like no other. I’m probably not alone in having some mixed feelings about Christmas this year. On one hand, Christmas is the time we celebrate the birth of Jesus, and the miracle of Jesus coming to be with us. Like we’re reminded about in John 1:14, “the Word became flesh and lived among us,” and that is real reason for joy! We should celebrate this Christmas season, and what it means…

1 Thessalonians 5:16-18–“Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.” Near the end of one of Paul’s letters to the church in Thessalonica, he gives some good advice that is very relevant to what we’re going through today. First, Paul encourages the church to “pray without ceasing.” We really are in a season today where the need for prayer is so great. Last Wednesday, during our…

Isaiah 9:6 (CEB) A child is born to us, a son is given to us,and authority will be on his shoulders.He will be namedWonderful Counselor, Mighty God,Eternal Father, Prince of Peace. Around this time of year, one of the things we like to do in our house is put up our Christmas tree. For me, putting up the tree has always been an important way for me to get into the Christmas spirit and Christmas season. In the past, even…

Romans 5:1-5 NIVTherefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand; and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God. And not only that, but we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured…

The topic of suffering is not one that we talk about often in the church. Part of the reason for this might be because there are some assumptions that the more pious or righteous we are, the less we suffer. This simply isn’t true! The story of Job illustrates this well. Job is a righteous man (Job 1:1) who goes through some tremendous suffering. He loses all his wealth, children, and health in a short time, and is so broken…

2 Peter 1:5-8: “For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; and to godliness, mutual affection; and to mutual affection, love. For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.” At Life-Spring, we’re now on our third memory verse for the year.…

1 Corinthians 13:13 “And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.” In September we launched a new memory verse for the church family, 2 Peter 1:5-8. Before that, two of our memory verses were the greatest commandment (Matthew 22:36-39) and the fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23). Look at parts of these verses and see if you can spot the theme: Love the Lord your God with all your heart (Matt 22:36-39)The…

Gen. 12:1-4:“And YHWH said to Abram,Get yourself up and gofrom your land, and from your kindred, and from your father’s house, to the land that I will show you. And I will make you into a great nation; and I will bless you; and I will make your name great.And be a blessing.And I will bless those who bless you; whereas the one who belittles you, I will curse; and in you will be blessed all kinship groups on the…

Last week at intercession (prayer and worship, every Wednesday night) the group that was together was doing listening prayer for the church. The prayers that we shared were a great encouragement and reminder of who we are as a church family, and how every person in the church is called to follow God. Here are some of the highlights from the prayers that night: “- Life-Spring should live up to its name to be a spring of life for those…

2 Timothy 4:7: I have fought the good fight, finished the race, and kept the faith.Hebrews 12:1: So then, with endurance, let’s also run the race that is laid out in front of us, since we have such a great cloud of witnesses surrounding us. At the beginning of June I spoke about the parable of the wise and foolish builders. At the time, most of Ontario was in stage 1 of the re-opening process, which didn’t look too different…