2009

Just a post to indicate that life is still present on this blog, here are the upcoming activities!

13 March, Friday
7pm at R3
Mamak night and guest speaker!
Introduction of Clayton's ministries

15 March, Sunday
6.30 - 8.30pm
6 Browns Road (Faith Luo's house) - 10 minute walk from school
The Leading Edge #01
The Bible - it's authenticity, power and origin

20 March, Friday
7pm at R3
Bible study #01

21 March, Saturday
Day trip to Ballarat Wildlife Park
For enquiries, contact sueann_y@yahoo.com

See you!

Winter Camp 2008

claytonwintercamp08.wordpress.com

Welcome Night

The Overseas Christian Fellowship of Berwick will be having a welcome night for all newcomers and members. Be there at R5 Rotunda Friday (29th February 2008). Do come and join us for a time of praise & worship, games and free food!

Transport home for those not living in Berwick will be provided!

SEE YOU THERE!

OCF Convention 2007

Hi guys! OCF Convention will be held again in our great state of Victoria! Convention is a time of the year when all OCF centers in Australia gather and spend time together under one roof. It will be full of fun and fellowship with our brothers and sisters in Christ, to worship and seek God, to align each individual’s and center’s heart with God’s purpose and also to carry out His Great Commission in spirit and in truth with His anointing and power.

AGM: 1-3 December 2007
Convention: 3-7 December 2007
Venue: Campaspe Downs Country Resort, Trenthan Road, Kyneton

Part-timer:
$50 per night

Full-timer (6 days)
$200 (VIC State)

AGM
$90 (3 days 2 nights)

SIGN UP NOW!

Contact Jon Raj for further details.

E-Nite Committee Intro

Winter Camp 2007 - Loaded For Life (Second Promo Video)

Winter Camp 2007 - Loaded For Life

Download Form

Any Questions/Comments? Leave it down below!

OCF CLAYTON PRESENTS

We've got the secret to get YOU LOADED!
To find out, come sign up for camp! We're recruiting YOU to be part of this experience.
Dont miss out on this exciting opportunity to encounter the Great I Am and the fun and company of your fellow mates!

LOADED FOR LIFE

When?: 28th - 30th June 2007
Where?: Merricks Lakeside Lodge, Melbourne
Who's Speaking?: Ps. Ken Teoh
How Much?:
$65 if you come alone
$55 If you bring a non-OCF friend
$50 If you bring 4 non-OCF friends

For more information pls Call/SMS or email us
Rachel @ 0431465546
Jeremy @ 0400331005
Ivie @ 0430201449
email: ocfwintercamp@yahoo.com

http://youtube.com/watch?v=HU9oSnaSV9g

Welcome to 2007!

hey everyone!

welcome to OCF CLayton's Official Blogspot. We're currently working on updating the whole blog with the latest information, so please bear with us.

if you are looking to join us for our weekly meetings, the details are:

Venue: R5, Rotunda (Building 8)

Time: Fridays at 7pm

Contact: Jon on 0430439602

Come along and have fun worshipping and fellowshipping with us!!

OCF Clayton Exams Timetable Sem 2 2006

Hehe...by now I'm sure a lot of you have lost your exams timetable, yours truly included. It's somewhere, maybe it's in my car but I'm just lazy so I got a soft copy from Cat and thought it'll be good to post it here also. =)

Here it is!

OCF Clayton Exams Timetable Sem 2 2006

If you know someone's exams are wrong please let either Cat or me know.

Day 16: What Matters Most

Don't we all wonder what matters most in our lives? Guess what? Life is all about love. Because God is love, He wants us to learn how to love.. above all else. It is in loving that we are most like Him!

Learning to love unselfishly is difficult because we are self-centred people, but He's given us a lifetime to learn it! God wants us to love everyone, but He's particularly concerned that we learn to love others in His family. Why? Because God wants His family to be known for its love more than anything else. Jesus said, "Your love for each other will prove to the world that you are my disciples". Amazing revelation huh?

And guess what? We cannot learn to love if we're in isolation. THAT'S WHY we always stress the importance of being in a care group - having relationship and fellowship with one another! That's why we stress the crucialness (is there even such a word?) of being planted in a church, being in regular close fellowship with other believers! We HAVE to be around people - irritating, imperfect, frustrating people to learn to love! =)

1. Life without love is really worthless. Life minus love = ZERO
1Corinthians13:3
No matter what i say, what i believe, and what i do, I'm bankrupt without love.
Matt 22:27-30
You must love the Lord your God with all your heart... This is the first and greatest commandment. A second is equally important: Love your neighbour as yourself. All the other commandments and all the demands of the phophets are based on these two commandments.

After learning to love God, learning to love others is the second purpose of our lives.

Relationships, are what matters most in life. Why do we then allow our relationships to get the short end of the stick? Busyness is a great enemy of relationships. We become preoccupied with making a living, doing our work, paying bills, accomplishing goals as if these tasks are the point of life! They are NOT! The point of life is to love - God and people.

2. Love will last forever.
1 Corin 13:13
These three things continue forever: faith, hope and love. And the greatest of these is love.

Love leaves a legacy. How you treat other people, not wealth or accomplishments, is the most enduring impact you can leave on earth. Its not what you do, but how much love you put into it that matters. Imagine being on your death bed, you wouldnt surround yourself with objects but what we'd want si people we love and have relationships with. In our final moments we realise that relationships are what life is all about. Wisdom is learning the truth sooner rather than later. Let's not wait til then to love.

3. We will be evaluated on our love.
One of the ways God measures spiritual maturity is by the quality of your relationships. He will review how we treated other people, especially those in need. Jesus said the way to love Him is to love His family and care for their practical needs. Matt 25:40. When we go to eternity, we leave everything else behind except our character. Thats why the bible says "The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love".

The importance of things can be measures by how much time we are willing to invest in them. Time is our most precious gift because when we give someone our time, we are giving a portion of our lives that we'll never get back. Your time is your life! Thats why the greatest gift we can give someone is our time.

its not enough to say relationships are important, we must prove it by investing time in them. The essence of love is how much we give of ourselves. You can give without loving, but you cannot love without giving - giving up our preferences, comfort, goals, security, money, energy or time for the benefit of someone else.

The best time to love is NOW. We dont know how long we will have the opportunity. Circumstances change. People die. We have no gurantee of tomorrow. The best use of life is love. THe best expression of love is time. The best time to love is now.

Mission Night 2006

it's this friday night!!!

we're all gonna wave our lil home country flags :)
sing out national anthem
and pray for our country!!

so come along this friday night to OCF to meet the King of Kings :)

see you peeps there!!!

OCF Clayton Postboards!

As promised! Our very own OCF Clayton forums are up and running and can be accessed at:

http://forums.ocfclayton.org

Use it for any form of discussion, maybe cell group outing, funny stuff you saw and would like to share! More importantly your thoughts and what God has been teaching you, devotions, Bible studies, anything!

Check it out and sign up now! :)

Have fun and see you there!

Day 15: Formed For God's Family

I've been really off track on this Purpose Driven Life. This is really bad, what was supposed to be 40 days now seem like would be taking 40 weeks! Kids, don't do this at home! Anyways...

Ever wondered why God made us? Think about it, He is the God of the universe, He created all things, He is all powerful, He sets the stars in the sky and knows them by name. Why would such an almighty Being even bothers with us?

That's because God is love and He treasures relationships! The Trinity is a relationship, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amazing revelation! He doesn't need a family, He already has one within Himself but yet He desires one. So He made us.

When we give God our lives, we become part of His family and being in the family and running the family business has some real perks! We get a priceless and eternal inheritance already stored up for us in Heaven, this is the real reward we should be looking forward to, not earthly possesions.

When we are part of a family, we have family pride; members of the family are not ashamed of their families and will take public steps to identify themselves! Baptism is our step to declare that we are part of God's family, a step not optional and not to be delayed. When I got baptised myself, it was an amazing experience! I've never felt so at peace and so loved, just couldn't help but seeing God smiling down on me saying "I love you my son!"

Day 14: When God Seems Distant

Ever wondered sometimes whether God REALLY exists? Especially when situations and circumstances are not pleasant? Well, God is REAL, and He EXISTS, no matter what we go thru. Sometimes we may feel that He's a million miles away, but that doesn't mean He's not real. We may wake up one morning and all spiritual feelings are gone. We pray, but nothing happens. We rebuke the devil, but it doesn't change anything. We go thru spiritual exercises, we have friends praying for us, we confess every sin we can imagine, we fast, do everything we can think of, but still nothing happens. Feels like our prayers just bounce off the ceiling.

It is but a part of testing and maturing of our friendship with God. Every Christian goes thru it at least once. Definitely painful and discouraging, but it is essential for the development of our faith! Will we continue to love, trust, obey and worship God, even when we have no sense of His presence or visible evidence of His work in our lives? Will we?

Worship and friendship with God is not based on our emotions and feelings. We cannot seek an experience (feelings) when we worship. We need to seek GOD! He does want us to sense His presence, but He's more concerned that we trust him than that we feel Him. Faith, not feelings, pleases God. Remember Job in the bible? His life basically fell apart in one day and God was nowhere to be found. It really stretched his faith.

How do we praise God when we don't understand whats going on and God is silent? How do we stay sane without God speaking into our lives? How do we keep our eyes on Jesus when they're full of tears? We do what Job did. Job1:20-21

1. Tell God exactly how we feel.
Everything. Anything.

2. Focus on who God is - His unchanging nature.
Remind ourselves of what is eternally true about Him - He is good, He loves me, He is with me, He knows what i'm going thru, He'll provide, He knows and has the best plans for my life, He is in control!

3. Trust God to keep His promises.
We must patiently rely on His promises. God is never too early or too late. He is always on time. His promises are yes and Amen! Hold on to His word!

4. Remember what God has already done for you!
He deserves our continual praise because of what Jesus did on the cross! Remember what cruelty He had to go thru, just to save you and i! This is the greatest reason for worship!! He gave up everything, so that we could have everything. He died so we could live forever. That alone is worthy of our continue thanks and praise. NEVER again should we wonder what to be thankful for.

Day 13: Worship That Pleases God

God wants ALL of you!

...not just some, not just partially but ALL!

Everyone worships...but are we doing it right? For the right reasons? With the right attitudes?

God is pleased when our worship is accurate
God wants us to worship Him as He says He is, not what we think He is. We cannot create our own image of the God we want to worship. We have to worship Him in spirit and in truth! His word gives us a clear enough image of Him!

God is pleased when our worship is authentic
Worshipping in spirit doesn't mean in the Holy Spirit but in our spirits. Worship is our spirits responding to God's Spirit! How cool is that? You can now chuck those warped worship concepts you've always had in your mind out the window!

God looks straight into our hearts, past whatever facade we put on during worship. When I read this, Matt Redman's song "Heart of Worship" came to mind....beautiful song! We can worship God imperfectly but not insincerely!

One truth that struck me while reading this section is that if God made us all unique, shouldn't we be praising and worshipping Him in the ways that we are most comfortable in? Why must we all sing hymms only? Why must we sing to fast praise songs only?

God is pleased when our worship is thoughtful
We must engage our minds when we worship, not just recited repetitions of "Praise the Lord". If someone just came up to you and say "Good job! Well done!". You'd definitely be wondering "Uhh...for what?". Exactly. We've gotta praise God specifically and not just say "Praise God". Think about what you are saying the next time you worship.

God is pleased when our worship is practical
Worship is a lifestyle and that has been said so many times it's a cliched statement but it's true! What we do in our daily lives is a reflection of how much we love God. Our lifestyle have to reflect one that is of sacrifice, taking time to worship God even when we are tired, or helping others when you are stretched. That's true worship!

Day 12: Developing Your Friendship with God

I'm SO sorry we've been missing for awhile! We'll be back on track! =)

After knowing that God WANTS to be OUR best friend and we can be His when we have constant conversations and continual meditations with Him, we now need to learn how to develop our friendship with the Creator in a deeper way.

We are as close to God as we choose to be. It doesn't happen by accident, it takes desire, time and energy. Like any other friendships and relationships, we need to:

1. Choose to be honest with God.
We need to be completely honest with God, about our faults and feelings. I often feel frustrated and angry at situations and certain things in my life, and He, God of ALL, wants to know about it! He encourages me to express myself and just rant everything out on Him! Likewise, there are many examples in the Bible like Abraham, David, Job and many others who shared with God honestly - they complained, accused, vent bitterness etc etc! Genuine friendship is built on disclosure - He really wants us to be honest with Him, sharing our TRUE feelings, not what we think we ought to say or feel.

2. Choose to obey God in faith.
Everytime we trust God's wisdom and do whatever He says, even when we dont understand, we deepen our friendship with God. Jesus modelled this kind of relationship with His Father - He did whatever the Father asked Him to do - out of love, out of obedience. He treasures the simple and 'small' things we do for Him when we do it out of loving obedience - telling the truth, being kind, encouraging others etc!

3. Choose to value what God values.
Friends care about what is important to the other person. The closer we get to God, the more we will care about the things he cares about, grieve over the things He grieves over, and rejoice over the things that bring Him pleasure. The dearest thing to the heart of God is the death of His Son. The second dearest is when His children share that news with others. Are we caring about all the people around us whom God cares about? Are we telling our friends about God? Because those are the things that are dear to Him.

4. Desire friendship with God more than anything else.
We are as chose to God as we choose to be. We need to intentionally seek it. God told the captives in Babylon, "When you get serious about finding me and want it more than anything else, i'll make sure you won't be disappointed." Today, He's telling us that too.


Friendship with God is the only relationship that will last forever. It is the most important thing in life - and we don't want to miss that, do we? Remember, its our choice.

Day 11: Becoming Best Friends With God

God wants to be your best friend.

When I read that statement, to be honest I was quite blown away. Yeah, I know that from head knowledge but just reading that again really opened up my eyes. It's simple really, God just wants to be part of your life like a friend!

Hmm...so, how do we become best friends with God? Day 11 covers 2 practical points and here they are:

Through Constant Conversation
Best friends talk. Period. Not just talk, but talk talk. You can never form a relationship with someone without communication! Likewise with God. All we have to do is to develop a habit of carrying on open ended conversations with God through the day, in all that we do.

Everything we do can be an act of worship, all we have to do is keep God in our mind and doing it as if we're doing it for Him! "Pray continually" says 1 Thess 5:17. No, it doesn't just mean praying all the time 5 times a day...but rather as if speaking to a friend, praying short 'arrow prayers' like "Thank You Lord", "Please let it be okay", "You are with me", "For me to live is Christ", "I want to know you", "Lord, draw near to me". These are practical examples. Try it!

Through Continual Meditation
Chuck out all preconceptions of meditations you have and take in this new set: "Dwelling on God's word in your mind". Real meditation is actually thinking about, digesting, dissecting, understanding God's word through the day.

If you know how to worry, you know how to meditate. You just need to replace the object of worry with a verse or two and there you go. You'll be sowing God's word in your heart on a daily basis! That's how God would be able to speak to you!

Start today! Try practising continual prayer and meditating on His word! What I suggest is to check our blog's daily verse out in the morning and commit that to memory and think and pray it through. You'd be amaze what revelations that would come out of it!

Day 10: The Heart Of Worship

The Heart of Worship

I’m coming back to the heart of worship
It’s all about You, It’s all about You Jesus
I’m sorry Lord for the things I’ve made it
When its all about You, its all about You Jesus.

The essence of this song is ultimately about surrender – giving of ourselves to Him in response to His amazing love! True worship happens when we give ourselves completely to God, and that makes Him smile. He wants all of us, every part of our lives. Why then is it so difficult to give our all to Jesus? Because of fear, pride, and confusion.

Can I trust God?
Trust is an essential ingredient to surrender. We won’t surrender unless we trust Him, but we can’t trust Him until we know Him better. Fear keeps us from surrendering, but His perfect love casts out all fear. The more we realize how much God loves us, the easier it is to surrender.

Admitting our Limitations
Pride hinders us from totally surrendering to Him. We dislike not having control over things in our lives. But we are not God, and we will never be. It is when we try to be God that we end up most like Satan, who desired the same thing.

What It Means to Surrender
It simply means sacrificing your life or suffering in order to change what needs to be changed. C.S Lewis observed. “The more we let God take over, the more truly ourselves we become – because He made us. It is when I turn to Christ, when I give up myself to His personality, that I first begin to have a real personality of my own”

Surrendering is best demonstrated in obedience – we obey God’s word fully, even if it doesn’t make sense. Partial obedience is disobedience. Another aspect of a fully surrendered life is trust – trusting that His ways are better than ours; and relying on God to work things out rather than rationalising with our own minds.

The Blessing of Surrender
We experience peace, freedom, and God’s power in our lives. The greatness of a man’s power is in the measure of his surrender.


The Best Way to Live
Everyone surrenders to something or someone. If not to God, we will surrender to the opinions or expectations of others, to money, to fear, pride etc. We are free to choose what we surrender to, but we are not free from the consequences of that choice.

Surrender is not the best way to live, it is the only way to live. Nothing else works. Our wisest moments will be those when we say yes to God. It makes Him smile when we obey and surrender everything to Him. So why not give it all to Him: our past regrets, our present problems, your future ambitions, your fears, your dreams, hurts, habits etc. Nothing under His control can ever be out of control.

However, when we decide to live a totally surrendered life, that decision will be tested. It may mean doing inconvenient, unpopular, costly or seemingly impossible tasks. It will often mean doing the opposite of what you feel like doing.

Published on behalf of Peggen Ewe.

OCF Clayton Memories

Yes! Our very own photo gallery is up and running! Check it out!

http://gallery.ocfclayton.org

Viewing photos won't require registration but if you want to upload your photos you'll need to register. It's quick and easy!

Next up! Our own forums! :) Have fun y'all!