Bullies are in your workplaces. They think they can play boss because they are close to the boss. Or that they spread rumors about you and think they can get away with it.

Bullies are in your small circle of friends. Oh, the guy who’s very good at manipulating your emotions, making you submit to his or her every demand.

And yes, bullies also exist in the business world. The big businesses who tries to threaten those small entrepreneurs with law suits because they think their bullying will shake their principles. Believe me, I know what I’m talking about.

People like these have a “high school hang-up syndrome”. They think everyday is high school, but no, apparently this is now the real world. Where people are learned. Stronger. Confident. Principled.

I don’t know. Maybe this is just my “Glee” marathon hangover. Or maybe I’m just tired of being bullied around. But I believe that bullies will not exist if we all refuse to be bullied. Stand your ground. Stand by your principles. Even if it will make some few broken relationships. Or broken business deals. Or broken meals.

As author Ellen White says (I can’t believe I’m quoting her), “The world needs men who will stand for the right though the heavens fall”.

You are the reason why bullies exist

Take it from a man — we know the difference.

You can be someone who’s 45 and wanting to look 25 to regain confidence. Or an 18 years old who wants to look prettier because you lack confidence.

Or you can be confident enough to walk around and feel beautiful because you know who you are.

Do you want to be Belo-fied?

I’m not downplaying cosmetics and hair spa or whatever those things girls and ladies do for beauty’s sake, but what I know is that there’s no amount of Belo-fication can replace being confident for who you are. Its you who knows your strengths and weaknesses. Rejoice in your strengths and accept your weaknesses. And believe that the Creator did not make a mistake when He designed you as you are right now.

PS: As a married man, I just have to say this. My wife is blessed to look 12 years younger without really exerting much effort. Call me arrogant, but I just think it’s a blessing that I should be thankful for. Having said that, she’s the most confident woman I have ever seen. She knows her weakness and strengths. And she knows her standing in Christ. That, to me, cannot be replaced by any cosmetics.

A childhood Adventist friend supposedly asked why I had to change. I was a passionate Adventist leader to them, and they were so disappointed that I changed course. My answer was that famous anonymous quote: “If there’s no change, there’d be no butterflies.”

The right question is not why you had to change, but rather, did you change for the better or for the worse?

I’d say, seven is the number of love.

Seven years of trials. Seven years of struggles. Seven years of character building. It is also seven years of discoveries. Of love. Of patience. Of kindness. Of Christ-centeredness. Seven years of blessings.

Seven years of failures and triumphs. Of giving and taking. Of loosing and gaining.

Today, I’d like to honor my wife, my love, my partner, my chear-leader, my personal psychologist and nurse, my no. 2 — as we both agreed that Jesus is our number 1. The Joy of my life.

We’ve made it to seven, why can’t we seven times seven?

In a span of one month, 3 new churches were launched in Makati. Our church, LifeChurch Makati at Glorietta 4 Cinema 1, was launched May 16. The next week, Word for the World’s RC Campus was also launched near the area of Rockwell Makati. Last week, Victory Makati started well with 300 attendance at AIM Conference Center.

That, actually, did not excite me. Seriously. Because I see churches being started left and right.

What excites the heck out of me is the fact that these 3 new churches did not come from the same organization but are friends. Pastor Rodney Garcia of RC became a good friend with LifeChurch Makati’s leadership team. Victory Makati’s Pastor LA Mumar, through Pastor Dennis Sy of Greenhills, is really interested to connect. Kuya Prudy, our lead pastor has met with him one time and I heard, they’re planning a get-together. This, to me, is inspiring.

Let me explain.

I came from a religious tradition that tries to divide God’s church. In fact, it became a sub-community on its own. After I felt my calling to be part of leading a church, and probably due to Craig Groeschel’s influence, it has become my passion to see the Church unite. It was Craig who said that “we can accomplish more things together than divided”. In a church world very diverse, selfishly thinking only about its own organization, even trying to tear each other down, I long to see us work together this time.

What if church leaders will forget about their denominations and their theological biases and instead pray for each other, encourage, help start-up churches get off the ground, mentor young pastors and inspire other organizations — even outside of your own? Imagine what will happen to Makati where 800,000 people reside (then swells to 4M on work days)! We will see more churches planted. On each street block. Small groups on each building. People’s lives changed. Marriages restored. Directions in life straightened.

Because, seriously, do you think 4 million very diverse people can be reached by just one church organization? Or could even multiple competing churches?

LifeChurch Makati is a testament, a case study on seeing how the big “C” church can be united.

When we were praying on how to bring LifeChurch.tv here in the Philippines, we saw hurdles. While LifeChurch.tv is very supportive — their enormous talent, creativity, leadership, training and Craig Groeschel pouring his heart out to us are in the bag — we pretty much are on our own as far as funding and starting up the church from the ground. And, unlike the 2 churches I mentioned, we don’t have a local mother church to support, train and provide encouragements. We’re on our own.

So, we have about 20 people from the original Grace Place team and a negative balance on our bank accounts and a raw passion to serve Jesus and make his name more famous.

I told the team, if we’re going to start this thing, we need the Church to come together and see our vision for the city. We need to be able to make them work together.

We’re on our 5th week after we launch. It is still a struggle as far as funding and enough volunteers are concerned. But in a small ways, we see the Church come together to help LifeChurch Makati get off the ground.

We have praise and worship volunteers who attended Joy Fellowship in Intramuros, Victory, Word for the World and Word of Hope. We have kids teachers, ushers and welcomers from New Life Christian Center, WWCF and other churches all over Makati. Financially, Horizon Fellowship promised to help out. Pastor Dennis Sy of Victory Greenhills not only provided encouragements and friendship but his church also helped us financially at some point during our preview services.

At this very early stage of this church “project”, we can feel the momentum going. If God blesses LifeChurch Makati with thousands of people in the future, it is because we have nothing and God’s Church have everything. We were united, we encouraged one another and we had no other goal in mind — not our egos, not for our own organizations, not to show our own strength — it is to make Jesus the Lord of Makati and every city.

* Thanks for those who greeted. One quick thought: 3 years ago, when I wake up in my birthday morning, my cellphone had already been swamped with text messages. Today, except for that message from my 2 brothers, I have none. Everyone else went to my Facebook page. The techopreneur in me is wondering how much mooneys does the telcos loose because of the popularity of Facebook.

* Nothing special today, really. This year’s the birthday that I never really felt any anticipation or excitement. The reason is simple: my thoughts were focused on other things, that is:

* Today, on my birthday, God birthed a new church family in Makati — LifeChurch Makati. The launch team worked hard, prayed hard, invited people (and its hard!) for this launch. And today, it’s official — we’re a church. :D

I thank God for 35 years of challenges, love, grace and peace that does not come from the things of this world. Thirty five years of ups and downs, victories and failures, joys and disappointments. I may have not survived it without my Mama and Papa, my wife Joy, my church family and most especially, the ever willing listening ear, ever forgiving, ever willing to give grace, the friend and Lord of my life — they call him Bro, JC, best friend — I call him with the name above all name, Jesus Christ.

As one commercial says, “Tomorrow’s another day!”

Let me write a quick note about LifeChurch Makati‘s last preview experience this Sunday.

We’re excited for this Sunday’s Preview Experience. This is our last chance to “tighten the screws” so to speak as we near our official launch on May 16.

This Sunday, we’re going to enjoy and be blessed with high energy worship and going to be challenged spiritually by Craig Groeschel’s message lifted from his recently released book “Christian Atheist”. If you’re planning to come, I promise you, after this event, you’re life will never be the same again.

Here’s the Facebook invite page. Bring your friends and your family members. The experience starts at exactly 10:45 am at Glorietta 4, Cinema 4 in Makati. Come earlier so we can have some more chats before the experience.

Makes me think: we’re a blessed generation. We have hundreds of Bible versions with millions of copies in the market. And, through LifeChurch.tv (were LifeChurch Makati is networked), considered as the most innovative church in the US — and in my opinion the most generous — they have made The Bible even more accessible — for free! — through YouVersion.com. Now you can read the Bible through the internet or through your phones.

Very accessible more than ever. But where is our Bibles today? In the altars? In your bags — to protect you from “harms and dangers?”

You will never experience the power of the Book if you’re not going to be passionate about reading it and putting it in your hearts. It has changed my life, it has inspired me to walk with God and it has guided me through difficult situations in life. My experience is identical with millions who decided to make the Bible part of their lives.

And you can experience this, too. Grab your Bible and start reading it. If you don’t have one, go ahead and go to YouVersion.com, choose a version you’re most comfortable with and start reading online.

Don’t wait for the time when the Bible is nowhere to be found.

I’m playing with the thought of having a mini-Christian bloggers’ meet-up this Friday night. I’m not an event organizer or anything like that, so I really don’t know what I’m doing. :D Nonetheless, I have a couple of reasons why I need this to happen:

1. I need to see the faces behind those avatars. Let’s admit it, we know a lot of people online, but very few know each other personally. It can be a great time to fellowship and shake the real hands, you know what I mean.

2. LifeChurch Makati, the church we’re launching in May, said we’re willing to sponsor the coffee/drinks for this event. So, that’s free Starbucks for those who’s coming. :D To be transparent about it, not only that we’re excited to meet Christian bloggers, we also what to know if you guys can help cover the event on Sunday (March 21) as we have our 2nd preview service at Glorietta 4, Cinema 4. Details during the meet-up.

So, if you’re a:

- Christian blogger, or

- Christian twitter (wow, new English term, eh!)

and if you’re available this Friday, 7 pm, we’d like to have you for this Christian Blogger mini-meetup. That’ll be held at Starbucks Glorietta 4. Please confirm your attendance here. If I’ll have even just 4 bloggers to sign up, we’ll proceed. If you have questions, please email me at arnold[at]lifechurchmakati.com.

Thanks,

Arnold

Let me lay out the ground work.

1. I’m an evangelical Christian.

2. Bro. Eddie is a leader of one of the biggest evangelical groups here in the Philippines.

3. While I’m not part of the Jesus is Lord Church which he founded, I look up to him as a brother and a great leader of the Church.

4. Apolo Quiboloy’s “Kingdom…”, on the other hand, is NOT an evangelical church. In fact, his church is largely considered a cult of Christianity among evangelical apologists. Reason for this includes his claim of being the Son of God (in Gentile body, blasphemous in my opinion), their works-oriented salvation doctrine, Oneness (as against Trinitarianism), and exclusivity (even claiming that Davao — where their headquarters is located — is the new Jerusalem). He has all the characteristics to be tagged by evangelicals as a dangerous cult.

5. I can respect Quiboloy as a citizen of the Philippines and truly a leader with many followers. But I will never call him a “preacher of righteousness”.

Bro. Eddie, as most of you know, is campaigning for the presidency.

Seeing this man of God compromise his belief, the gospel of Jesus Christ, to which this man from Davao has adulterated, breaks my heart. He is not only loosing his witness, he is also loosing the witness of the entire evangelical Christianity in the Philippines.

What else can Bro. Eddie do just to win the votes of the people?

I’m calling on Bro. Eddie to repent of this lie, hunger for power and for bringing shame to the name of Jesus Christ, the true Son of God.