You might have seen this picture back when my wife Instagrammed about our trip to Pagadian almost two months ago. Here’s a short series of pictures that show stuff from it.

One lesson this shows is, it’s never about just one person. Everyone is where they are because of other people in their lives. In a few weeks, we’ll have our Ignite Conference. There’ll be a total of less than a hundred people on stage but to make this work would be the efforts of over a thousand volunteers, security guards, students, communications creative specialists, technical experts, campus missionaries, etc. It’s always about the people you’re working with.

What about you? Do you have people in your life who can help you get where you need to go?

Pastor! kailan ba ang tamang panahon para manligaw? (When is the right time to court someone?)

I’m assuming you’re a guy because I’ve only heard this question from guys.

Dating is only a recent social invention and is meant to be a transitory stage into the beauty of marriage that God designed for us.

I don’t think there’s an actual time frame, but more of who are you and what are you ready for. Like my dad told me, and I tell the young men you disciple, the hardest part about chasing a woman isn’t the chase, but what you do if you catch her. Are you ready to love her by dying to yourself now, the way Jesus did for us? (Ephesians 5:25)

So my recommendation, and this only a recommendation not a biblical, all-encompassing rule, is to begin thinking about dating, courting, or whatever when you’ve thought about what comes after and you’re looking for this stage to lead into that.  

Hi,ptr.joe!iam really blessed with your love story. How did you overcome temptations? Was it difficult for you and carla to keep your purity before marriage?

Oh yeah! One reason is coz she’s really hot. But more than that, my old sinful nature keeps trying to drag me back into someone God didn’t make me to be.

We were able to overcome by first realizing that because of Jesus, this sinful tendency is powerless. It seems like the urges are strong, but really they’ve been beaten and crushed by Jesus already. Secondly, we constantly asked the Holy Spirit to help us as we fight these temptations. We’d remind each other of the stand we made and how much more beautiful God’s plans for us were than the promise of illicit sex. Thirdly, we worked out these spiritual truths into practical steps: get counsel and accountability from others, don’t put ourselves in compromising situations (two of us alone for extended periods of time in a room, etc).

Good day pastor Joseph! How do you become a missionary? My husband and I have been contemplating on joining the field and volunteering but we are having second thoughts especially when it comes to leaving our jobs (bills, support for family, etc.)…

There are so many ways people become vocational ministers. So it’ll be hard to be very specific here. I think generally, at least for our movement, just volunteer first. Serve somewhere, anywhere. (Every Christian should be doing that anyway.)

And if God’s calling you to do it full-time, you’ll know and so will the people around you. And if He is calling you do it, He’ll take care of the finances. Just like He will for any other vocation – business people, academics, manual laborers, etc.

Super thank you for not asking a relationship related question.

Why did you decide against collating your podcast in one site?

Good question. Maybe I’ll start it up again. I just thought it was too much work.

Hi Pastor Joseph! Have you ever had a money issue with Carla? How do you manage if the wife has more money than the husband before marriage? Thanks!

From what I’ve learned from much wiser, much more mature, and much more experienced couples, there are different ways that marriages handle money. But there are biblical principles we can follow that can guide us.

Personally, Carla and I agreed that I would provide for our needs and she would work and make money for extra stuff. So we’ve decided to live entirely on what I bring in. This allows me to lead in a way that is helpful for both of us. And she doesn’t have the burden of sustaining the family financially.

You’re right in saying that she had more money than me before getting married, but now that we are one, we see it as one account. But I still don’t touch it, unless she volunteers it for special things like helping her family, giving to a specific need of someone else, or investing for the future.

Was inspired to continue answering these Formspring questions while riding a taxi and hearing yet another person with love issues call a radio dj to ask for advice, while the dj played mocking noises in the background, finally capping it off with a playing of Victims of Love. I felt sad for this person who obviously needed help (or wanted attention. Maybe both.) and had to receive this kind of treatment to get it.

In saying this I mean no offense at all against DJ’s who give out love advice, especially the ones who are trained and motivated beyond putting on a good show to really providing a service to others. I remember meeting Joe D’Mango this year and found him to be wise and helpful.

Anyway… Here’s Formspring #4

Hi pastor Joseph, how would you define submission in marriage. And you said that in relationship both of you should know about what your partner needs. What if husband doesnt care about what you want. he Loves you the way he wants, not the way I want. Thx

The Bible gives us clear instructions of what submission means, I think.

Ephesians 5:22-24 “22 Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. 23 For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. 24 Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.”

And 1 Peter gives helpful ideas for wives whose husbands are less than perfect:

1 Peter 3:1-2 “Wives, in the same way be submissive to your husbands so that, if any of them do not believe the word, they may be won over without words by the behavior of their wives, 2 when they see the purity and reverence of your lives.”

prt.Joe, may tym po ba na sobrang nag selos kayo because may mas pogi pang nanligaw kay mam rica? or may nalaman kayo crush ni mam rica?

Yes! As I started to like her, I began noticing other guys who seemed interested as well. But I knew that jealousy wouldn’t be healthy. And more importantly, I had no right since she wasn’t mine. That’s why I married her. I gave myself to her and she gave herself to me. Now she’s mine. Mwahaha!

Pastor in surrendering 100 % fully to God should I break up with my boyfriend even thought my boyfriend is a man of God??

Is God telling you to do that? A boyfriend who is a man of God can help you pursue Him better. But it can also be a hindrance. When God talks to you – through the Bible, through godly people who give you advice, through circumstances, and through the Holy Spirit using your own mind, common sense, and peace – what is He saying?

Hi Pastor, I have a friend in school who would backstab me yet she would be very sweet to me whenever we’re together. I don’t know if I should leave her or just stick with her. What would you do?

You’re asking me what I’d do, so here’s what I’ve done in the past. If the person is a real friend who I want to stay close with still, I talk to them and ask them if they really said what I heard about. Basically, I’m giving them an opportunity to come clean and we can be reconciled.

But there also times when the person doesn’t seem like they want to work on it. At that point, I do what I have to to protect myself – like I won’t open up sensitive information to them anymore because I don’t know where it will go. It can be sad, but it takes two people to make a friendship work, and someone who continues to backstab you isn’t a friend.

Pastor,I just want to thank you for inspiring people with your words. Indeed, God’s love can transform anyone. I really need to ask this, how did you fully accept your wife’s past? Is it difficult? I really admire Ate Rica and how GOD changed her!:)

I love this question. I love it because it’s one of the most beautiful pictures of what Jesus did for us. The Bible says in 2 Corinthians 5:17, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!”

“In Christ” means a person who has put their faith in Jesus to cover over their sins. Jesus died on the Cross taking the death we were suppose to die for our own sins.

“New creation” means that for those who believe in Jesus, every bad thing has been taken away from them and replaced with the perfection of Jesus. So to be honest, I don’t need to accept my wife’s past because that’s not her. What she is is a daughter of God, beautiful, flawless, lovely inside and out. Anything that seems to be reminiscent of that past is a temporary thing and as we follow God together, her true identity becomes more and more clear.

hi! i was the one who asked the question abt dating, and thank u for answering it do u agree that one should only start dating when u think you’re prepared for marriage?

Well, that’s what I did. I don’t think it’s automatically wrong to date without marriage in mind. I just find it pointless and an unnecessary temptation to sin.

If you want to ask questions, you can click this link. You can also read this very helpful resource.

Last week, I finished the book Rising Higher by Kelly Williams – PBA player with Talk ‘N Text, father, husband, and Christian. It tells his story from growing up in Michigan with his American father and Filipina mother to discovering basketball, going to school, and eventually making his way to the Philippines to play professional basketball.

I enjoyed reading this book because it allowed me a peek into a world that was so different from mine, but was criss-crossed by themes that anyone can relate with – whether he’s describing his sadness at the loss and pain he’d suffered or the butterflies in his stomach when he met his wife. While it’s about a high-flying professional basketball player, it’s also still very human.

posterize (verb) - to embarrass someone by dunking on them so that they are featured on a poster

Two words in particular kept coming back to me as I read: courage and generosity.

The book is full of courage – you feel it every time he bounces back from an injury or relational obstacle. You feel it in his ability to take a leap of faith and travel halfway around the world. I especially felt it in his willingness to write about very personal and painful memories.That took courage. I actually asked him about this after reading and he related how challenging it was to go back into certain frames of mind in his past and confront some ugly mindsets he once had. He could have given more time to the glamorous life of a PBA basketball star, but he felt that these moments were important to pass on to the reader.

And that brings me to generosity. Icko, a director friend, kept using the phrase “Be generous” to an acting class he was teaching. He later explained to me that people can act by just going through the motions, but when they give it that extra push, go the extra mile, give beyond what’s expected, dig a little deeper than necessary – that’s generosity. I realized that the concept applied to so much of life as well – in work, relationships, working out, performances, conversations, etc. You know when people are being generous because you feel that they gave you something. And that’s what this book feels like.

I started reading it out of curiosity, to get to know the man who lives 9 floors directly above us, someone I know from church and professional basketball. Then it became interest – in his life and the interesting perspective it provides. By the end it moved to gratitude. I was thankful to Kelly for taking the effort to record this story and being willing to share it to so many.

So I highly recommend you grab a copy! There’s a little bit of something for everyone. Basketball fans will be happy to get an inside look at the sport on the professional level. It’s a coming of age story, a love story, a fatherhood story and a travel diary of a Filipino-American who learns to fall in love with our country. Overall it’s a story of a man’s journey of faith that took everything life had to throw at him and kept going anyway.

available at Fully Booked for P1000, hardbound

Some great blogs I’ve been reading that might be interesting to some of you.

When Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter Crash the Party - a great blog from the online Wall Street Journal about the need for evolving etiquette even as technology continues to develop. Check it out and try it in your next party of get-together!

Getting a Haircut - Our good friend and my wife’s mentor, Jenn Punzalan, blogs about how she finally got her four-year old son (our godson!) to agree to a haircut. Cute, funny, but there’s a good lesson in there for parents and leaders.

Why We Should Avoid Hyperbole in Church Communications - Great blog by media guru Thelma Bowlen! I found myself guilty of a few of the things she was mentioning and I’m glad she shared her thoughts. Check it out if you want to maximize your communication.

What I Learned From Disciplining My Kids - Another parenting blog, this time from our good friend, Thammie Sy! She is married to Dennis, our senior pastor in Victory Greenhills and they both have tons of great content on their sites. His list of blogs was the source of three of these links in this list. This blog gives a cute story, with a very powerful lesson at the end also.

Being a Pastor is a Strange Thing - Paolo Punzalan, Ate Jenn’s husband and executive pastor of Victory Fort, reblogs this amusing but insightful description of a pastor’s job. I really liked how it was able to gather different perspectives from the Bible and put them together nicely. You can really only do this job by the power of the Holy Spirit. Insightful readers will see that some of these aren’t just for pastors but for anyone who works and needs God’s power to do it. Original here.

Unequally Yoked – An ardent atheist blogger is won over by the Gospel and now blogs about her journey of faith. She explains here process here. I liked her tone of honesty and openness.

Video of our Mt. Bulusan climb a.k.a. the only video on the internet of me singing – My wife has tirelessly edited some of the footage from our recent Mt. Bulusan climb. Check it out to see our experience climbing that inactive volcano. Things to watch out for: the shot with a near-perfect circular rainbow looking downward at the clouds, the wild berries shown by our guide, Ate Virgie, and of course, my song number at the end. 1000 points to whoever can identify the movie the song is from.

I know I said I’d blog something else in the next post, but things have been pretty crazy. Last Friday, after a regular week’s work, which included a branding meeting (exciting!) and numerous other things in development, I was finally ordained as a pastor in our church. I’d been functioning and recognized as one along with over a hundred others, so this ceremony was more for recognition and “to fulfill all righteousness” to borrow a phrase from Jesus.

Great moment with spiritual and biological family - very significant while staying light hearted.

Immediately after the ceremony, my wife and I changed and went straight to the bus station to catch a bus to Bicol where we proceeded to climb Mt. Bulusan, a volcano that’s been closed for a few years and recently declared inactive. Climbing a volcano!!! Who could resist that? We got back this morning. And after spending two nights in a bus and one night on a sleeping bag, I’m looking forward to sleeping on a real bed.

24 hours in buses, 6 hours in jeepneys, 14.4 km hike, 1,561 meters above sea level, innumerable cuts and scrapes - totally worth it!

In short, no time to blog about that other thing I promised. So in the spirit of blogging something, ANYTHING really, here’s an old blog I wrote three years ago after I proposed to Carla. Then at the bottom, check out the link to my brother’s blog for his take on the events. This was first posted on Multiply and is entitled She Said Yes.

I’m getting married.

Last Saturday, the 30th of May 2009, I asked Rica “Carla” Peralejo, my girlfriend of 10 months, to marry me and she said yes. The feeling is a weird mix of adulthood-responsibility and child-like glee.

We’ve been dating for 10 months now and it has been a very enriching,fulfilling, challenging, pruning, and growing experience. We’ve talked, laughed, cried, fought, and forgiven. The time just felt right to move on. After getting the advice and counsel of many older and wiser people, as well as taking the time to pray and ask God on my own, I decided to move our relationship to the next level.

I feel so privileged and really blessed (in the fullest, truest sense of the word) to be in this relationship with her. What an awe-inspiring thing it is to imagine that God would entrust the well-being of one of His most precious works of art – a human life – to you.

I’m gonna blog about the details of the proposal as well as our story some time soon when the pictures are ready. I’m also still trying to digest everything in order to write coherently.

There are so many people who I want to appreciate also, and I’ll do that in segments to be able to give full appropriate appreciation to thoseconcerned. It’s really been an amazing journey, with so much more to look forward to.

For a more detailed and hilarious take on the event, read my brother’s blog as he describes the process from his perspective.

Stay tuned.

A crash course on rings and stuff before the big question