Month: November 2007

Do I Have a Soul Mate?


I’ve finished two more articles/chapters for the book. Here’s the titles:

Do I Have a Soul Mate?
Part 1: Soul Mate Myths
Part 2: How Can I Know I Have Found the Right Person?

I’ll give you a little excerpt from Part 1:

“Soul mate” is a commonly used expression when we talk about love and romance. There’s one “small” problem for pastors like me: the soul mate is not a biblical concept. The notion, in fact, seems to come from religions that believe in reincarnation. The idea is that two souls are timelessly bound together as they pass from life to life.

Don’t get me wrong, I won’t hit you over the head with the Bible for saying these two words (this special ritual is reserved for boys who go around breaking young girls’ hearts). In fact, I’ll use the expression repeatedly in this chapter. For most of us, “soul mate” simply means someone that we connect with on an emotional, intellectual, and spiritual level. There’s nothing wrong with desiring this, but I want to dispel a few myths and help you put things in their proper perspective. . .

You’ll have to buy the book to read the rest. Let me know what you think of the excerpt.

Filipino Youth are Dropping out of Church

One of the articles in my book will be about live-in relationships (also know as cohabitation). Research indicates that Filipino youth are becoming more accepting of cohabitation. This, of course, saddens me. The author of the study noted something else about Filipino youth: they go to church less frequently than they did a decade ago. Here’s the quote:

Findings also show that the youth are getting to be less religious in general. Using attendance at religious services as a measure of religiosity, fewer people attend religious services at least once a week and more people reported they rarely or never attend religious services in 2002 (35%) than in 1994 (24%).*

As I have mentioned before, I’m deeply concerned about the moral/spiritual values of our youth here in the Philippines (especially here in Manila: see Manila’s Silent Epidemic). This study reminds me of our urgent task: to reach the youth with biblical, high-quality, relevant ministry.

*You can find the study about cohabitation here.