For the Sunday services in November, I used Dr Gordon Wong’s book titled, “God, Why”, an exposition on the Old Testament book of Habakkuk, and found it a useful aid to preaching and cell group discussions. We adopted his material for the Sunday messages of the main and youth services and used his helpful discussion guide for all the cell groups. I chose it because I have used his previous material on Daniel for teaching in a bible school in Myanmar and found them a great help for my message preparation. Furthermore, it deepened our exploration of this year’s theme which is “The joy of childlike faith”. The response I received was warm and positive though the younger lower secondaries found it difficult to relate to the issues. The outlines were smartly worded for easy memory, which though I found at times somewhat stretched, still had obvious advantages for the hearers, and saved me the ache of rewriting the discussion questions. I do not tell people about sources when I adapt, modify outlines from other preachers and writers till they become unrecognizably mine, but for this case, I used most of his materials with little modification, so I publicly acknowledged the source, which I believe is a good practice for pastors.
Kar Yong, New Testament lecturer and blogger, was stirred to respond to something the preacher said in his sermon one Sunday. Read the interesting conversation going on about how both preacher and members should read their Bibles HERE.
We all face discouragement. One of the best passages that instructs us on how to bear discouragement is Nehemiah chapter 4.
A. WHAT CAUSES DISCOURAGEMENT?
There are more causes but the passage points to 5 causes:
External: 1. ridicule and criticism (verse1-3)
2. schemes and opposition from all directions(verse 7-9)
Internal:Â 1. fatigue and tiredness (verse 10)
2. draining problems - “rubble”(verse 10)
3. fear and intimidation (verse 11)
B. HOW TO BEAT DISCOURAGEMENT
1. Pray honestly and ask for help (verse 4,5 and 9)
2. Look to God’s greatness and grace in faith (ver 14)
3. Take sensible and practical action -do what you can (verse 13-13)
4. Deal with your fears - Nehemiah took steps to lessen their fear and raise their morale and courage.
The devil uses the tool of discouragement. A discouraged Christian is a defeated Christian. Take action against discouragement in your life. God wants us to be encouraged and to be agents of encouragement to others too.
II. DISCUSSION QUESTIONSÂ
Firstly remind everyone that whatever is shared is to be kept in confidence. This trust must not be broken without permission.
1. What are some of the very practical things that Nehemiah did to beat
discouragement among the people? Share what he did and what would be
the effects of that action?
2. What are the ill effects of discouragement in a Christian? a cell?
3. If you list the things that discourage you, would you see a repetitive
pattern. Are there things that usually get you down? Share with the
group one of these things that you are comfortable sharing about .
4. What do you do when you are discouraged? What do you find most helpful?
5. Â How can encouragement be a cultivated in the cell group?
I read a well researched article by Dr. Scott Thurman, who studied megachurches and detailed their general characteristics, and found that it can give us a glimpse of their unique culture and their parallels to Singapore’s megachurches.
Firstly, its their size. Obvious. And the magic number is 2,000 and above in weekly attendance. By this definition, 54% of megachurches in the US are 2,000 to 3,000, and only 4% are more than 10,000. Typically, though not in all cases, the megachurch went through a period of rapid growth over a short period of time in its history. And the critical mass and excitement of growth adds to the appeal of the megachurch, which someone aptly describe as a “vortex” of growth. “You hit a certain size and you can become self-generating….” Does size matter? Yes, in terms of generating further growth. Just looking at size, which are the Protestant megachurches in Singapore? Church of our Saviour, City Harvest Church, Trinity Christian Center, New Creation Church, Lighthouse Evangelism, St. Andrew’s Cathedral, Faith Community Baptist Church, Wesley Methodist Church(?), Barker Road Methodist Church(?) …….. please help me add to this list.
Secondly, Scott found that most of the megachurches have suburban sunbelt homes: they are based in sunny California, Texas, Florida, Georgia in fast growing metropolitan areas attracting consumer-oriented, highly-mobile, well-educated middle class urban dwellers. Megachurches are located mainly in suburban belts where land is aplenty and accessibility is good. Over here available land for church use is not aplenty, not even in suburban areas, and megachurches are hardpressed into creating innovative solutions. However the parallel with the US finding is that the consumer-oriented and well-educated middle-class keeps growing in Singapore and thats one of the reasons why megachurches here are thriving. (More on this factor in a later post).
Thirdly, they are functionallynon-denominational. What attracts is not the denominational distinctives but the size, the pastor, the programs and reputation. If you look at the list above, most of the newer churches are not part of a denomination.
Fourthly, there are three basic expressions to the one message of the megachurch. The one message of the megachurch is basically conservative and calls its attenders to a better than “ordinary” Christianity, to a “serious Christianity”. The three expressions are non-traditional which seeks to remake the traditions, to do church differently than the forefathers. Prime example is Willow Creek Community Church. The second expression of the megachurch is conventional, referring to the traditional Protestants like Southern Baptist, and mainline denominations like the Anglicans, Methodists, Presbyterians and Lutherans. The third expression is composite which is a blending of the above two in their architecture, worship style, polity, etc. Now if you are attending a megachurch in which of these three expression would you place your church?
A different way of categorizing megachurches is by their distictive appeal. Eddie Gibbs from Fuller Theological Seminary identifies four types: focus on teaching God’s Word; seeker-sensitive churches aimed at unchurched; prosperity gospel- health and wealth with minimal challenges of lifestyle; youth-oriented churches with leaders that relate well to popular culture. Can we identify some megachurches with these distinctives?
Fifthly, megachurches have a distinctive visionary identity. They are clear about their purpose, that “calling” or God-given “mission”. For example, Pastor Rony Tan of Lighthouse Evangelism’s calling is to shake the nations with God’s healing power. And the church fulfills its calling diligently and faithfully in its structures and emphasis. But not all megachurches are like that, particularly the conventional expressions.
I’m tired and will leave the other chracteristics to future posts. The small(100 and less), midsized(301 to 999) and large(1000 and more) churches can all learn from the megachurches(2000 and more) though what we learn has to be properly contextualized to our unique congregational resources, gifts-mix and situations. Unthinking imitation will only result in failure and disappointment and frustration.
One of my posts got cited again by Wall Street Journal online, and I showed my wife: look HERE under Related Articles and Blogs. Feels nice even to appear in tiny footnote right below.
Its always good to prepare to truly celebrate Christmas. We get the house looking decorated; we buy presents; we buy food for special meals and we also include the spiritual preparation of our minds and hearts too. Early. So the occasion of Christmas can be embraced with true gratitude and joy. This is advent. For starters: listen to the full hymn and then pray the set prayer.O God our Father, we are preparing to celebrate the birthday of your Son Jesus Christ. While we recall his coming as a tiny baby in weakness and humility, may we be reminded that one day he will come in power and glory. We make this prayer to you through the same Jesus Christ your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, for ever and ever. (A Catholic prayer book)
England lost to Croatia 2-3. England is out of the Euro 2008. Football fans and the media money man and a hundred other commercial concerns are weeping. When will England wake up and think out of the box? Incredibly some of their best football minds are blaming the overwhelming use of foreign talent in the English Premier League as the reason why England’s football teams of recent years have not been doing so well. Even the Sports minister is into it (elections is just around the corner). And Ferguson is using the heat of the moment to his advantage and putting more pressure on his old foe Monsieur Wenger of Arsenal, the team that plays scintillating football, currently ahead of Manchester United, bashing the manager for consistently using mostly foreign imports in his teams, and therefore singlehandedly pulling down the standards of the English football team. But are foreigners really depriving young British footballers from playing and maturing and therefore decreasing the supply of good footballers for the national team? Its an issue that’s more complex than meets the eye. But even as they argue till the cows come home game is over, why don’t the English take a page off Singapore’s progress in recent years, driven by the import of foreign talent, and give citizenship to deserving feet. From perpetual disappointers of regional tournaments, Singapore lions are now champions of ASEAN, and now making progress into the group stages of the Asian tournament. We have three Africans, two from former Yugoslavia, two from England, one China national, who have been fast tracked in the citizenship foreign talent scheme, and they are making a difference. Why don’t the English think out of the box and do the same? British sense of fairplay getting in the way of pragmatism. The Japanese team has a Brazilian. The French team that won the World Cup and the one that almost did doesn’t look very French. If the English have been up in their game, and worked with the big four clubs, scouring their youth academies, for talent worthy of one day representing a country that invented football as we know it today, giving them citizenship, they would have had an English “Fabregas” to orchestrate and win matches for England.
I woke up one morning in Nepal thinking about Dr Chee Soon Juan. Strange, I thought, but I listen to my morning “ruminations” and do give them some weight.
Now it is my opinion that J.B. Jayaratnam is a true Singapore patriot and an unsung hero. I admire his courage, resilience, perseverence and passion for the cause. But what about Dr Chee Soon Juan, the man who also bear similar characteristics? Lampooned and harpooned by authorities and media; inciting consternation and frustration at coffeeshop conversations, I think this political activist and outcast, needs to be reinterpreted in a softer, gentler light. I think there may even be method in his madness(If he is just another Harbans Singh, who singlehandedly spoiled the opposition brand, the authorities would have left him alone).
My take is that he chose a difficult and obnoxious path consciously, deliberately, and strategically and after calculating the cost, he was willing to pay the price to do it. In a prosperous, smug and satisfied, media-controlled country, whose population has been conditioned to accept the status quo of political stability in exchange for surrendering specific freedoms; whose Confusion Confucian values, imbibed with mother’s milk and ABCs, patrol and control our subconscious highways, how can a lone voice in the wilderness, declare to them that they are chained, handcuffed unlike citizens in U.S.A. or Philippines or Australia or Hong Kong(before 1995) and awaken them from their apathy and complacency. I think what Dr Chee chose to do was to deliberately do and say things that arrests the attention of the press (and therefore public) to the freedoms they lack. By doing some of the outrageous, law-defying and obnoxious things he had done, perhaps a Tan or a Samy or Ahmad might start raising questions in themselves: “Why should I need a permit to speak in public on issues concerning the welfare and future of the country of which I am a citizen? Why can’t I do what the British, our colonial masters can easily do without permits, in any park in their country”. We experienced Merdeka but merdeka from what and to what? Yes, it is always an unflattering photo angle or video footage or quote that we get to see or read. And yes some of his verbal gesticulating are later proven to be untrue…….. but is he plain stubborn and a poor reader of what the public wants; or is there method in his madness? Is he playing a constructive role in Singapore’s political development: as a “stirrer”, a challenger of the status quo, a political prophet to the aristocratic elite.
The Singapore church has imported so much of the American (…and some say Australian too) megachurch culture that I pray that what the US Senate is currently investigating is not part of the culture we are going to import to our island’s shores. After all Singapore already imports almost everything it consumes. Its again the “megachurch” and “megamedia” of Christendom that lands the church in US into suspicion, doubt and shame. Why so? Why so? Why so?
Senate Inquiry Targets Televangelists
By ERIC GORSKI
AP Religion Writer
Acting on tips about preachers who ride in Rolls Royces and have purportedly paid $30,000 for a conference table, the top Republican on the Senate Finance Committee said Tuesday he’s investigating the finances of six well-known TV ministers.
Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa said those under scrutiny include faith healer Benny Hinn, Georgia megachurch pastor Creflo Dollar and one of the nation’s best known female preachers, Joyce Meyer.
Grassley sent letters to the half-dozen Christian media ministries earlier this week requesting answers by Dec. 6 about their expenses, executive compensation and amenities, including use of fancy cars and private jets.
In a statement, Grassley said he was acting on complaints from the public and news coverage of the organizations.
“The allegations involve governing boards that aren’t independent and allow generous salaries and housing allowances and amenities such as private jets and Rolls Royces,” Grassley said.
“I don’t want to conclude that there’s a problem, but I have an obligation to donors and the taxpayers to find out more. People who donated should have their money spent as intended and in adherence with the tax code.”
Those ministries that responded Tuesday either said they were cooperating or committed to financial transparency and following the law.
The investigation promises to shine new light on the kind of TV ministries that were crippled by sex and money scandals in the 1980s. Experts also say it stands out as an unusual case of the government probing the inner workings of religious organizations.
Most of those under investigation preach a variation of the “prosperity gospel,” the teaching that God will shower faithful followers with material riches.
Grassley’s letters went to:
_ Kenneth and Gloria Copeland of Kenneth Copeland Ministries of Newark , Texas , a $20 million organization and prosperity gospel pioneer. Questions were raised about the transfer of church assets to a for-profit company, Security Patrol Inc., a $1 million loan from Gloria Copeland to the group, and a “personal gift” of more than $2 million given to Kenneth Copeland to mark the ministry’s 40th anniversary.
A Copeland spokeswoman released a statement saying the ministry is working on a response to Grassley’s letter, follows all laws and best practices governing churches and religious nonprofit groups, and “will continue to do so.”
_ Creflo and Taffi Dollar of World Changers Church International and Creflo Dollar Ministries of College Park , Ga. Grassley’s letter asks for records on private planes, board makeup, compensation and donations and “love offerings” to visiting ministers. In a statement, Dollar called his ministry an “open book” and said he would cooperate. He also questioned whether the investigation could “affect the privacy of every community church in America .”
_ Benny Hinn of World Healing Center Church Inc. and Benny Hinn Ministries of Grapevine, Texas, is asked about use of a private jet, a home in Dana Point, Calif. and “layover trips” while traveling on ministry business. Hinn did not respond to requests for comment.
_ Bishop Eddie Long of New Birth Missionary Baptist Church and Bishop Eddie Long Ministries of Lithonia , Ga. , was questioned about his salary, a $1.4 million real estate transaction and whether he, and not the board, holds sole authority over the organization. Long plans to fully comply with the Senate’s request, and his church has “several safeguards” to ensure transactions comply with laws governing churches, according to a statement from Long’s spokesman.
_ Joyce and David Meyer of Joyce Meyer Ministries of Fenton , Mo. , who were quizzed about receiving donations of money and jewelry and the handling of cash from overseas crusades. They also were asked about expenditures at ministry headquarters, including a $30,000 conference table and a $23,000 “commode with marble top.”
The ministry’s lawyer released a statement describing the ministry’s work and public release of several years’ worth of audits. He also said the IRS found in October that the group continues to qualify for tax-exempt status.
_ Randy and Paula White of the multiracial Without Walls International Church and Paula White Ministries of Tampa, Fla. are asked about home purchases in San Antonio, Texas, Malibu, Calif., and New York, credit card charges for clothing and cosmetic surgery and the reported purchase of a Bentley convertible as a gift for Bishop T.D. Jakes, a prominent Texas preacher and televangelist. An e-mail to a spokeswoman for Jakes was not immediately returned.
In a statement, Randy and Paula White declined to comment on specifics, saying they needed time to review the letter with their lawyers. But the Whites called the Grassley letter “unusual, since the IRS has separate powers to investigate religious organizations if they think it’s necessary.”
Hinn, Kenneth Copeland and Creflo Dollar all sit on the board of regents for Oral Roberts University , which is mired in a financial scandal of its own.
The Senate Finance Committee has chided secular nonprofits for governance and compensation problems in the past, but this level of scrutiny for what are basically “non-pulpit churches” is unprecedented, said Ken Behr, president of the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability.
Because the groups have tax status as churches, they are not required to file tax forms open to public inspection.
I first came to know of this riveting admission of the failure from reading Random Musing’s post but had no time to do a post. On the one hand, I admire the courageous and humble stance of its founder, Bill Hybels, in admitting publicly to the mistake. On the other hand, hundreds had followed his lead of ‘modernizing’ the church with a philosophy of management and marketing taken from the secular world, and to hear such an admission is earth-shaking. Here is the article extracted from Christianity Today.
October 18, 2007
Willow Creek Repents?
Why the most influential church in America now says “We made a mistake.”
Few would disagree that Willow Creek Community Church has been one of the most influential churches in America over the last thirty years. Willow, through its association, has promoted a vision of church that is big, programmatic, and comprehensive. This vision has been heavily influenced by the methods of secular business. James Twitchell, in his new book Shopping for God, reports that outside Bill Hybels’ office hangs a poster that says: “What is our business? Who is our customer? What does the customer consider value?†Directly or indirectly, this philosophy of ministry—church should be a big box with programs for people at every level of spiritual maturity to consume and engage—has impacted every evangelical church in the country.
So what happens when leaders of Willow Creek stand up and say, “We made a mistake�
Not long ago Willow released its findings from a multiple year qualitative study of its ministry. Basically, they wanted to know what programs and activities of the church were actually helping people mature spiritually and which were not. The results were published in a book, Reveal: Where Are You?, co-authored by Greg Hawkins, executive pastor of Willow Creek. Hybels called the findings “earth shaking,†“ground breaking,†and “mind blowing.â€
If you’d like to get a synopsis of the research you can watch a video with Greg Hawkins here. And Bill Hybels’ reactions, recorded at last summer’s Leadership Summit, can be seen here. Both videos are worth watching in their entirety, but below are few highlights.
In the Hawkins’ video he says, “Participation is a big deal. We believe the more people participating in these sets of activities, with higher levels of frequency, it will produce disciples of Christ.†This has been Willow’s philosophy of ministry in a nutshell. The church creates programs/activities. People participate in these activities. The outcome is spiritual maturity. In a moment of stinging honesty Hawkins says, “I know it might sound crazy but that’s how we do it in churches. We measure levels of participation.â€
Having put all of their eggs into the program-driven church basket you can understand their shock when the research revealed that “Increasing levels of participation in these sets of activities does NOT predict whether someone’s becoming more of a disciple of Christ. It does NOT predict whether they love God more or they love people more.â€
Speaking at the Leadership Summit, Hybels summarized the findings this way:
Some of the stuff that we have put millions of dollars into thinking it would really help our people grow and develop spiritually, when the data actually came back it wasn’t helping people that much. Other things that we didn’t put that much money into and didn’t put much staff against is stuff our people are crying out for.
Having spent thirty years creating and promoting a multi-million dollar organization driven by programs and measuring participation, and convincing other church leaders to do the same, you can see why Hybels called this research “the wake up call†of his adult life.
Hybels confesses:
We made a mistake. What we should have done when people crossed the line of faith and become Christians, we should have started telling people and teaching people that they have to take responsibility to become ‘self feeders.’ We should have gotten people, taught people, how to read their bible between service, how to do the spiritual practices much more aggressively on their own.
In other words, spiritual growth doesn’t happen best by becoming dependent on elaborate church programs but through the age old spiritual practices of prayer, bible reading, and relationships. And, ironically, these basic disciplines do not require multi-million dollar facilities and hundreds of staff to manage.
Does this mark the end of Willow’s thirty years of influence over the American church? Not according to Hawkins:
Our dream is that we fundamentally change the way we do church. That we take out a clean sheet of paper and we rethink all of our old assumptions. Replace it with new insights. Insights that are informed by research and rooted in Scripture. Our dream is really to discover what God is doing and how he’s asking us to transform this planet.
For small and medium sized churches, the encouragement is that we do not need to despair that we do not have the buzz, the spectacular, the queue, the millions. We can still fulfill the essence of Jesus’ great commission to make disciples by doing the essential things: nurturing people’s love for God and love for people. Our smallness may even put us at an advantage, because disciples cannot be made en masse, or Jesus himself would have done so.
Any personal comments?
(For comments in Random Musings post on this look here.)
For the Sunday services in November, I used Dr Gordon Wong’s book titled, “God, Why”, an exposition on the Old Testament book of Habakkuk, and found it a useful aid to preaching and cell group discussions. We adopted his material for the Sunday messages of the main and youth services and used his helpful discussion guide for all the cell groups. I chose it because I have used his previous material on Daniel for teaching in a bible school in Myanmar and found them a great help for my message preparation. Furthermore, it deepened our exploration of this year’s theme which is “The joy of childlike faith”. The response I received was warm and positive though the younger lower secondaries found it difficult to relate to the issues. The outlines were smartly worded for easy memory, which though I found at times somewhat stretched, still had obvious advantages for the hearers, and saved me the ache of rewriting the discussion questions. I do not tell people about sources when I adapt, modify outlines from other preachers and writers till they become unrecognizably mine, but for this case, I used most of his materials with little modification, so I publicly acknowledged the source, which I believe is a good practice for pastors.
England lost to Croatia 2-3. England is out of the Euro 2008. Football fans and the media money man and a hundred other commercial concerns are weeping. When will England wake up and think out of the box? Incredibly some of their best football minds are blaming the overwhelming use of foreign talent in the English Premier League as the reason why England’s football teams of recent years have not been doing so well. Even the Sports minister is into it (elections is just around the corner). And Ferguson is using the heat of the moment to his advantage and putting more pressure on his old foe Monsieur Wenger of Arsenal, the team that plays scintillating football, currently ahead of Manchester United, bashing the manager for consistently using mostly foreign imports in his teams, and therefore singlehandedly pulling down the standards of the English football team. But are foreigners really depriving young British footballers from playing and maturing and therefore decreasing the supply of good footballers for the national team? Its an issue that’s more complex than meets the eye. But even as they argue till the 
and media; inciting consternation and frustration at coffeeshop conversations, I think this political activist and outcast, needs to be reinterpreted in a softer, gentler light. I think there may even be method in his madness(If he is just another Harbans Singh, who singlehandedly spoiled the opposition brand, the authorities would have left him alone).
I first came to know of this riveting admission of the failure from reading Random Musing’s post but had no time to do a post. On the one hand, I admire the courageous and humble stance of its founder, Bill Hybels, in admitting publicly to the mistake. On the other hand, hundreds had followed his lead of ‘modernizing’ the church with a philosophy of management and marketing taken from the secular world, and to hear such an admission is earth-shaking. Here is the article extracted from Christianity Today.
The results were published in a book, Reveal: Where Are You?, co-authored by Greg Hawkins, executive pastor of Willow Creek. Hybels called the findings “earth shaking,†“ground breaking,†and “mind blowing.â€
