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Eating the flesh of Joseph Prince

27 November 2009 blogpastor 15 Comments

(This post is re-published so that other citations made elsewhere in the web in reference to this post can be read in its full and proper context. I have also added related posts that I think are helpful for further reading.)

Y Joeph Prince preaching es I have descended to the tabloid sewers for the title of this post. No this is not a post about new covenant cannibalism. But would you have taken a second look if the title were, “Dear pastors and preachers….” or “what pastors and preachers can learn from Joseph Prince”? Make no bones about it, I took this from the cliched analogy of eating the flesh and leaving the bones aside, when people are advised not to throw away the whole package just because of something they are doubtful about, but to take what is edible and edifying and discard what is personally indigestible.

Joseph Prince’s “Destined to reign”

Dr Gordon Wong who is the Bishop William F Oldham Professor of Old Testament at Trinity Theological College and an ordained minister of the Methodist Church in Singapore, had written a review of Joseph Prince’s book. On the whole it was positive though there were a few concerns he had. But he had gracious and good things to say about Joseph Prince’s teaching on grace. To read his whole review, go HERE. Each pastor and preacher has to discern for himself what he can “eat” of Joseph Prince’s teaching on grace and law.

Joseph Prince’s preaching

But it is in methodology, not theology, that is the focus of my post, in particular, preaching and teaching the Word. Many would agree with me that the magnetic attraction of New Creation Church is Joseph Prince and his preaching. Every Sunday can be a hassle because of the parking; and the queueing and the overflow video rooms, and yet people turn up in droves. The worship and music is equal to many other megachurches. My conclusion is that what stands out is his anointed, interesting and liberating preaching of grace.

More indicatives and much less imperatives

There are at least two things we can learn from JP as pastors and preachers. I think the first is that we need to preach more sermons in the indicatives and less in the imperatives. Too many sermons in our pulpits focus on the ‘what we must do’ (imperatives) rather than ‘who Christ is and what he has done for us’(indicatives). We assume that the foundations of understanding of the gospel have already been laid and that people see how those liberating truths are linked with our everyday struggles and temptations. But this is such a fatal assumption. We do not need to preach on these, we think, so we concentrate on the imperatives: the what, whys, and especially the hows of all the demands and commands of the word of God. So people get an overdose of what is required of them, and constant reminders of what they often fail to do and live up to. End result: sense of defeat, failure, feeling hypocritical, discouragement, and frustration about living out the faith.

The tragedy is that in some quarters they like it when the preaching is tough on the hearer and brings him to deep remorse and self-loathe. Yes give it to us preacher, we deserve a good forty minus one scourging! Such an approach is just self-defeating and unknowingly pastors and preachers are creating a performance and failure mentality in the congregation. The members constantly feel joyless, defeated, frustrated, disillusioned and the happy Christian life seems a mirage in a spiritual desert, because they are reminded every week that they are not up to God’s standard.

We can eat the flesh of Joseph Prince and preach more sermons that exalt who God is and what he has done for us, and what we have and are as a result of our faith in Him. How about three messages a month that is predominantly ‘indicative’ and one that is ‘imperative’; more promises and less commands? Do this to redress old imbalances slanted towards ‘imperatives’. To get more clarity about the indicatives and imperatives of preaching read an extract from the professor of preaching from Fuller Seminary, Ian Pitt Watson. Go HERE to a previous post I wrote in Jan 2008 and re-published recently.

Inspire faith, hope and love

The second thing we can do is to deliberately seek to inspire faith, hope and love in our preaching. Joseph Prince knows the audience well and he is keenly aware of what they need. I remember a few pastors asking one of our friends husband why he attends New Creation Church, and he gave us an lightning bolt of an answer. He said, “I’ll be frank with you guys, so don’t get offended. Do you know how torturous it is sit through the sermons you all preach. Every time I hear a sermon, I feel the worse for it, more discouraged and defeated and a failure. I work through the week and am so stressed and discouraged and worried over my job challenges and instead of getting encouraged, you guys give me greater discouragement. When I go to NCC, every week I get uplifted, inspired and more hopeful.”

Jesus himself understood the multitudes and he too often preached to inspire hope and faith. His toughest messages were reserved for the people steeped in hypocrisy, but when he speaks to the common man, he preached hope, solutions, encouragement of a kingdom and God of forgiveness, unconditional fatherly love, provision, kindness, peace and joy.

Eat the flesh of Joseph Prince and go and do likewise: go inspire faith and hope in God especially in these times of bleak, dismal future. One way we can catch the essence is to read and listen to his stuff with an eye to his methodology. Read his daily devotional which gives that constant reminder of what is needed for the congregation in terms of its encouraging slant. Too many of us are too analytical and major on analyzing the problems and focus too little on the Great Solution, the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, the indicatives of preaching.

Be yourself but do not ignore underlying principles

Of course each preacher is unique and has his own style, substance and strengths. There is only one Rony Tan; one Lawrence Khong; one Kong Hee and one Joseph Prince. And there is only one unique YOU. What we can do is to see the underlying principles at work in this transformational model of preaching and apply them diligently and discerningly, and serve out the Word in our own differing capacities, styles and strengths.

Leadership- then and now

6 November 2009 blogpastor 3 Comments

O Lord you are there to help! Leadership was once about hard skills such as planning, finance, and business analysis. When command and control ruled the world, organization leaders were heroic rationalists who moved people around like pawns and fought like stags. When they spoke, the staff jumped.

Today, organizational leadership is increasingly concerned with soft skills—teamwork, communication, and motivation. Sadly for many top-level leaders, the soft skills remain the hardest to understand, let alone master.

Leadership in a modern organization is highly complex and increasingly difficult. Among the most crucial skills is the ability to capture your listener’s attention. Leaders of the future will also have to be emotionally efficient. They will promote variation rather than promoting people in their own likeness. They will encourage experimentation and enable people to learn from failure. They will build and develop people.

This may be too much to expect of one person. In the future, we will see more leadership groups rather than individual leaders. This change in emphasis from individuals towards groups has been charted by the leadership guru, Warren Bennis. In his work Organizing Genius, he concentrates on famous ground-breaking groups rather than individual leaders. “None of us is as smart as all of us,” says Professor Bennis. “The Lone Ranger is dead. Instead of the individual problem-solver, we have a new model for creative achievement. People like Steve Jobs or Walt Disney headed groups and found their own greatness in them.”

Professor Bennis provides a blueprint for the new model leader. “He or she is a pragmatic dreamer, a person with an original but attainable vision. Inevitably, the leader has to invent a style that suits the group. The standard models, especially command and control, simply don’t work. The heads of groups have to act decisively, but never arbitrarily. They have to make decisions without limiting the perceived autonomy of the other participants. Devising an atmosphere in which others can put a dent in the universe is the leader’s creative act.”

The role of the new model leader is ridden with contradictions. Paradox and uncertainty are increasingly at the heart of leading. Many leaders don’t like ambiguity, so they try to shape the environment to resolve the ambiguity. This may not be the best thing to do—the most effective leaders are flexible, responsive to new situations. If they are adept at hard skills, they surround themselves with people who are proficient with soft skills. They strike a balance.

The “leader as coach” is yet another phrase more often seen in business books than in the real world. Acting as a coach to a colleague is not something that comes easily to many senior-level leaders. It is increasingly common for executives to benefit from a mentoring relationship. They need to talk through decisions and to think through the impact of their behavior on others in the organization.

Today’s leaders regard leadership as drawing people and disparate parts of the organization together in ways that makes individuals and the organization more effective.

Adapted from Jonathan Farrington, What Leadership Was and What It Will Become 11 March 07

Today’s pastors need encouragement

12 October 2009 blogpastor 12 Comments

Thank you Lord for creative and caring members

I was so blessed to receive a gift the other Sunday. It was not a box of mooncakes. Rather, something more precious: a wooden box with a beautiful handpainted rainbow, the word “Inspiring” and my name “Kenny”. Each of the English adult congregation pastor received one – each unique. Inside the box were well-crafted and anonymous personal notes of appreciation and affirmation. I read mine a few times and was encouraged. There are always warm and loving people in church who are spiritually alert and know when their pastors need encouragement and they do something about it.

They are like Jonathan, that rare gem, the covenant brother of David.

Your love for me abounds. Thank You Lord.

It is often forgotten that every pastor needs encouragement just as much as members. In fact, they need it even more. For many reasons too.

For one, they had entered the ministry with a passion to make a difference in people’s lives, but it frustrates and pulls them down when their expectations have not been matched with reality on the ground. People change so little and so slowly. Some even get worse. Some members show so much of their dark sides, it makes pastors feel like Elijah under the juniper tree.

The ministry is very demanding and people have unrealistic expectations of their pastors. To worsen things, the pastor lives in a Web 2.0 world where his members can hear the best preachers in town and the world, and be unfairly compared to and criticized. In addition, the pastor pushes himself constantly, and even lays his health and family on the altar of people’s immature expectations .

Another pastoral struggle is the fight in the mind against anxiety and fear. Even more vexing is the struggle to embrace ambiguity, paradox and suffering in ministry.

Pastors get burnt out from prolonged labour and no sabbaticals; weary from working with meagre fruit to show for sacrifices put in; and from being misunderstood and hurt.

To worsen things are professional critics who think they are doing the church good by criticizing with disdain and disregard the weaknesses of the church and pastors.

Satan is of course always searching for unmended gaps in the fence of unity through which to discourage, harass, attack pastors. Centuries of expertise has informed their strategies. “Get the leader and the sheep will suffer,” the devil officer will tell his demon soldiers. “Use the church members and it doubles the impact of hurt and discouragement.”

When David was running for his life with the state army of king Saul searching for him in the wilderness of Ziph, he was filled with discouragement and fear. Jonathan risked angering his father Saul, and found David and encouraged him:

And Saul’s son Jonathan went to David at Horesh and helped him find strength in God. “Don’t be afraid,” he said. ‘My father Saul will not lay a hand on you. You will be king over Israel, and I will be second to you. Even my father Saul knows this.”(1 Samuel 23:16-17)

Mooncakes supplies energy, which pastors need. But encouragement supplies hope and fresh motivation for the journey ahead.

Pastors of today, more than ever, need treasure boxes like the one I have received.