Why Play Pickleball: Ten Reasons

1 January 2023 Leave a comment

What is this sport that is a craze in New York? What is pickleball? How would I usually describe it to friends? “Imagine a badminton court. Bring the net down to the height of the tennis net. Replace the racquet with what looks like an enlarged table tennis paddle made of plastic. The ball is plastic and bigger than a table tennis ball but smaller than a tennis ball. 

Why did I consider picking up this sport? I was persuaded to try this sport by my wife Jenny. She has been playing this for many years. Now that I have retired, I could join her. I grew to like it and now it has almost displaced my hiking and cycling hobbies. Here are a few reasons why.

First, it is fun. The fun is in the play, the people, the pleasure you feel when you execute a shot well that you never thought you had in you. Even if in the end the match was lost, you still felt good. 

It is challenging. It is an easy sport to pick up and start playing, but to master it and play well is quite a challenge. There are many skills to learn, each of them difficult to master at a high or consistent level. It can be frustrating when your progress is slow but exhilarating when others notice the improvement you have made.

You exercise without feeling like you are exercising. The first game I played I was totally out of breath. Now, after a year, I can play continuously for an hour without worry. My fitness has improved. I exercised without realising it because all I was conscious of was the fun of the play.

It brings you into contact with people. You get to be acquainted with a lot of people, mostly seniors, even though now this sport has captured the attention of the younger people. It is an opportunity to broaden your friendship circle and get to know more people who are of different social circles and religion from you. 

You can play this sport into your 80s. Some sports become unsuitable as you age. This sport can be played even into your eighties. I have seen two elderly men playing at the age of eighty and beating others younger than them. I could not believe they were in their eighties. Regular play in this sport keeps you young at heart.

It develops strength, flexibility and endurance. You get stronger in your legs and arms and core. You become more flexible as you will need to stretch every now and then before and after the game (warm ups) and during the run of game. Endurance is built up over regular practices over a period of a few months. You become agile and your reflexes are improved.

It is a team game. It is usually played in doubles format so there are four persons in every match of eleven points. The dynamics become interesting depending on who the two persons are. Having a partner to play with lessens the amount of running and coverage of the court. It also makes you more aware of the other’s playing style.

It is available free of charge for seniors. If you are above sixty, you do not have to pay for the use of the courts. For those below sixty the fee is about $18 a month (2022). However, by internal arrangement, we pay an agreed nominal amount for purchase of shared balls. 

You need to use your brain. With time and practice, skills and stamina can be developed, but what will help most is brainwork: learning strategies that will help you in your game. Knowing your opponents and their strengths and weaknesses helps you to play better against them. It is thus a thinking game too. Like most other team sports. 

Now for the tenth and final reason: It is not expensive to begin. All you need is a paddle. A new beginner paddle can be purchased for about $40 to $80. If you are willing to use a pre-loved paddle owned by someone in the pickleball group, this same amount may get you an intermediate or advanced paddle. The next investment would be to buy court shoes which are more suitable than running shoes (which most participants begin with). This money and time are well spent when you consider it as preventive health care. Better to invest your time and money in this sport than in medical care from poor health. 

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The Preaching Style of Bishop Robert Solomon

28 December 2022 6 Comments

Preaching style has to do with the preferred ways a preacher uses to communicate truth with his audience. This includes verbal as well as non-verbal communication; the way the talk is organised, structured and presented, and the way the preacher’s personality comes through.

Besides reading scores of books on homiletics since seminary, I find it fascinating to observe and learn from the way other preachers preach. There is much to glean, and some discoveries are useful to weave into one’s personal preaching style.

On 27th November 2022, Bishop Robert Solomon was the guest preacher in World Revival Prayer Fellowship, my home church. He is a well-known former lecturer and Principal of Trinity Theological College, and had served as the Methodist Bishop, and is a prodigious author of many books.

I have read his book, “Till Christ is Formed in Us”, a book gift from my good friend Seng Chor, who had invited him a few times to speak about spiritual formation to the men’s ministry in Holy Grace Presbyterian Church. I always wondered what kind of preacher he was. Some write well but preached ineffectively. Others preached well, but wrote poorly. By the end of the sermon, I was convinced he excels in both, a rare combination indeed!

It was the first time I heard him preach. He connected well with the church and I was so moved by his message that I went on to listen to him on YouTube. There are things I observed in his messages that the most experienced preachers need reminders of.  We preachers can constantly grow in our wholeness in Christ, and hone our craft of preaching, by imitating the good we see in other models who preach what they faithfully live out. I here offer my observations of Bishop Solomon’s preaching style. 

First, his presentations are in a conversational tone. He preaches like he would talk with anyone, but with an enhanced tone. He does not have the dramatic preaching tone of revival preachers of old, nor the booming thunder of evangelists like Billy Graham and Reinhard Bonnke. His manner of speech does not grab the attention. Rather, the conversational tone gradually draws one into a circle of trust. The listener would feel like he or she was listening comfortably to a friend, feeling relaxed and open. There is sufficient variation in the tone of his voice not to sedate you into a daydream. He does not read from the manuscript, but he refers to his notes occasionally. He is stationary most of the time, keeping guard of the word, standing behind the pulpit, a cameraman’s dream. 

Second, he takes pains to preach the real meaning of the text. Isn’t this what every preacher is supposed to do? He preaches the truth in the context of the passage and the whole book. He explains what verses his truth, insights are drawn from, clearly basing them on the scriptures as the source of authority. When required, he explains the cultural practices of that time and the historical context and draws rich insights from them. Occasionally, he dips into the original Greek text to highlight a truth. He is well-read, with theological breadth and depth and a grasp of what’s happening in the society and world events, and he constructs a bridge in “between two worlds”, to use the sub-title of John Stott’s well-written book on “Preaching”. 

Third, his sermons have a logical outline that can be followed even though he does not use power-point. He is probably one of those who does not believe in using power-point in sermons. He is orderly and disciplined and seldom veer and meander from his main outline. He shows how the different points relate to the central truth he was delivering.

Fourth, his sermons have substance and interesting insights. He does not squeeze, or force, or stretch scriptures to come up with fanciful angles and fresh interpretations. His words are deliberately plain, unvarnished of theological terms, but effectively conveys the truth. Solomon is no Spurgeon, whose sermons are rich, with every sentence containing a flourish: a turn of phrase, a metaphor or simile or image. These days nobody preaches like Spurgeon, the Prince of Preachers. Maybe, I would make an exception of Peter Chao of Eagles Communications. I think, Obama did speak in this grand oratorical style though.

Fifth, Bishop Robert Solomon connects well with the church audience because he explains and applies the truth with examples, analogies, illustrations, stories, and practical ideas of how to practice the truth he was expounding. He has a good sense of humour and he is able to help local believers laugh at themselves and the way they behave in church and in ordinary life. He is never harsh in his critique of Singaporean church life, values and it’s witness in the marketplace. He gently reproves. He uses humour to disarm. He provokes by handing us the mirror of the word to make us think and feel more deeply. This is an art, it is not easy to do.

I have written enough. Maybe those who have heard more of his sermons and messages, his congregation members or students in seminary, can contribute their observations with their comments. I am sure many have been blessed by his preaching ministry. Please feel free to share your observations or how you have been blessed.

By the way, the sermon Bishop Robert Solomon preached in my home church can be accessed directly at the 1 hour 8 minutes mark of the video HERE.

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Having A Blessed Covid Christmas

26 December 2022 Leave a comment

On Wednesday, my wife had a bad sore throat and cough. She had been accompanying her brother in and out of the National University Hospital because of an eye problem. She probably caught it from these frequent hospital visits. She tested herself and found that she was covid-positive. The home quarantine began that very Wednesday evening.

I was worried because I had to preach an evangelistic message in my home church on Christmas Day during the morning worship service. I quickly informed Ps Alvin Lim, the pastor of the English congregation. The decision was that he would be on standby while I continued to prepare to preach. 

While I was adding the final touches to the sermon, I had also taken over my wife’s role of accompanying her brother to the eye clinic for surgery on Friday, and taking care of her needs. However, I was beginning to feel the beginnings of sore throat. Oh Lord, don’t tell me? On Saturday morning before I brought my wife’s brother out for a post-surgery appointment, as usual I did a test, and found that I too had been infected with covid. Thankfully, my son Joshua was willing to hurry out and he brought my wife’s brother to the hospital and back to his home. 

My sermon was sent to Ps Alvin Lim and credit to him he preached the message based on what I have written. In emergencies like this we have to be willing to adapt very quickly. Meanwhile, I took the typical medicines: cough mixtures, Panadol, Betadine sore throat spray, and slept and slept and slept. Good good sleep. The chills were kept away by the Panadol. My appetite was erratic. Thus I was thankful for some surprise deliveries of cakes and salmon sashimi donburi from good friends Sunny and Annie, which perked up my appetite. Thankfully when I began to observe my medicine running low, my son Joshua and Pink his wife brought lots of cough mixture, Chinese medicine, and Panadol pills, and some porridge too. 

I was disappointed I could not preach the message I took a long time to prepare and research, but was glad that it was at least delivered albeit through another pastor. Besides sleeping a lot, I also had time to watch Netflix’s “The Recruit” and a Chinese movie, and also analyze Bishop Solomon’s preaching style. More on this in the next blogpost. Perhaps, this compulsory stay at home rest will speed up my writing momentum. Only God knows what other good will come out of this interruption to my plans.

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Christ’s Finished Work: Ministry & Message of Reconciliation

22 December 2022 Leave a comment

What is the most important ministry of the church? It is the ministry of reconciliation, that God has entrusted the church with. What is the most important message of the church? It is the gospel, the message of reconciliation. What is the most important role of the church? That of being Christ’s ambassador. It is Paul who tells us this in this text 2 Corinthians 5:17-21:

17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! 18 All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: 19 that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. 20 We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. 21 God made him who had no sin to be sinfor us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

These entrustments are gifts of God’s grace to the church and the world. These can only exist if Christ died and rose again to be exalted at the right hand of the Father. They are blessings of Christ’s redemptive work. Without the finished work of Christ, there is no ministry of reconciliation, because it was his redemptive work that made sinful man’s reconciliation with God possible. There is no message because the message is the message of the gospel of the finished work, of the beautiful exchange that took place on the cross of Christ (2 Cor 5:21) when Christ took our sins on his own self and bore the penalty of death that was due to us; and in exchange, he gave us his righteousness to us, so that we have right standing before God. 

All persons of the holy trinity were involved in the reconciliation process. The Father initiated the whole redemptive plan. Jesus Christ accomplished reconciliation by his death and resurrection from the dead. The Holy Spirit implements the reconciliation for without his activity and work in the world and through the church, reconciling sinful people to a holy God would be humanly impossible.

These sacred entrustments must be faithfully and diligently pursued and kept by God’s people, because the advancement of the kingdom, the health, growth and survival of the church, and the soon return of Christ are subject upon their faithful discharge.

As followers of Christ and members of the church, we can respond by committing ourselves to seek the reconciliation of sinners to God, by our exemplary lives in the home and workplaces, by our good deeds and kind acts, and by our persuasive sharing of the good news of Jesus Christ. By praying for the lost to know the Lord; by giving towards the church fund so that the church is resourced for outreach and missionary endeavours; and by getting enthusiastically involved in church programs that reaches out to the lost, we faithfully discharge these duties.

Lord Jesus, you came to earth to seek and save that which are lost. Embolden us to follow in your footsteps and engage in reconciling sinful people to God. Give us love to seek, courage to proclaim, and humility to lead people to You. Amen.

This is part of a planned series of writings on the topic, “The A to Z of Christ’s Finished Work”. I am writing it alphabet by alphabet. Thus far the others that I have written can be found HERE.

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Lunch with Tung Ling Friends

18 December 2022 Leave a comment

I cannot remember how we got together but my first contact with Rev Dr John Sim was through Facebook years ago. I had learned that he took speaking engagements whenever he was in Singapore visiting his in-laws, so I invited him to preach in our church in early 2019. John and I were in the second batch of Tung Ling (1979), when it was situated at the Church of Singapore, Marine Parade mother church. We then caught up with what happened in our lives over the 36 years gap. For me I had been pastoring in World Revival Prayer Fellowship all that time. For John, it was back to ministry with Canon James Wong in an Anglican parish, followed by training in Christ For the Nations Institute (where he got to know Marguerite, another of our course-mates), further studies, another stint with the Anglicans, and furthering his studies still more till he had two Masters’ degrees and a Doctorate from Princeton Seminary and Fuller Seminary. It had been adventure after adventure, school after school, until he finally landed in Vanguard University for two decades of faithful ministry as co-ordinator, then registrar, then instructor in digital pedagogy and adjunct professor. He is probably the most theologically educated among all of Tung Ling’s alumni.

John asked if I had contact with any of our Tung Ling Bible School course mates. I only knew of one and that was Benjamin Foo, who after Tung Ling went on to theological studies in Moody Bible Institute in Chicago. He returned and bacame a bi-vocational pastor who also worked as Executive Vice President of the Singapore Exchange (SGX). I bumped into him when I was a guest preacher at Geylang Evangelical Free Church (which is in the building next door to where the church I attend is). He is currently an Elder there, a speaker and author of two books. I remembered we had a few lunches together the three of us.

Then it was John who linked us with Marguerite in our Whatsapp chat group. I remembered her but we have all more or less lost contact with each other. She is low-profile and has to remain so because of the ministry she co-founded with her husband, which provides Bible and ministry training for indigenous workers in unreached countries around the world. 

Since John came back for a short visit, we took the opportunity to have a long, long lunch fellowship at Orange & Teal at Rochester Mall. I could not locate it and had to ask a security guard outside some car park. The magic words I used was, “Do you know where Chee Soon Juan’s restaurant is?” Immediately he pointed me in the right direction, and told me to use the escalator up. We had a great time catching up and talking about our families, our ministry, US politics and culture, the Ukraine war, covid-19, and as folks over 60s were sure to talk about: health matters and remedies.

John could not preach in Singapore this time because he would need to apply for a work permit to preach in churches here and that would be too onerous. The church would miss his preaching but I got to fellowship with him, Marguerite and our lunch sponsor, Benjamin. I was energized and encouraged as I left for home after lunch. How lovely to be among such godly, faithful and humble leaders. How lovely for brethren to live in unity. It is like fragrant oil coming down on Aaron’s head down to his feet. Altogether a wonderful, refreshing time.

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