Covid 19 impact on church and pastor

27 February 2020 Leave a comment

The covid 19 virus has had a significant impact on the churches in Singapore. Every church had to make adjustments to its programmes. The Roman Catholic Church suspended its masses shortly after the government activated the DORSCON orange alert. So did charismatic megachurches like FCBC and City Harvest Church, as well as a large Presbyterian church. This is besides the two other churches that the Ministry of Health intervened in, and suspended its services, because of the infection cluster among its members.

However, for most other denominations and independent churches, the essential worship service continued, and other peripheral services, events, and programs were cancelled or postponed.

Various precautionary steps were initiated in most churches: temperature readings, attendance taking, handwave instead of handshakes, more hygienic ways of delivering Holy Communion, shorter services, dismissal and dispersion of members after service, and live streaming of services for members who opt to stay home.

This meant more stress on the pastors as the dilemma of decision making in the midst of DORSCON orange was a tug of war: to continue with services might be misconstrued as a lack of prudence and sensitivity; and to suspend the services may be perceived as a lack of faith in God.

Thankfully I have a pastoral team to work with and to discern the best decision to go with at each point in time. In addition, I have good pastor friends from other churches, and we share notes about the decisions we were making. Finally, the church I serve is a part of two larger network of churches: the Love Singapore movement, and the National Council of Churches of Singapore. We take to heart their advice. These support systems helped to take the stress off me, and in the end our group discernment led to a decision to go ahead with the services, doing live streaming of the services, and encouraging our parents with young children, and the Pioneer generation to stay home, if they wished to.

The staff also had to plan for continuity in case the covid 19 hit the church. So we formed two teams, worked from home, and we tried using Zoom, a software for group meetings via internet video conferencing. The first time we used it, it took us 45 minutes just to get all seven of us on the screen. It was an interesting experience. One thing noticeably different was that I had to consciously concentrate and listen. We also interupted each other less and listened better. The Bible injunction to “Be slow to speak and quick to listen” became a reality!

I worked more from home and this gave me more time for prayer, reflection and reading. A prophetic word from Tan Gee Paw, the man who spearheaded the cleanup of Singapore River, stated that God had pressed the PAUSE button for China and for the church too. PAUSE to halt mindless pursuit of wealth and pleasure, to pray and listen to God. I believe God is squeezing good out of evil, and my prayer is that more of God’s people will spend more time seeking the Lord in prayer than they had before.

There are many reasons to be thankful in the midst of walking in the valley of the shadow of death. There may be fear, anxiety and even panic, but these should reveal something about disordered values in our life, and an invitation from God to take an inward journey that will hopefully free us to be all God wants us to be.

I felt inspired when I saw members still attending worship services with increased earnestness in their singing and praying.

I feel thankful that we have a government that is organized and efficient.

I feel God’s hand is on this nation in the midst of the covid 19. May it bring a greater clarity to all Singaporeans that a man’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions, power, honour, or achievements. Life can be unpredictably short and we need Jesus Christ to be Lord of our life more than anything else.

What Zoom looked like on laptop.

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Church camp 2019 in downtown Bangkok

10 July 2019 Leave a comment

Feeling very good

Perhaps I experienced a tiny bit of what God felt when it was said of Him in Genesis, “And God saw everything that was made, and behold, it was very good” (Gen 1:31). That was how I felt about the WRPF Church Camp 2019 in Bangkok: it was very good. Like a gentle spring in my soul, I felt the stillness of peace and a joy that quietly bubbled up throughout the days of the camp. There was no hurry: no huff and no puff, no rush from meeting to meeting. I felt a welcome restfulness throughout the camp. It was very good.

The hotel in downtown Bangkok was hosting us a second time

Fed fresh Bread

To sit back and receive fresh truth from heaven and be in presence of Christ felt like I was a mobile phone seated on a wireless charger. The invited speaker was Leslie Quahe. He was enlightening, edifying and entertaining. He stirred me, stretched me, and seized me with his humorous, riveting and transforming proclamation of His Story and his stories. I felt very blessed. At the end of the four sessions, I felt energized 100%.

Leslie Quahe

I heard of Leslie Quahe from theological college days. He was one year my senior. My only image of him was of him playing soccer, and him with his motorbike. Thus when my sister in law Baby asked if I would like to meet him, I did not hesitate. Why not? We met in his home in Bangkok and got to hear about what he had been doing all these decades, and his stories amazed me, and I concluded this guy can potentially be our camp speaker in future, but I should first invite him to preach a sermon one Sunday when he was in Singapore. He duly did so, and that’s why he was our camp speaker.

With Leslie Quahe the camp speaker

Church encouraged, leaders affirmed

I was encouraged when he affirmed and prayed for the leadership at the last session, releasing what I believe to be prophetic words that confirmed that our last six years of emphasizing on intimacy with God through walking ancient paths of prayer; of emotional health and growth, were on the spot with what God had wanted for WRPF’s destiny as light to others of what first love is.

It is tough to slow down and to wait and to listen to God in prayer.  We are a society that values productivity and obviously silence, waiting and prayer seems highly unproductive. We had to be strong in conviction in order to resist the pressures and temptation to be like other churches and the rest of society. “Do you love Me?” was Jesus question to Peter who had been scarred by the failure of his activism and self-sufficiency. It was not, “What have you done for Me?”. To have this heavenly assurance when you are going against the current of worldliness, is an approving nod from the Master.

Hotel food

The food the hotel served was better than any of the church camp foods I have had over many decades of church camps in Malaysia and Batam. The food was delicious and we had long meal-times of one and a half hour or more, so that people could mingle and fellowship at leisure. No need to gulp your food to rush to an afternoon workshop! No afternoon sessions – they are all free and easy.

Missions component

I was happy we had a missions component and we were greatly helped by Ruth Center in Bangkok who organized three activities for us to serve the residents of the slum. Some went about visiting the elderly poor with rice packets and prayed for them. Some went to play games with the younger ones who lived in the slum. I joined the construction crew whose assignment was to build five platforms with water cisterns. This was laborious work and I loved seeing how the young people did the main bulk of the work. They were awesome in strength and power. It dawned on me that I was not of much use, not even for photography, so I helped minimally in carrying concrete slabs, and spent most of the time chatting with Simeon Siau, another person who shouldn’t be there. We were kindly and tactfully excused from the rest of the afternoon while the rest of the construction crew finished the job!

I loved the idea of creating mission platforms so that men with more practical skills and know-how (like Bezalel and Company who built the tabernacle of Moses with the help of the Holy Spirit) can serve God with their gifts.

Camp organizers

Yes, I do rate this camp with five stars. I was very pleased with the organizing committee and I hope they too were very satisfied when they saw that their hard work made possible the spiritual and eternal impact we felt at the camp!

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Celebration of Hope tickets going, going, gone.

30 January 2019 Leave a comment

The Celebration of Hope evangelistic rallies will be held in the National Stadium from May 17 to 19. The 17th and 19th are for the English speaking, while the 18th (Saturday) is for the Mandarin speakers. The evangelist for the English speaking is J. John a prominent, anointed British evangelist of Indian descent. The evangelist for the Mandarin speaking is Kau Shao En.

We attended a briefing session on the 22nd January last Tuesday. It was well attended and we were given up to date information. With that information we got our COH church timeline done up and started briefing the cell leaders and the congregation.

Briefing at St Andrews Cathedral

However today the information we were given about the availability of the COH app and the tickets to the Stadium is outdated. Originally we were told the Apps would be ready the day before. It was late a day, which is okay, but then the apps is available only on Google Play and not on Apple yet. So those with iPhones are stranded and will have to find alternative means. We were also told that the tickets will be available for reservation only a week later but instead they were immediately available on the same date the app was ready for downloads.

The tickets are going fast and we being kiasu Singaporeans fear losing out and are booking tickets beyond what we need….just in case. There will after all be a chance later (in April) to dispose of tickets we will not use so that those on the waiting list can have them. Currently at the time of this writing close to 21% of seats has already been reserved. 20,000 tickets out of 100,000 of the English rally has already been snatched up on the first day.

This is all encouraging and we have to keep praying that there would be a gracious and glorious harvest of souls to make this a memorable nation wide rally since the Billy Graham meetings at the old National Stadium.

To download the COH app, and to  reserve tickets go here:  https://celebrationof hope.sg/tickets/. 

The download button of the COH app is at the bottom of the above link. You need to download that before you can reserve tickets.

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Pastors Prayer Summit 2019

28 January 2019 Leave a comment

My intention was to introduce new staff members Alvin Lim and Tom Cannon to Love Singapore Pastors’ Prayer Summit 2019. So I was glad that Vincent Hoon was willing to go too as we could room together. We set off in his car and stopped at Yong Peng for simple Hockchiew lunch.

Alvin Lim, Vincent Hoon, myself and Tom Cannon at Bukit Indah for lunch on the way home

I enjoyed this Prayer Summit, more than those I attended in the past. It is partly the program, and partly the people, and partly the fact that I have grown. Let me list some personal highlights of this summit.

It was wonderful to catch up with friends and acquaintances during the several meals and meetings we had together. Catching up and talking shop gives me information, solidarity, and belonging. Meeting  Richard Wong and Kenny Fam and Twie Kim was such a joy. And seeing the old stalwarts of Love Singapore puts a smile on my face and encourages me. I wonder if I would attend the summit after my retirement the way these guys did.

Kenny Fam, myself and Vincent Hoon – we met as a faith sharing group for about 18 years

The main speaker, a pastor Yang was dynamite. He is a Mandarin pastor from Taiwan who preached in Mandarin and was interpreted into English – a first for the Pastors’ Summit. A passionate, radical, seeker of lost souls and church transformer he enlightened, encouraged, challenged, cajoled, and awakened us to the condition of the church, the seminaries and us pastors. Culture is a comfortable man-made cocoon and truth can be uncomfortable and disturbing and awakening. In most churches the existing culture does not match up with Scripture. In a nutshell, he shook us all up.  We need to make disciples the way Jesus did: more Hebraic practical action and obedience training than Greek conceptualising and grasping of theory. A real preacher: either you love or loathe him; assimilate or resist his ideas. Thank you Rev Yang.

Pastor Yang challenging the status quo.

There was an emotional remembrance of apostle Rick Seaward. So poignant, so touching, so piercing. What a great man has left Love Singapore, what a loss. It was good the movement grieved together. Loved Lawrence Khong’s personal reminiscence of his friendship with Rick.

It became clear to me Love Singapore is a movement that resists becoming an institution; like the tribal confederation before they instituted kingship. The Spirit of God anoints and chooses and rules. This is a great strength that will keep the movement resilient, effective and impactful. Register Love Singapore as a registered society and it will start losing its vitality. I love it as it is.

I enjoyed the session where the young leaders that have been added to the leadership team were interviewed with two veterans, creative Eugene Seow and witty Lawrence Chua. I must say I loved what I heard and saw of the younger leadership. I noticed especially the genuineness, the authenticity – something that seems common among spiritual leaders of generation next. There is something precious we can learn from them.

Love Japan challenge

Then there was the initiative for Love Japan. Love Timor continues, but Love Japan has been added. There is a sensing from the LS leadership that this is the kairos moment for Japan. Some Japanese pastors/leaders were present to share about Japan’s need. Very low percentage of about 1% are Christians. Exciting.

The last but not least the Awaken Generation team of musicians and worship leaders were there. These bunch of young, telegenic, talented, anointed, stratospheric worship leaders and musicians were great to have around. They have a special anointing. Next year I hope they come again and I hope they can be given more “space” to lead us into God’s presence.

I came thinking this will be the last time before I retire. I left thinking maybe I should go one last time in 2020. If God so wills.

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PRAY SINGAPORE 2018

8 October 2018 Leave a comment

Mass events drain me. I am an introvert. So when 7 October 2018 – Pray Singapore was publicised by Love Singapore, I must admit I was hesitant to sign up because after preaching on a Sunday morning, I would not want to spend another three afternoon hours in the National Stadium, fighting heat, tiredness and jostling with crowds of people. However, in the end, I got out of my comfort zone and signed up for prayer with the Body of Christ in Singapore. Here are some of my off the cuff thoughts.

For a start the build up was exciting. Going there early, walking with the lines of people walking from Kallang MRT to the Stadium; and seeing the build up of the people filling the Stadium. It highlighted the great organisational skills needed to get this event on its ground, and the mobilisation grace to fill the Stadium with 40,000 to 50,000 believers. The Love Singapore leaders are great tribal leaders!

The believers from different churches in Singapore came to PRAY SINGAPORE

I liked seeing the people of various age groups. I liked the clever clap-banner they gave everyone. When you used it to clap it amplified the volume 20 times. We should issue these clap banners in every church for use in worship services! I liked the good balance and build up of prayer themes. I liked the variety: different kinds of prayers (set liturgical prayers, spontaneous prayers, group of twos and threes praying, prophetic declarations and acts, everyone praying in unison); different leaders from different denominations both young and old ( besides giving honour where it is due some political correctness was involved here); the use of Mandarin, Tamil besides the main language of English; the different groups (marrieds, families, children, younger pastors, veteran pastors); different prayer themes (Church, Family, Nation, Harvest). I liked the five minute talks giving statistics, telling stories, challenging and inspiring the prayer themes before we prayed.

Gift pack included a clap banner that made a lot of clapping sound, and a lot of sense because it also was usable fan.

Scriptural and prophetic declarations on the clap banner

A lot of time was spent praying for the FAMILY theme so that by the time we reached praying for the HARVEST it was anticlimactic. This goes to show how much urgency ad importance the organisers placed on the foundation and future of our nation: strong families.

On the whole I surprising left the Stadium energised not with physical or emotional energy but a supernatural charge. If they could check the charge it would be like the mobile battery icon fully charged. I was so glad my colleague Tom Cannon mobilised scores of young and older church members to participate in this event.

When I attended Arsenal’s football game recently, I left about 5-10 minutes before the end because I simply hated jostling with the crowds. This time I stayed to the end, and they that endure to the end shall be saved, but caught in a multitude of red shirted people all trying to get into the Stadium MRT.

Nevertheless I rejoiced in God my Saviour.

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