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Diary of a silent retreat 1

28 November 2010 blogpastor 1 Comment

Just some notes for readers to get an idea of what a silent retreat looks and feel like. Nothing matches the experience though. Of course what happens in the interior life remains private in my own journal. However, brief diary notes over the next few days may give readers an idea of what it was like. Hopefully they may want to have a retreat themselves.

Thursday, 11th November:

Here I am. The common response when God beckons His own. Here I am. Half a day of travel, with an hour’s transit in Bangkok. Half a day to settle into the Seven Fountains retreat house in Chiangmai. Mine was a little room with a view and a balcony on the corner of the third floor of Block 2.

Here I am Lord.

Had a cheap and good Japanese meal before the retreat proper began. Tsunami is just three minutes walk to the left as you walked out the entrance gate of the retreat house.

To view videos clips of the Seven fountains grounds see below:

Friday, 12th November:

It was good to begin. House rules and orientation. Shown the different blocks, chapels and dining area and other spaces. Simon and Rinda brought us out to the Chiang Mai University lake area just fifteen minutes away.

Watched the “Bucket List” movie, which gave new meaning to the scripture catchphrase, Watch and pray. Hmmm….what would my bucket list look like?

The dining hall was still crowded with animated conversations.

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Contemplative prayer 7 Fountains, Chiangmai, Contemplative prayer, silence and solitude, Silent Retreat, spiritual direction

Singapore Christian Canaan Church: a happy servant church

15 November 2010 blogpastor 2 Comments

New media connected

“I have read his blog. Then we became friends on Facebook.” That was how Pastor Richard Wong introduced me as the guest speaker in his church. New media is changing the way the world and the church works. More often than not people may meet online before they meet physically. This has been very much my experience in the last two years. We knew each other from afar and off-line, but recently we had lunch and we hit it off and shared our lives easily.

Servant leader

Richard is hungry for the spirituals and yet is down to earth and a good administrator. He has been pastoring the church for close to two decades and still remains hopeful and enthusiastic. He sees himself above all as a servant. This serving heart has been his hallmark since the days of his youth, and it has been imparted to the church too.

Moving along

The Singapore Christian Canaan Church had come a long way from conservatism to Third Wave openness. This year they were moving into healing. This is a church of about 200 over and they have a building and worship team I envied. The worship team comprised half Filippinos and half locals. The elder Steven attributed their improvement to the training implemented by the youth and worship pastor.

A happy church

About 30 of the integrated congregation are Filippinos, mostly from the professional and service industry. The rest were mainly locals from youths to adults in their 50’s. The church was a family church: warm, welcoming, hospitable and all-embracing. This is their great strength: the love, unity and happy family feel was palpable. The congregation responded easily and positively to the message I preached, “The Church of the Prodigal Son.” This is a word I have been bringing everywhere I can as I feel it is a word in season for the church.

Art in the church

At the entrance to the worship hall, I caught sight of a large painting the size of a large notice board. This was evidence of how adventurous this church is. The pastor told me the painting was done by a Japanese couple, during an art rendition at the Good Friday service, as the congregation sang two songs in worship of Jesus the Lamb of God.

Missions impact

Later Richard and his wife Josephine brought us out for lunch at Sushi Teh in the City Mall. Never did I know a relatively new mall existed in Little India, other than Mustapha’s. We talked about the missions work of the church in Bangladesh, Chiangmai and Sulawesi. We talked shop and about our families. It was wonderful to know how God worked in the world. Many are the risks taken but the Lord watches over His people.

We reached home after 3pm, satisfied and glad to have the privilege of serving the Lord and this happy church.

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Singapore churches church buildings, Filippinos, Leadership, Missions, Singapore local churches, small church

Panoramic views at Fremantle and the King’s Park

10 November 2010 blogpastor Leave a comment

Genteel Fremantle

Fremantle is not another city of Western Australia, as I had thought. It’s part of larger Perth. It’s only 20 minutes away by freeway. Anne Brinkman, a Penang lady married to a Caucasian, kindly offered to bring us around. She was a former tourist guide. So how blessed can you get. The buildings were old colonial. Well conserved, they had a genteel, timeless aura about them. The pace of life in Fremantle seemed even slower than in Perth city. There’s even a Notre Dame University there, some kind of twinning program perhaps with the one in USA. We lunched at Kaili brothers Fish and Chips and shared a tasty seafood platter.

Margaret Court a pastor?

Later in the afternoon, we went up north and were introduced to pastors Alan and Angie Wells, from Victory Life Centre. The unique thing about this church is that it is helmed by former tennis woman professional Margaret Court. She dominated women’s tennis in the 1970’s and 80’s, winning a total of 62 Grand Slam titles. Frightening. Now she’s the senior pastor of the thriving Australian megachurch.

Walking in the King’s Park

Nature and space and weather is what makes Perth so refreshing a place to Singaporeans. The King’s Park is huge but I only saw the touristy part of it. Nancy brought us there and we walked around the grounds and over the treetop walk and went back to the outskirts of the city for a fantastically authentic Hainanese chicken rice. Later, we had a great time of fellowship at a cafe in a huge shopping mall.

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Interests Fremantle, Kailis' fish and chips, King's Park, Perth, Victory Life Church

Chuang Kwang Liang: “Don’t go down….”

8 November 2010 blogpastor 2 Comments

He went down and up

The nurse injected penicillin, and he felt like something lifted and he stood up. A bright light beamed from his forehead to a door that opened up to a path. As he walked through a hall he saw hundreds of people screaming and crying in the shadows. It was eerie and distressing to hear voices crying in agony and suffering. It was like death filled the whole atmosphere. Next he saw bright sand and stones and entered a beautiful place. He felt extraordinarily happy and good. He said, “I want to stay here forever, I don’t want to leave.”

“Go back to where you came from”

A bright figure stood before him and said, “Go back to where you came from.” Immediately, Chuang Kwang Liang woke up in a hospital bed in Singapore and heard the nurse saying, “Good thing he didn’t die or some mother will be mourning.” It was 1967, when Liang, experienced these visits to what he called “down” and “up”. His girlfriend Margaret kept hearing him say in dialect, “Don’t go down there. It is terrible. I want to go up there.” She was as puzzled as he was about the whole experience and even wondered if he was sound. They were not Christians; they venerated their ancestors.

Trying to figure out the bright figure

He migrated to Australia and worked as an electrician with a mining company in Western Australia. For many years after his strange experience, he had been trying to figure out who was that bright figure and how to go up there. But without success. Jehovah Witnesses had knocked on his doors. A Mormon had talked to him. But they could not answer satisfactorily the questions he asked.

The Lord had pursued him

One day he accepted a brother in law’s invitation to an evangelistic rally. The moment the people worshipped, his eyes rained tears that he could not stop. He lifted his hand like he saw the rest did, and knew that this was it. The speaker was Vernon Falls and he had been invited by Full Gospel Assembly. That night he was saved and filled with the Spirit and knew he had finally met the bright figure who told him to go back to where he came from. The Lord Jesus had pursued him for over two decades. Finally in 1991, Liang gave his life to the Lord.

Meaning and purpose

Asking the FGA pastor, Mrs Ang Swee Khim, what she thought of his experience, she replied, “God loves you and showed you hell and heaven to give you a chance to choose.” Liang was so grateful and became a fiery witness for the Lord. With a fresh infilling of the Spirit, and armed with an understanding of what he had experienced, he went forth boldly to share with everyone who would listen, what he had experienced. In season and out of season, he would share and warn people, colleagues, friends, and family members not to end up down there but be sure they went up there. He now knows why Jesus sent him back to earth. Besides him, many others came to the Lord as a result of his earnest testimony.

The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; His mercies never come to an end.

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Gospel, theology and story Heaven and hell, spiritual phenomenon, Testimony