The Joy Of Preaching Returns

20 April 2022 2 Comments

It was a joy to preach to the “embodied” church again after mostly doing pre-recorded or online services in most of the last two years. Most of the members have begun to return to the worship gatherings since the government gave the green light and loosened restrictions recently. The timing was good too, for the holy week, Good Friday and Easter services. Most of us were happy to be back and to be able to chat after the service and have two hours lunch fellowship to catch up with people.

The young people have returned too and that is a great comfort to me. During the off and on, back and forth of constant change from online to in-person services, and vice-versa, young people got frustrated and tired. Restricting meals to two persons killed the joy of being with other young people. Now even five or more can sit around a table and have a meal in the coffeeshop or hawker center.

Rising enthusiasm

There was excitement in the air and people were generally enthusiastic about worship (now they can sing with masks on), and receptive to the message. Preaching to real people I know and not a totally online audience is refreshing. You are able to see how listeners are responding to what you are saying. You can sense whether you are connecting the truth with their lives, whether they were attentive or lost in other thoughts, eager or jaded, wanting more or saying with their body language, Please end. Preaching is not all about delivering all you have prepared. You can make immediate adjustments to the content, adding new inspired ideas or completely cutting off a whole main point.

During the Easter sermon I preached from Matthew 28 about the two Marys. I never intended to dwell on their devotion to Christ. In my notes were two main ideas: how God keeps his word and is trustworthy; and the different responses of people (the two Marys, the religious leaders, the soldiers who guarded the tomb) to the greatest event in history: Christ’s resurrection. I found myself speaking about the devotion of the two Marys. I ended up expanding on this line of thought as the Spirit gave me words to speak. A whole main point was added on the spot. It was a pleasant experience of the Spirit’s hand upon me.

This freedom to add and subtract is a healthy freedom. It is not a license to ramble. It gives space for God to inspire and lead me in surprising ways. This can be risky, but exciting. It makes me feel that God is actively involved in the delivery of the message, that he cares enough about his people to intervene to enhance and enrich whatever I have prepared.

Giving space to God

Two things help me to give space to God to move and inspire new thoughts in the sermon. One, I do not use powerpoint presentation. This way I do not feel a need to complete and use everything I have prepared. I can change the order, the content, and the length of the message without distracting the people listening to the Word. I have other reasons for not using presentation slides for sermons but it is not the subject here.

The second thing I do is to preach without looking at my notes too much. I have all the main truths, background information, illustrations, applications thought through, and the main stuff are in note form. I memorise the main points and the illustrations and applications that belong together with each point. I go over them in my mind, rehearsing them mentally. Then when I am on the pulpit, I trust the Spirit to guide the delivery. Some information I researched is unused, some I had read about but discarded, the Spirit brings to mind. I trust that what was subtracted was not meant to be heard, and what was added was meant for someone to hear. If I get stuck or got lost along the way, I go back to my notes and look at the underlined main truths to re-calibrate the route to the destination.

The joy of preaching

Preaching is more fun now that it is not so frequent and I have no other pastoral and administrative cares to attend to. I remember that when I was pastoring, a lot of good intentions, commitments and promises made to people and ministry got buried or neglected by other important and urgent tasks, by my own inner turmoil, or were simply forgotten. Usually I gave the highest priority to preaching preparation, including prayer. “Devote yourselves to prayer and the ministry of the Word”, was the apostolic priority (Acts 6). I did not always succeed in this, because urgent ministry matters overwhelm important matters. If a funeral suddenly falls on your lap, or there is an administrative deadline to meet, I found my sermon preparation challenged. I no longer have these things to distract or harass me as I prepare my messages, praise the Lord!

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Church of True Light: Let It Shine

22 March 2022 2 Comments

My association with Church of True Light went back about twenty-five years. I first got to know them through a church camp before I guest preached in their worship services. If I remember correctly I took two other camps with them, one in the Cameron Highlands, and another in Johor. The uniqueness of their camps is that both Mandarin and English congregations used the same hotel during the camp but had different guest preachers. During mealtimes and special recreation events they were together for bonding time. It was admirable that they made efforts to be together, and that meant the English congregation had to be sensitive to the affordability of the locations as many in the Mandarin congregation were senior citizens.

With this long, pleasant association, I have a familiarity with some of the members of the church. It was good to see that many of them were still actively serving the Lord after so many years. One of them, Matthew, even became a full-time pastor in the church recently. Others led the service, or led ministries and are involved in different ministry functions. Faithfulness is hard to come by these days but you can find it in this church. 

From Vincent to Aaron

My friend Revd Vincent Hoon, retired from this church and is now serving as an auxiliary priest in St John’s- St Margaret’s, his home church. I was pleasantly surprised that the priest, Revd Aaron Cheng, who took over the English Congregation, invited me to preach at the 4.30pm Saturday service comprising mostly young people (and adults who prefer Saturday worship), and the 9am Sunday morning worship of the English congregation.

Revd Aaron Cheng, Pastor Joey Choo

The priest was the youth pastor doing part time studies in Trinity Theological College. Groomed by Vincent, he was ordained during the pandemic and began his priesthood in an unforgettable time. In the future when people ask him, “When were you ordained?” “Oh, during the pandemic.” They would nod their heads. He is a positive, cheerful and energetic minister who connects well with his youth and the adults in the church. It warmed my heart to get an email from him and of course I was most willing to renew ties and minister there again. After all, I have had a year of rest and was more than ready to do what I love.

Preaching Adjustment

When the time came I was all ready to preach, having written out my script for the mostly young people Saturday worship. I went ahead with my well researched sermon but my experience was that I could not connect with them and drove home perturbed about it. After a nap, I went to the Lord and waited on Him, to help me understand, to see if there was any adjustment needed for the Sunday preaching assignment. I felt led to use the end-point at the introduction, and emphasize two other points, with a heavier emphasis on application and response. During prayer, I intuitively saw myself leaving the pulpit and walking closer to the audience and giving an altar call to pray in the front. On Sunday, before the service, I got permission for the altar call with the priest. Thankfully, it was the first Sunday after the government loosen the regulations for religious meetings. Altar calls to pray in the front is permissible.

Prayer Altar

In both services I talked about the 1970’s revival and how the move of God renewed the Anglican church and the valley of dry bones became an exceedingly great army of lay volunteers. I challenged them to pray for a fresh move of God. We need to forget the former things, and expect a new move, a new expression of God’s grace and power in the church. I was encouraged to see people come forward to spend five minutes praying in the front at the kneelers and on the carpeted floor. By God’s grace, I felt the message resonated with many of them. It was such a joy and privilege.

Meeting Jude

The bonus joy was meeting Jude, formerly my church member and a missionary in training with YWAM. He had later gone on staff with St Peter’s Anglican church, and then with Covenant EFC’s social arm, and finally landed in Church of True Light with his wife! They tell me that the new Vicar Barry Leong has begun to implement a plan of succession – recruiting young people and calling them out to serve on staff.  There were two other new recruits on staff: a P.K. who takes charge of the young people ministry, and Joey (a YWAM missionary in Thailand back because of the pandemic) who ministers to the children.

Pastor Matthew Chan & Jude Ng
Pastor P.K.

After the service, Aaron, Jude and I had teh tarik and roti prata at an Indian eatery directly opposite the church entrance. We talked shop for about an hour. Interestingly, one of their leaders later passed by and told us he had already paid the bill for our meals – what a picture of the grace and hospitality of this lovely faith community. The Lord be with, and bless them abundantly, so that they shine like bright stars in this darkening world.

To read my other church visits, click HERE.

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Thank You, Rev Dr Yonggi Cho

24 September 2021 Leave a comment

“Another one?”, I said to myself. So many notable servants of God have gone home to glory these past five years. I heard news that David Yonggi Cho, the Korean founding pastor of the 800,000 members Yoido Full Gospel Church, largest megachurch in the world, and founder of Church Growth International, had died at age 85. 

Yonggi Cho in Singapore

Did you know that before K-Drama, and K-Music hit Singapore, we here hit by K-Church? I had fond memories of pastor Yonggi Cho, when he visited and preached in Singapore several times in the 1980s. If I recall correctly, the Assemblies of God brought him in to conduct a church growth conference at the Hilton Hotel. I remember attending that conference. A Korean preacher who spoke in English with an interesting accent. He preached with passion, intensity and inspiration. His messages were simple to outline and understand, peppered with inspiring personal stories from his life and pastoral ministry. He shared his victories and his failures with humility and honesty. I remember being charged up and inspired by his preaching and attended his meetings enthusiastically whenever he preached or taught in Singapore. On a few occasions he took evangelistic meetings too, one in NTUC Conference Hall, and even in the former National Stadium. You could always expect him to inspire you with faith and hope. 

His preaching legacy

Some of his key messages were on the importance of fasting and prayer and the home cell group for church growth; the fourth dimension of faith visualisation; God’s desire for us to prosper in spirit, soul and body, and the Holy Spirit as our Senior Partner. He always spoke to people’s needs with words of faith and encouragement spiced up with positive and inspiring stories. I have also read quite a few of his books.

In these pandemic months when hybrid church is prevalent, his preaching philosophy is particularly relevant for online audiences:

  1. Preach to people’s pain and needs.
  2. Keep the sermon topical and the outline simple to follow. 
  3. Give your main ideas punch with stories and illustrations.
  4. Aim to inspire faith, hope and love.
  5. Speak with conviction.

His mixed church growth legacy

Many pastors were inspired by his teachings and that has helped them to grow their churches. There is no doubt that his teachings and the example of the growth of his church have sparked the growth of many churches around the world. At the same time, it has also led to increased negative pressure on pastors because church leaders developed unrealistic expectations of rapid numerical church growth from the pastor of their churches, despite the pastors gifts being different from those of David Yonggi Cho’s. This is the downside which we do not hear about often enough. Not many pastors have the same faith, gifts and personality as him, nor do they live in the same Korean culture and economic environment as his church, but we naively believe we can do the same by simply applying the principles of church growth. With time and lack of success, many became disillusioned, frustrated and discouraged. 

Tarnished legacy

Sadly, in the later years of his life, his legacy was tarnished by a financial scandal. Christianity Today summarized it this way: “In his retirement, Cho faced his most serious scandal. He was found guilty of embezzling funds from the church and was given a three-year suspended sentence. He had directed leadership of the church to buy unlisted stocks owned by his eldest son. The value was inflated, and the church reported lost about 13 billion won, the equivalent of about US$12 million. He was also found guilty of evading taxes in the stock deal. Cho told his church that the conviction was the hardest day in his life of ministry. But he also said his conscience was clear before God, and the church allowed him to continue in part-time ministry. His supporters said Cho was really guilty of being too naive about his wayward son and argued Cho has not personally benefitted from the stock scam or his many years in ministry. He continued to preach at the church on occasion until his health deteriorated in 2020.” The dangers of being influential and powerful are evident in many stories of famous godly men, and it underlines for all servants of God the need to grow in awareness, wholeness and holiness in our interior lives and to take up the full armour of God to stand against the wiles of the devil.

Nevertheless I thank you!

I was very privileged and blessed to have seen and heard him preach in Singapore and to inspire the younger me with hope. In those days, his books have blessed me with their simplicity and power. His prayer life and partnership with the Holy Spirit were exemplary and encouraging. Thank you, Rev. Dr David Yonggi Cho. 

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“Pray” and “Preach”

5 July 2021 Leave a comment

I awoke one morning with some inspired thoughts. Over the years I have learned to pay attention to these. Sometimes they are suggestions to do something. When I had to preach more often, there had been sermon ideas or outline alignments or fresh perspectives. This time it was to improve the menu at the top header of my blog. It is to make more resources more visible and available to readers.

One is a section of links to blogposts I will write about prayer helps. Most of us struggle with prayer, as I have. Over the years I have tried many things to freshen and deepen my fellowship with the Lord. Some helped a lot. Some didn’t. I want to write about these practical suggestions so that those who want can try them too. If the suggestion leads to life, continue in it. If it does not, stop and move on.

The other section is about preaching. I have read an average of at least two books on preaching per year. It was something I loved doing. I would invariably be excited by some insight I gained or some method or skill I would try out. So I have decided to revisit some of these books I have read, and reflect on what can be gleaned, and reproduce some useful extracts from them. I hope pastors, both experienced and newbies, will be blessed and inspired to freshen their preaching as they read the blogposts. Hopefully, they will go on to buy and read the whole book too.

Do have a look at them by clicking on the relevant buttons in the header banner.

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Eventful “circuit breaker” week

10 April 2020 Leave a comment

This has been an eventful week. The rolling out of the “circuit breaker” to halt the Covid 19 from spreading further in Singapore had commenced. On Tuesday, most businesses and offices closed or began operations from homes. On Wednesday, all the schools began online lessons. On Thursday I fetched my daughter home from a hotel in Orchard Road. She had spent 14 days there in isolation because she flew in from the United States. That very afternoon, I rehearsed and then had my Easter sermon pre-recorded together with the Holy Communion. And today is Good Friday. I went to the Teban Market to buy back nasi lemak and bread and eggs, while my wife bought vegetables in a rush. She said, It’s like Chinese New Year Eve, nobody bothers even though the price of vegetables have gone up. What a long week it had been! I felt relieved the recording had been done. I now hope the media team will give it an editing makeover, and enhance what was done using my son’s Fuji camera, and Zephaniah’s Rode wireless mic. I was anxious about how I was going to figure it our by myself. I was tempted to ask my niece Bethany over to help since she’s 10 minutes drive away, and she is from the media team. However, I was reminded by concerned people that this is contrary to the spirit of what the government is seeking to do – strict social distancing. I tried to rationalize things, Isn’t preaching an essential service that calms and strengthens people’s faith and give hope? After a struggle, I decided to err on the safe side. In the end, God worked all things for good, and my daughter after her release from quarantine, and a video call with Zeph, our media team head, provided the know-how to video my sermon and the Holy Communion for Easter Sunday’s online worship experience.

I tried to use the teleprompter on iPad but somehow it showed too clearly on camera that my eyes were leering off-centre. So I discarded that and held and referred to my sermon notes on my iPad. I hope it turns out okay. We started taping at about 5pm using the light from the windows, the ceiling light, and a table lamp. By the time we taped the Holy Communion, the room had darkened and we had a good laugh. We would need great editing from the media team, or maybe a miracle, for this home-made stuff to be usable on Sunday. It was a good experience.
THE LORD IS RISEN INDEED!
Hallelujah!

First meal on homecoming after quarantine
Using my son’s camera and Zeph’s wireless mic to pre-record Easter Sunday sermon and Holy Communion
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