Preparing Pilgrims for the Camino Ignaciano

31 May 2022 Leave a comment

Preparing people for the Camino Ignaciano 2022 has been a joyful experience for me. The word camino in Latin means path or way or road. The famous camino is the Camino de Santiago, which is an ancient pilgrimage network of paths and roads that pilgrims travel on foot to reach the destination of the Cathedral de Compostela. The Camino Ignaciano (“Ignatian Way”) is another pilgrim route of 640km taken by St Ignatius from Loyola to Manresa. You can read more about this HERE. The difference between this pilgrimage and the “original” is that this has an added silent retreat component of the Spiritual Exercises of St Ignatius enclosed within the camino. This contemplative component makes it unique.

My role in the Ignatian Journey team together with Matthew Chen, is to prepare people for a more fruitful experience of this walk. Obviously, physical conditioning is part of this process, so the team has organised a series of monthly walks beginning with easier walks to more challenging ones, as the pilgrims approach the date of their departure in September and October. Learning to walk with the Ignatian dictum of finding God in all things is the other thing we hold space for them to cultivate during these organised walks. 

Thus far, we have had four practice walks and I have begun to meet wonderful people who love the Lord and hope to experience Him through this camino. They are all of different levels of physical fitness, with a few apprehensive if they would be able to keep up. I am confident they will be able if they keep having regular lengthy walks outside of the organized walks. While doing this, they can continue to learn to be more fully aware of God’s presence all around them and to enjoy God’s many bountiful gifts of His creation and man’s.

I am enjoying it because my years of hiking and prayer experience is both being used by the Lord to help prepare these people for their camino. I enjoy getting to know a few of them and to hear some of their stories. I like it when I see these friends bathed in perspiration, or relishing the fresh forest air and birdsong. In addition, I can feel the sense of achievement and anticipation building up among them with each practice walk. It is a joy to see them greet and share stories with each other, months before they walk together in the cool but sunny weather of Spain in September.

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The Blessings of Journaling

6 January 2022 Leave a comment

Ladies and gentlemen, start or restart journaling in 2022.

How I Began and Your Perfect Beginning

I began journaling in earnest after attending a Spiritual Renewal Seminar in the late 1970’s when Brian Bailey, a prophet and teacher of the Word, talked about the need to keep a record of what you learned as you meditate on scriptures. He also mentioned how speaking in tongues before you read and meditate on Scriptures would give you more revelation. 

I began in earnest to take notes of spiritual lessons and insights I received as I systematically read, studied and meditated on God’s word. My journaling journey had begun. I did not know that as the years passed it would get deeper and wider to include far more than records of scripture lessons. To him who has much more would be given. As I started acting on what I know and have, God added to it, deepened it, broadened it, enriched it. 

The perfect beginning is not to read about everything about journaling before beginning. God’s idea of a perfect beginning is to start where you are and trust him to bring you where he wants you to be. I know it is already the first week of January of 2022. You may wish you started on 1 January with the perfect journal book – paper or digital – and know exactly how and what you are going to write and how to annotate or store it. Just do it with what you know now and have at hand now. This is the perfect start.

You do not have to write every day, even though this would be good. It could be weekly. It could even be as and when there is something that is memorable or moving or meaningful. At times you could draw or sketch or keep an audio recording if that is what you are more comfortable with rather than writing.

Why Bother About Journaling

Remembering is an important part of our Christian spirituality. The patriarchs erected special altars at places where the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob covenanted with them, or encountered and delivered them in significant ways. Ancient Israel was told to commemorate various rituals at a few annual feasts. The major one is the Passover, so that they remember that it was God who delivered them from slavery in Egypt, and that the event marked their identity as a people of God dedicated to bring his praise to the nations of the earth. We who live after the death of Christ and walk the Calvary road are commanded to remember Christ every time we eat and drink at the Lord’s Table. It marks us as the new covenant people of God, saved by his redeeming blood. This is something God would want us to do today too. Just as we keep images and videos of beautiful memories of things and events and people we love, we should keep visual and audio cues to jog the memory of the greatness, tenderness and workings of God in our life. 

One Journal, Many Blessings

Here is a personal list of the many ways journaling has blessed me. I am sure there are many more that readers have personally experienced and I urge you to share some of your experiences with us by using the comment box. A blessing shared is a blessing doubled!

First on my list is that journaling gave me a record of answers to prayers. I wrote some of the things I prayed for, especially when I was fasting and prayer. I have seen so many of these prayers answered. If I had not recorded them, they would have been forgotten, and I would not have been impacted by the link between my specific prayers and God’s answers. Some prayers were answered quickly, many after months, even years, others not at all. This mixed record built my faith in God and to believe that simple faithful prayers does set into motion the invisible power of God. 

Making Sense and Finding God

When I reviewed parts of my journal or the entries of a whole year, I could see themes and repeated patterns that indicated to me what God seemed to have said to me and done in my life. I would not have been able to receive certain insights into God’s activity if I had no such records in my journal. It was like putting together pieces of jigsaw to make sense and find God in the midst of my life.

I found that journal entries during retreats were particularly detailed and significant. I suppose in a silent retreat, I was free from normal preoccupations, responsibilities and distractions, and was able to spend more time in prayer and reflection. Therefore, I was able to pick up more things that was going on deep within my soul and scriptures came alive in a more impactful way. I could hear more clearly from God and his work in my soul seemed more intense and deeper. Usually, I would make a silent retreat when I was at some crossroad or tension point and this me seek God more intensely and those who seek him will find him.

Light in the Dark

Reflection and the very act of writing helped to crystalize and clarify my thoughts, feelings and desires. I might begin confused and unclear but as I wrote things seemed less muddy and murky and by the time I have written several pages it seemed that some light had begun to shine through my dark and cloudy heart. This is heightened when I wrote the journal entry in the first person to God, as in a letter to God telling him what was going in and around me.

Sometimes I would also speak in tongues for a while, ask God for interpretation, and then wrote out what came to mind by faith without censorship. Only after the inspiration ceased would I go back and read what words God had for me and make a judgment then. It was surprising how often that encouragement and comfort came from these spontaneous prompts from the Spirit-influenced heart. They often reflected God’s heart.

Ideas, Insights, Emotions

During prayer, ideas and insights about church ministry, decisions, sermons and blogposts would come and having a journal at hand made it convenient to jot these down and later after further judgment and prayer, act on them and develop and deliver them. Some of these ideas came from a creative centre, and I knew I had to give God credit when I was complimented or affirmed for them. The journal at hand and the habit of casting your net in prayer and retrieving and jotting your catch, is a habit that blessed me and my ministry so much.

Writing a journal slowed me down long enough to sit and identify, label and express my deeper emotions, affections and desires. I was poor at this. It took me a long time to learn and even now I feel I am wearing an L plate. What I found was that if I could do it in my journal, it made it somewhat easier for me to express it to my friends and loved ones. It helped me to be vulnerable and authentic in Christ, and to deepen my friendship with God, friends and loved ones. 

Journaling was therapeutic as it gave me an outlet to express my deepest truths, secrets, hopes and frustrations. It was health for my soul and clarification for my mind as I muddle my way through hurts and regrets in the past, perplexities of the present, and anxieties about the future. The best thing is the journal does not talk back or criticize or judge me. It had a gentle and patient touch that healed.

Journaling gave me writing practice. I write well by writing much. Practice does make perfect. The search for the right words. The clarification of ideas, arranging or organizing them the right way to express them meaningfully and clearly. Simply writing regularly in my journal improved my writing.

Comment & Share

Well, this was what I have listed and noted off the cuff. Definitely not exhaustive, or sufficiently deep. If you can help enrich the ideas mentioned and enrich our discussion here, do not hesitate to add your two cents worth to the comment box, and share this content with others if it helped you.

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Pastoral Ministry Challenges I Faced

17 December 2021 2 Comments

There are many challenges in the pastoral ministry. Like all challenges they can be overcome or lived with by grace through faith.

Inadequate Salary

Low salary was a challenge I faced in my first decade of ministry. I began with $300 a month without CPF. Living by faith was not a cliché. I lived it and I have many stories of God’s provision. A conviction grew over the decades of pastoral ministry that the right attitude towards this reality is to look to God as my Paymaster, and the church as merely one of his many instruments through which God pays me.

In the beginning, the church of 120 was financially stretched, with many being students, and having to support about four missionaries and as many local ministry staff, while at the same time pay for rental of worship space and office, and later on, loan repayments for a church property. Despite this, I remembered feeling indignant that a sales assistant’s salary was higher than mine. Thankfully, the salary improved when a committee was formed to look into the welfare of church workers and as more members joined the workforce.

Unstable Church Facilities

 Second was the challenge of facilities. Securing a space that could be used for worship and church activities was difficult. Hotels welcomed us but the rental rates were high. Proper HDB sites went through open tenders among churches and that made it impossible for small churches to make a successful bid. Industrial sites were a risk because the rules for religious use were unclear. We had to move from residential properties, to YMCA, and from hotels to hotels, until after twenty years of existence, by God’s grace and miraculous provision, the church purchased a freehold property that allowed religious use.

Expectations and Comparisons

A third challenge was the high expectations and comparisons of church leaders. I felt pressures, through overt as well as subtle remarks, about the rate of growth of our church compared with other newer faster-growing churches. That was the period of the rise of the megachurches in Singapore – Victory Family Church, F.C.B.C., Trinity Christian Centre, Church of our Saviour, Lighthouse Evangelism Church, City Harvest Church and New Creation Church. Such comparisons were always ill-advised, unwise and sinful and exerted unnecessary pressures and discouragement on pastoral staff. Thankfully, the church growth movement, like the story of the Emperor’s new clothes, has been exposed for its theological and existential emptiness and nakedness.

Consumerism

The fourth challenge is related to the third: consumerism. Internet informed members looked for what benefitted them and their family: for what excited, glittered, and impressed. The size of the building and the congregation, the worship and preaching experience, the excitement of the children’s program, the big-budget events, the fame, influence and accolades that the church or pastor exuded. Over the last forty years of ministry, I have seen how the traditional loyalty to denomination, gratitude to the local church that gave you birth and nurture, and the eye of God, no longer had the same weight among young people in their decision-making process about where to worship. It has become, “Will it excite, benefit and bless me? Will it be convenient? Does it have the right kind of people that I can gel with, or will potentially advance my career, or give me a higher chance of finding a suitable life partner?”

The Slow Work of God

A fifth challenge in pastoral ministry for me is that building spiritual maturity is a slow work of God. I get impatient. It’s discouraging when you put in a lot of digging, weeding, fertilizing and the growth in character and love of God is so slow. Worse, for some, regression takes place or there is no evidence of spiritual growth even after many years of active church participation. A physical project has a start point and a finish point and evidence is clear for all to see. Not so with this slow spiritual work of God. When a spurt of growth shows up suddenly it was like a rare miracle. Sometimes this lack of spiritual progress led to discouragement and frustration.

Unclear Leadership Roles

A sixth challenge was when the roles of Board and pastoral leadership were not clear or agreed by all. Who had the final say, and on which issues (programs, finances, policies, vision and strategy)? This of course had led to misunderstanding and friction. Vested interests and entrenched beliefs made it difficult to sort matters out. In addition, the government has its set of recommendations that did not agree with the biblical view of leadership as some pastors and denominations would see it.

My Lack of Inner Growth and Freedom

For me the biggest challenge was that the demands and expectations of pastoral leadership outstripped the rate of my inner growth. Even with Tung Ling Bible School, and seminary training, there were many faults, blind spots and disordered affections (idols) present in my life that were like viruses in my operating system, influencing my behaviour and decisions, and blocking me from leading, feeding and caring for the church effectively. It was in the last decade of pastoral ministry that I became more aware of the soul-care and freedom that I badly needed to in my life. It was in the spiritual desert and in silent retreats that God invited me to tread this path towards freedom. I am glad I said Yes to him. Praise the Lord.

What About You?

These were my main challenges. They were frustrating but they were interestingly the means of growth. They stretched me, tested me, exposed my weaknesses, and drove me to my knees, closer to God; they made me wiser, tougher and drew me closer to God. It was good I had no idea at the beginning of my call that it would be this challenging. The coward in me would have responded to God’s call this way, “No Master, this is not for me. I won’t be able to cope”. The good news that I have learned is that when God calls, his rhema word has packed within it the grace, poise and resources to overcome or endure all hardships and challenges we would face in the assignment he gave us. I have experienced this. We need to believe this. 

What about you? What are some of your personal challenges you face in pastoral ministry? Why not take some time to reflect and list them down, label your feelings about them, and have a coffee chat of the Lord about the list. After your chat with God, notice and reflect what you were feeling and thinking? Were there any new perspectives, Scriptures, images and emotions that moved or gently arose in your consciousness during prayer. Journal them. If you found that helpful, repeat the process. God bless you and be with you.

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Journey To Creation Retreat 2021

12 November 2021 Leave a comment

This prayer retreat was a welcome break for those weary with working from home, and with the rapid changes of Covid 19 restrictions. It was also for lovers of God and nature, for those who wish to find God revealed in nature, and God communicating with us afresh as we immerse ourselves in the sights, sounds and movements of the forests and parks around Montfort Retreat Centre in Upper Bukit Timah Road.

This semi-silent retreat was held from Saturday 6 to Wednesday 10 November 2021. After the participants had trickled in from 10am onwards the retreat commenced with a briefing at 2pm followed by an orientation walk to the Chestnut Observation Tower. Nightly zoom meetings for small group sharing and instructional sessions for the whole group of about 18 were structured into the retreat program. I was there with Matthew and Jessica, and Juliana to provide volunteer support for the retreat that was led by spiritual director, Lance Ng. We were guides for individuals who needed someone to accompany them along the nature trails nearby.

the retreat program

I was there to guide retreatants on Sunday and Monday. From Tuesday onwards they were on their own. I enjoyed the initial mutual introductions. This helped the guide and retreatant be at ease with each other’s presence. After that, the retreatant was left alone on their silent contemplative walks, and I kept some distance away so they can have their alone time, privacy and freedom. I enjoyed the walks too as I had been inactive for about three weeks after my booster jab. I welcomed this burst of concentrated daily walks which started at 7am in the morning and usually ended around 10am plus. 

I love walking in the forest but found guiding different because there is always that concern of keeping the retreatant within my sight but yet hopefully without me intruding. I want them to feel safe and yet be fully present to enjoy God’s creation and presence.

After their morning walks, the retreatants had time to reflect, rest, nap and journal their experiences. At 7.30pm each evening, they shared over zoom what had impressed or moved them during their walks, first in small groups, and then together as a whole. Lance Ng also gave conversational talks on very helpful topics like self-knowledge and truth; having conversations with God about areas in our lives that needs attention and formation; and how community is so vital to our journey to being fully human. 

From listening in to the retreatant’s lively and interesting vignettes about how God was dealing with and communicating with them, I could see that when we re-visit nature we find God happy to use what we see, feel, smell and touch to communicate with us. After all, at the beginning, it was in a nature setting that “the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day…..the Lord called to the man, “Where are you?”(Genesis 3:8,9 NIV). We find God in the garden, and he finds us there too…more aware of our struggles; sometimes hiding because of them, and yet open to listen, open to God’s movement towards us despite all our faults.

the Lord’s leading

The team had actually gone on a dry run through the retreat program a few months back but the latest Covid 19 restrictions required that we modify the program drastically. However, our creative God is not handcuffed by human rules and is able to transcend them and reach us on the inside in our solitude and silence. We were amazed at God’s unfolding grace and leadership of the retreat. We know the retreatants had experiences of and dialogues with God and moved closer to him. They also left the retreat having learned a way to be with and listen to God which they could use in any of the many parks in Singapore. This is a bonus.

first quarter 2022, God willing

I could detect an appetite for more of such kind of retreats. For now though, the retreats being rolled out for the first quarter of next year (2022) are as follows:

registration for first quarter 2022

For registration, Sign up HERE.

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Christian Prayer Retreat: whose great idea?

15 March 2021 Leave a comment

Today Christian prayer retreats are available in many different forms across many traditions. They can be categorized broadly as personal retreats, group retreats, and daily life retreats. What are these? Who originated the idea in the first place?

TYPES OF RETREATS

Personal retreats are adaptable to many different life situations, personal needs and spiritual growth stage. They can be as short as a few hours which is suited for beginners, to one day retreats and to longer retreats of about a week to thirty days (like the well-known Spiritual Exercises of St Ignatius). The longer retreats usually include an individual prayer guide called a spiritual director, with whom the retreatant meets daily to share what he or she had experienced in each day of prayer. These longer retreats are therefore also called “personal guided retreats”.

Group retreats are of various sorts. Preached retreats are what we Protestants are more familiar with. They are like “church camps or conferences” with three to five messages per day, but with more time in between for reflection and prayer. There are those group retreats that involve some dialogue and interaction among retreatants, with more time for reflection and prayer. Finally, there are group retreats that include usually daily spiritual direction for everyone, and very brief presentations by the retreat leader. This usually follow a theme or structure, but at times may be individual-focused and not theme-bound.  

The final type of retreat besides the personal and group retreats, is the daily life retreat. This retreat is designed for people who are unable to withdraw from home or work like in the other retreats. They make a retreat without withdrawing from their usual life, by committing themselves to a daily time of prayer for a specific number of weeks or even months following a program of meditation and prayer, guided by a spiritual director periodically. 

CHRISTIAN PRAYER RETREAT: WHOSE GREAT IDEA?

There is variety and rich creativity of themes and forms in Christian prayer retreats, but whose great idea was this? Christian prayer retreats in its fundamental form as we know it today is commonly attributed to Saint Ignatius, founder of the Society of Jesus. He was a military man of the 16th century, adventurous and reckless with women, games, brawls and armed conflict. He was wounded severely in one leg while defending the territory against France, and during his recovery in Loyola, he was deeply affected by two books, “The Life of Christ” and “Golden Legend” – a book about the exploits of saints. That convalescence was a bed of repentance and transformation which propelled him with great hunger towards God. 

He decided to make a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, but on the way there, he had encounters with God, particularly in Manresa where with much fasting, asceticism and long hours of prayers every day he sought to know God and his will. It was in Manresa that he began taking notes of his keen observations about his self-awareness and the dynamics of what he was experiencing as he sought God in prayer. These became the embryonic beginnings of his classic contribution to Christian prayer retreats, a manual titled “The Spiritual Exercises”, which contains guidance about how to help people experience God through meditation and prayer of the gospels, and make a commitment to serve God from a place of spiritual freedom. 

He began giving out exercises to his friends and seekers who approached him, preferably with them withdrawing from usual activities to devote themselves to meditation and prayer, but also for those who could not, spiritual exercises on a daily basis. Many who devoted themselves to these “prayer retreats” experienced life-transforming encounters with God, and he trained his followers to give these exercises to other seekers too. Till today, the Spiritual Exercises are still being given by Jesuits and others, and the manual he wrote, used by spiritual directors around the world, as it was in the original format, but mostly with adaptations.

From the early years, the form of the Spiritual Exercises could always be adjusted to the needs. It was never rigid. And the Jesuits used different variations and people of other orders and traditions creatively morphed it too. The fundamentals of the Christian prayer retreat remain the same: withdrawal from usual life for time alone with God to encounter Him in meditation and prayer. The expressions or forms it takes differ in a hundred ways.

PROTESTANT CATCHING UP

During this same period, the Protestants Reformers had nothing similar to it and were actually wary of all things Catholic. The Lutherans, Calvinists, Puritans, Quakers, Baptists, Methodists, and others knew little of prayer retreats. They have thrown away the baby with the bathwater.

Sadly, modern Protestants were quick to adopt and adapt the secular world’s scientific, philosophical, psychological models, and management methods but hesitant and slow to learn from the other streams of Christian tradition, for example, the value of prayer retreats.. This lack of humble and wise learning is clearly evidenced by the scarcity of Protestant facilities dedicated for Christian prayer retreat, and of trained spiritual directors to guide God-chasers, compared to what is available among the Catholics. It was only in the 1950s that significant interest began to grow about the need, value and importance of Christian prayer retreats to the health and discipleship of the Church. Evangelicals began slow but steady steps to learn these ancient pathways, while keeping faithful to the basis of all spirituality: the gospel of Jesus Christ. 

I for one, am upbeat about the interest in Christian prayer retreat among evangelicals today. I have received much from personal guided prayer retreats and believe it is an invaluable treasure that the Church must acknowledge and tap into if it wants to be a servant church. “Morning by morning he awakens; he awakens my ear to hear as those who are taught, The Lord God has opened my ear, and I was not rebellious; I turned not backward.  (Isaiah 50: 4-6 ESV)

(The term “Christian” prayer retreat includes Catholics and is used to distinguish it from secular, New Age, and other religion’s retreats.)

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