A Satisfying Weekend

Day of Prayer: Gift Immeasurable

This past weekend was significant and satisfying. We accompanied participants in a Day of Prayer at Montfort Centre. The retreat theme was “Gift Immeasurable.” Kelvyanne Teoh and Zerah Goh were the retreat facilitators and Chris Joy and Diana Tan were the coordinators. Held at Montfort Centre, this was organized to create opportunities for the formation program graduates to practice what they have learned. We were there to accompany participants and received as much as we gave.

The day of prayer was peppered with creative activities that evoked reflections on what we were going through, noticing what we needed and how we could respond to God. For example, there were figurines of people and objects in the centre of each table where the several groups were seated. We were asked to pick one that resonated with us. I chose a tree because that had been a key image for me when I felt drained and inadequate during the latter years of pastoral ministry. In a retreat, I was drawn to a grand old tree. It was rooted deeply and had withstood many a storm. It was old yet provided shelter, home and food to all kinds of birds, insects, and other creeping plants and parasites. The Lord saw me as that tree although I saw myself as worn out and unfruitful. “You are that tree!” I clung to that faith image throughout my dry spell. It helped me through a period of turmoil and near burnout. This strengthening experience of the past flooded my memory and I could feel confidence gradually building up within and replacing the anxiety and inadequacy about the next day’s preaching engagement.

Another activity was to take a postcard-sized picture that spoke to you. It’s like a visio divina instead of a lectio divina. A picture of a path leading through a forest of trees caught my attention and I felt it was an invitation to silence and solitude, to be alone with God and to enjoy his companionship. I am so used to doing things with my wife these days that I wonder if I can be alone with the Lord all day. I also needed to find space in my regular schedule of activities. It has to be a day untouched by any activity. I prayed for grace to overcome these barriers.

Other creative activities, including drawing and making collages helped the participants reflect on their lives, and experience God’s comfort. These reflections often became topics of discussion during their spiritual direction session.

It was a joy to work with my fellow graduates. We were together for a year and nine months of formation and deep sharing. Bonds had been formed and it was pleasant to be in ministry with them. We began at about 8:30 a.m. and ended at about 5:00 p.m. It was a long day but one that was deeply meaningful. Life Direction Singapore organized this. It was the last of the year. I do hope they will continue planning these days of prayer.

Preaching at Rivers of Life Church

Sunday came and I went to preach at Rivers of Life Church, a charismatic church in Henderson. God was gracious. The worship was so anointed and dynamic that I was carried away by rivers of grace and filled with God’s Spirit and power. As I worshipped, my anxieties melted away. As I preached, my faculties were heightened to speak God’s message about “The Sacrifice That Pleases God” based on Leviticus chapter one.

Earlier, the lead pastor Andrew Foo gave certificates to recently baptized candidates. One was a teenager, another was a middle-aged lady, and the third lady had the loudest cheer: an Indian whose age was 99. This is the first time, I have seen someone so old, almost antique, with a reasonable mobility for one that aged. It moved the congregation, as for years they were involved through financial support and practical service in the church’s outreach ministry towards the residents of the nearby rental blocks, and two persons have received Christ and were baptized. Great is your mercy O Lord. You can read more about this church HERE and HERE.

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Pastor Rony Tan: Evangelist Extraordinaire

Pastor Rony Tan went home to his Lord and Master on the 16th of September 2024, aged 79 years old. He passed away peacefully after suffering from sciatic nerve pain for two years and a recently discovered complicated tumour. For the joy of meeting his Master, whom he served faithfully, he endured the pain and suffering. His longing to be with his Lord for eternity is fulfilled. His passing is a great loss to his family, the Lighthouse Evangelism church family, and the whole church of Singapore, but there is much comfort to be derived from reflecting and celebrating a life well lived from start to finish.

Greatly gifted

Pastor Rony Tan is a man greatly graced and gifted by God. He was saved by grace. He was healed and called to his mission by grace. He was a faithful pastor, a passionate evangelist, and an effective channel of God’s healing power. I dare say that he is the greatest evangelist that Singapore has ever witnessed. Over four decades of healing evangelism, his effectiveness is cumulatively greater than any other foreign evangelist invited to our shores, including Billy Graham, Luis Palau and Reinhard Bonnke. The number of healings that have been witnessed during his miracle services and rallies in Singapore are greater in number and quality than the many other healing ministers that have preached in our country, including Reinhard Bonnke, Carlos Annacondia, Roy Durham, Benny Hinn, Randy Clark and Daniel Kolenda. I state all this in worldly terms of comparison, to debunk our tendency to admire the “foreign talent” and to forget our local “prophets”. Let us appreciate what God has gifted Singapore with and be thankful.

What a life and ministry!

I watched the online memorial service and I was moved listening to his daughter Tracy’s eulogy. She shared personal and intimate snippets of her father Rony, which otherwise would never have been known as widely. I felt inspired and gratified that we finally have an authentic testimony of a megachurch pastor who lives out his faith- a godly pastor and evangelist, a loving husband, and a wise and nurturing father. After all the unsavoury news about the fails and falls of megachurch pastors, I am pleased that we have someone here who lived with considerable congruence between what he preached and practised.

Pastor Pacer’s eulogy was less intimate but more instructive and insightful. Many pastors and evangelists would benefit from noting the ingredients of effectiveness and longevity in the ministry. I particularly resonated with his point that his father was very focused and highly disciplined. This would have been something we who do not know him would not have known. I recalled a conversation when I joined Lighthouse Evangelism in one of their Miracle Crusades in Bangkok. Pastor Rony was hospitable and invited my wife and me to his table during lunch. He was relaxed, approachable and friendly. I remembered one thing about that conversation. He mentioned how as the church grew larger and larger, some of the long-time members of the church pined for the early days when the church was smaller. Pastor Rony would be more readily available to be with them, having fellowship over durians. He said, “Who wouldn’t want to have durians and chat with them? I would love to. But now I have to take responsibility for the miracle service every Saturday. I needed to spend much time in prayer and message preparation. I have to pay the price.” I never forgot that conversation. The son’s eulogy triggered my memory of that conversation.

Though Pastor Rony made himself available to the needy masses on Saturdays and Sundays to minister to the unsaved and saved, he was willing to minister to individuals. We had a precious girl of about seven who suffered from an aggressive cancer and I inquired if Pastor Rony could pray for her personally. I was thankful he made time to minister to her on a weekday afternoon in the Tampines office.

Humble and wise

Pastor Rony was a high-profile pastor of a megachurch and this visibility gave rise to a problem. Someone complained to the government authorities about a sensitive comment about a certain practice of another religion in a sermon he preached. Officials spoke with him. It was a critique of idol worship that many pastors would have thought about and even mentioned it. Even the prophet Isaiah mocked the idolatry of Baal. In Pastor Rony’s apology, I saw his humility and reconciling spirit. It was not a compromise as some would have thought. It was wise to contextualise the gospel to society without giving up the freedom of declaring the good news of Jesus Christ. Read more about this HERE.

End of an era?

I wonder if we are witnessing the end of an era. Will we ever see such an outstanding healing evangelist raised in our midst? Or is the era of mass rallies in urban centres a methodology that has passed its expiry date? What do you think? Use the comment box.

If you have personal stories or snippets about Pastor Rony and his ministry that you wish to share with our online readers, please write in the comment box below the title.  

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New Horizon Church: Blessed with Hope and a Future

New Horizon Church is the only three-in-one church in Singapore. What do I mean by that? It has gone through two mergers. The first was a merger of two churches – the older Herald Assembly of God with Agape Christian Community, another Assembly of God church. You can read more about the merger HERE. The merger resulted in a new name “New Horizon Church”. The second was recently, a merger between New Horizon Church and Revivalife, an independent, charismatic church of about thirty members. It took about a year to integrate the two bodies. The former senior pastor, Lawrence Koo, had longed to retire and move into a new chapter, and the pastor of Revivalife, Joshua Lye, was appointed to succeed Lawrence.

Pastor Joshua Lye the new senior pastor

I came to know the new senior pastor decades ago. He was one of the members of Lutheran Church of our Redeemer who was touched by an outpouring of the Spirit. It gave him a hunger to study and feed on God’s Word and he became gifted in the teaching. He felt the Lord wanted him to plant a church. I lost touch with him until one day we met and he told me he had started a church and was the bi-vocational pastor. Over a year ago we met again, and he said he was in Singapore Bible College and amid a church merger. I am glad the merger process went well, and that in the end, both pastors found the respective places where God wanted them: Joshua Lye as senior pastor of the merged church, and Lawrence Koo, retired, and launched into an exciting new chapter of his ministry.

Pastor Lawrence Koo in an exciting new chapter

I knew Lawrence Koo from my travels with him and Andrew Khoo to the United States. We visited Willow Creek’s annual leadership conference, Toronto Airport Church and Brooklyn Tabernacle Church. He went to Willow Creek annually and later brought the leadership conference to Singapore, the well-known Global Leadership Summit. After retirement, he joyfully launched into a preaching and leadership training ministry. It is a ministry twelve years in gestation. During that long time, he waited on God, longed for and prayed for the new phase. When I guest preached in New Horizon on Sunday, he was in Malaysia ministering. He has preaching and leadership training scheduled in Baguio (Philippines) and Agape AG in Seremban (Malaysia). He regularly ministers in Batam and China too. In fact, he is also willing to help facilitate the merger of small churches, provided certain prerequisites are evident. This is called retirement for pastors! Pastors retire from a position with all its responsibilities and privileges, but never from their calling or gifts. Their ministry takes a new expression.

Pastor Appreciation Sunday

It was Pastor Appreciation Sunday and this church honoured their pastors. I preached on the topic, “What you can and cannot expect from your pastors”. The congregation comprised a good mix of young and old and was receptive and that encouraged and fired me. After the message ended, they affirmed their pastors (including those who retired) and even me, the guest preacher. The present felt like a bar of gold. It was bottles of bird’s nest drink, which we needed more than gold. I take that back – actually, we needed a bar of gold more! Many churches do not know about this annual celebration on the second Sunday of October. Maybe pastors are too paiseh to plan an event for themselves. If that is the case, the lay leadership should take the initiative to recognise their pastors and to promote pastor-congregation understanding and mutual respect.

Pastor Joshua brought me around their newly renovated fourth-floor space for infants, children, youth, and the Chinese service. This is another occasion that I met my former church members during my guest preaching ministry. It’s Dick and Amy who were with us for many years before they moved on. I was happy to see them settled in the church and using their gifts for the Lord.

The church was in a good location. A car park spot was reserved for me in a car park for about 15 cars. However, I was told there is a lane behind the church where up to 40 vehicles can park free. Furthermore, I was told there are three MRT stations within one kilometre of the church.

I felt great joy ministering to the congregation, said my goodbyes, and drove to my home church about 5 minutes away. My thoughts were about the church, praising God for how he worked his plan in two churches’ future and two pastors’ lives to produce a fruitful outcome that no well-crafted succession plan could surpass. God is faithful and always works to give his people hope and a future. New Horizon Church is indeed a blessed people.

To visit NEW HORIZON CHURCH website go HERE.

To read more about my visits to different churches go HERE.

(Great photos from Dennis Thong, so I had to post more of them or it would be a waste.)

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