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A prayer for City Harvest Church

8 February 2018 blogpastor 1 Comment

Our Father,

You are gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in love. You are upright and all Your ways are just.

With our heads bowed down before You, and our hearts broken over Your church, we admit that we have failed You before the eyes of the watching world. We thank You for Your forgiveness through the mercy of Christ.

We pray for all churches in Singapore. Purify us with holy discipline; fill us afresh with Your Spirit; and consecrate us to glorify Your name. Grant us the grace to despise fame, embrace simplicity, and renounce the desire to be rich.

We call on the Spirit of grace to assure, comfort and strengthen the City Harvest Church. May they stand firm, steady, and united during this time of increased pressures. Give the church and its leaders great peace.

We remember those in prison and pray that You will visit them with Your love, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. May the enforced times of confinement and quiet be transformed into moments when You draw near to them and whisper Your faith, love and hope. Watch over their families at home and keep everyone in the love of God.

Lord, let what has happened make the church in Singapore more dependent on You, more in communion with You, and more like You in Your lowliness, poverty and obscurity.

In Jesus’ Name we give thanks. Amen.

Serving men from the marketplace

5 February 2018 blogpastor 2 Comments

The pastors initiated some pastoral care when we found that a number of men were between jobs. They were mainly professionals in manufacturing, retail, finance and service industries. We formed a WhatsApp chat group with Wai Tuck as a co-ordinator. We called it Men In Transition. We met them for prayer and meditation (lectio divina), sharing, and meals periodically.

Reflection, lectio divina, sharing and prayer

Last week Tom Cannon and I met them for a few hours of reflection on their vocational history. We got them to draw a timeline and reflect on the high and low points of their years of working life. We asked them to ponder how God was present in their careers, using Old Testament Joseph’s timeline as an example. It opened their eyes. Then Tom led them in a lectio divina on the passage Isaiah 43:1-7. This was followed with a time of sharing their reflections. We listened to their stories of pain, victories, struggles, weaknesses and wrapped up everything by bring these to the Lord in prayer. The Lord was present to impart peace and comfort.

Men in Transition having lunch at The Ranch

Then we proceeded to The Ranch for a $10 set meal. Lovely morning; wonderful fellowship! To do work that encourages, enlightens and give hope to people you care about is such a satisfying thing.

Young parents discipling children

1 February 2018 blogpastor 2 Comments

Young parents sharing their thoughts about discipling children

It was a significant meeting: pastoral team, children’s ministry core leaders, and the young parents. We wanted to share our thoughts about discipling children, the respective roles of the different partners, and our modest hopes and aspirations, and especially to gather feedback from them.

There were a few things I picked up from the feedback they gave:

Young parents are deeply appreciative of the dedication, care and sacrifices of children’s ministry lay volunteers.
Young parents are eager to disciple their children and give them what’s best for them spiritually and developmentally.
Young parents know the importance of their role in discipling parents and want to be better than what their parents were with them.
Young parents want to disciple their children but are short on time, energy and know-how to actually do it.
Young parents prefer informal learning to formal classroom learning. They rather have a picnic or informal meal with other young parents and be able to exchange ideas, share problems and solutions, and get to know one another and let children grow up together.
Young parents want to connect with other young parents at the same stage of parenting as they can identify with and comfort and encourage each other along a similar journey.
Young parents find little edification in being part of a cell (which has nothing planned for children) as they would be too occupied with minding their child.

Interesting information and feedback for the pastoral team to ponder over. Wonder what you think of their feedback?