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Holy Week: contemplative and charismatic

15 April 2017 blogpastor Leave a comment

The theme of our Holy Week was The Gethsemane Journey. Can the Pentecostal and contemplative blend? Why not? Although the practices of the Pentecostal and the contemplative seem to be incompatible opposites they actually enrich and deepen each other! I saw this in our experience of Holy Week 2017. I handed the planning to our young pastoral staff: Ethel, Tom and Sarah. I told them the parameters was that we share with the church different practices of prayer both contemplative and charismatic. This was what they came up with.

Monday: Lectio Divina

Tuesday: Praying the Psalms

Wednesday: Prophetic prayer

Thursday: Intercessory prayer

Each evening would begin with time for people to be still and wait on God in silence with background instrumentals played over the speakers. Then there would be brief explanations of the prayer practice we would be doing. Followed by an hour for people to actually enter into the practice of prayer. The last segment would be a partaking of Holy Communion.

The worship hall would be made conducive with dim lights, devotional instrumental music (except of the last evening when we had a live band), and the hall would be cleared of the usual auditorium seating so people could sit anywhere on the floor or chairs along the edges.

Personally I enjoyed each and every evening of Holy Week. It was no chore. The Lord was present each night to impart different insights and experiences. The first night a Scripture portion lighted up and shifted my posture towards a ministry matter. The second night I felt I was crying out to the Lord on behalf of the sick. The third night, I composed and sent prophetic prayers and words to three friends. The last night, I had to facilitate the intercession evening. However I enjoyed the soaking session with the live worship band. Whether contemplative or charismatic practices are used the common element is the presence and power of God.

Some of the participants who attended the Holy Week wrote about their experiences in this article in our church website: Holy Week: The Gethsemane Journey.

The whole Lent and Holy Week can possibly be a seasonal “curriculum” for personal and church renewal. How does your church use this season for God’s glory? Share with the readers what your church has done.

Samsung Note 5: my new smartphone

3 April 2017 blogpastor Leave a comment

This is my problem. I am not willing to fork out the large sums required for the latest mobile smartphone model. To me it does not make sense as new models are way too expensive. I would rather hunt for models that are older as their original prices would take a dip and become real value for money.

So it happened with the Samsung Note 5 when I visited the Starhub shop. The salesman told me with the $50 voucher I have, the cost of a Note 5 is only $299.

I asked, Why is it so cheap? He replied, They are discontinuing production of the old model.

Note 7 had a problematic battery and had been recalled. There was no Note 6 as they were aligning the numbers for marketing purposes. So Note 5 was the best Note smartphone currently available on the market. Why not, after all, I loved the S Pen. I had been using the Samsung Tablet Note 10.1 for several years and found the Note 5 S pen even more sensitive, responsive and a pleasure to use. It will certainly be useful for recording ideas that pop in my mind for sermons or blogposts or ministry. Its great for To Do lists and reminders and quick jotting of numbers and addresses of people I bump into, and do great screenshots on which I can write instructions and draw arrows and circles. Its great for taking action notes in meetings.

So I am now a happy owner of a new smartphone with a better camera than my LG G3 and with a great capacity for note-taking. Loving it.

Using the phone on a hike at Bt Timah Hill

Testing out the close ups – some bokeh in the background.

Beauty and the Beast, Reading and Bribery

27 March 2017 blogpastor Leave a comment

BEAUTY AND THE BEAST

I always enjoy Michael Han’s blogposts. He writes with a poise, passion and persuasiveness that is refreshing. His perspectives are interesting, stimulating and enlightening. His piece about his personal reflections on his family outing to Disney’s “Beauty and the Beast” and the gay moment is so gracious, spot-on and disarming. Some of the things he mentioned:

There were many other unwholesome moments beside the gay moment
What his 6-, 11-, and 14 year old kids thought of the movie
That the story is about the power of love to bridge divides and to transform
That the story reminded him of the prodigal son story

Michael ended his post poignantly with a personal confession:

And as for me, as a father, a husband and a Christian, I too am accountable to my family, marriage and God. In my own fallen nature, I will stand for what is right, true and honourable. Parenthood is always a fraught road with many twists, turns, and bends. Sometimes, I take the road less travelled. At other times, I lapse into the broad road. Still at other times, I confront a crossroad struggling with my own demons.

But I do not see bringing my kids to watch the movie a detour or derailment in this journey of mutual growth with them because my family’s takeaway after the movie is not that it promotes a certain value incongruent with ours. On the contrary, it is a movie that teaches my kids some important lessons as I have written above. And the most relevant lesson of all is this: there is always a place for love in all relationships to bridge the gap, and this love transforms hearts by going beyond our differences, not reminding us of how different we are from them.

Insightful blogpost. You will enjoy reading his post on Beauty and the Beast.

READING EFFICIENTLY

Dr Alex Tang writes about an interesting idea about how reading is about getting to the main message of the writer, which he says is about 20% of the book. And if we can get to the central message and savour it, that is what reading is all about. He shares how he reads by listening to an audio book or a video at a higher speed for fiction or at a lower speed for difficult matters.

“Actually, the art of reading is not the speed but getting the main thesis or message of the book whatever the format. I will estimate that 80% of any book is padding and the gem is in the 20% if we can find it. The 20% contains the heart of the whole book. It does not matter at whatever speed we read, only that we discover this gem at the heart of the book. If we then slow down to savour, reflect, and assimilate, then we would have read that book well.”

I have started a through the Bible in a year listening program under the YouVersion Bible apps. It’s quite refreshing and I have already gone through Job and Leviticus, two challenging books in the Old Testament. I am not complaining. Maybe its the season I am in.

Do you see yourself trying his efficient method of reading or do you feel that the joys and beauty of reading good literature may somehow be lost in all that efficiency? Read his post on “Reading at x1.5 Speed” .

BRIBERY

I love this piece on bribery by Methodist pastor Rev Sng Chong Hui. It is so succinct that it conveys everything needed to the common internet surfer who will allow you 2 minutes of his attention most times. Most people do not have time to read a research paper with statistics and survey results. There is a place for that too. But most people need to know that bribery is not merely a matter of corruption of two individuals or groups but something so insidious it will proliferate and one day erode society’s foundations. It is certainly outrageous when Presidents and Prime Ministers and judges and policemen and bankers take bribes and lie through their teeth. But even the seemingly harmless small bribe can spread gradually and pollute the whole of society over time. Read his post on the Bane of Bribery.