Church in general – Page 28

Category: Church in general

Kingdom Invasion 2014

24 March 2014 blogpastor Leave a comment

Bill Johnson preaching in Kingdom Invasion

I attended Kingdom Invasion from 19-21 March at the Singapore Expo, but mainly the morning and the afternoon sessions. The keynote speaker was Bill Johnson and we missed him the last time round but it was good to have him take more sessions this time. He was full of interesting insights into God’s ways and some of his one-liners stay with you like henna dye. Two of his powerful messages were the ones on culture of honor and the one of the role our desires and faith play in God’s sovereign plan. The basic thesis of the first is that the church needs to recover the key of honor in different aspects of relationships so that what God has gifted and graced the person who we honor may be released to us. Jesus was not honored in Nazareth and thus they were deprived of what He could have done for them. The central truth of the second is that our desires and faith have a way of bringing forward what God may have planned for the future. Jesus said to Mary his mother, My hour has not come (to perform miracles). However due to her persistent faith, that hour seemed to have been brought forward in the miracle of changing water to wine. Thus imagine if the church had the desire and faith to bring forward the promises of the future kingdom to the here and now – bringing the promises of heaven to earth – what kind of glory would the church display to the waiting world. What an inspiring, expansive vision.

James Goll was another proposition altogether. More prophetic and inspirational he spoke, sang and shared some of his encounters with angels and dreams and taught people how to intercede as a privilege, out of the intimacy that the Father offers us.

And as ever the inimitable Heidi Baker facilitate a soaking in the presence of God. We think we need more cognitive content but God knows we ministers need more time allowing the Spirit to fill us and to be inspired by her abandon to the Spirit.

Love Singapore Pastors’ Prayer Summit 2014

10 February 2014 blogpastor Leave a comment

This years prayer summit was held on January 6-9 at the Equatorial Hotel in Malacca. The theme was Jubilee. There were about 500 pastors and leaders from Singapore in attendance. The speaker was Peter Tsukahira and his theme was the kingdom of God and the marketplace.

The prayer summit this year was Word rich. I suppose there were pastors who attended because of the guest speaker – they wanted to hear his teachings. He is of Japanese origin, speaks with an American accent, and has an Israeli passport. He is married to a Messianic Jewess and both of them lead a ministry and Messianic community in Haifa. In fact the last thing we did during our holy land trip was to visit and support his ministry. I saw pastors who never attended the pastors’ summit attend this summit giving attention to all the teaching sessions. Peter Tsukahira did not disappoint. He spoke about the formation of Israel, and its relation to the return of Christ, the gospel of the kingdom of God and how these give the framework for the marketplace ministry. I was blessed by the teaching it stirred me to return to my favorite writer on the kingdom of God, G. E. Ladd, a professor from Fuller Theological Seminary. Read an excerpt of his concept of the kingdom HERE for an example of his concise writing and clear thinking and grasp of a difficult subject with many different interpretations.

Chance meeting with pastors Lawrence and Guna

This year they also re-introduced pastors Lawrence Chua and Guna to do the stand-up comic thingy. They are two members of the team steering the Love Singapore churches. They are pastors with hearts for community service and have led their churches to be models for such a ministry in the heartlands. They have somehow discovered a chemistry between them for stand up comedy. They brought the house of God down with laughter. Humor is serious business. You need a gift to get pastors in a sober “prayer summit” to laugh shamelessly. So used are pastors to being serious about eternal and earthly issues. Kudos to Lawrence and Guna for their gift of getting all the stressed-up pastors laughing. However, they would do well to expand their range of subjects. They seem too constrained to introducing the chairman and the speaker or the organizing church in humorous ways. They can evolve into a stand-alone act that can help pastors and leaders laugh at themselves and alter some perspectives of church ministry and relations.

The pastors’ summit is one of the best places to keep in touch with acquaintances and other pastors. I met two of my cousin’s daughters: cousins once removed. One morning I had breakfast with Lindy Chee and Dara Chee. Lindy worked with YWAM for many years. Now she is in training and facilitating. Dara Chee is a trained social worker who was in Vietnam for a few years with the Anglicans, and now a residential manager for Highpoint Dayspring, a residential treatment center for abused women and teens. It was encouraging to see young people with a passion for Christ’s kingdom to be realized on earth as in heaven.

This year I roomed with priest Vincent Hoon from True Light Anglican Church. We met years ago when we were randomly put together to share a room in a similar conference. We gelled and this was the second time we roomed again. Vincent drove us all to Malacca -me and pastor Kenny Fan from Woodlands Evangelical Free Church and pastor Thomas my colleague. They were such pleasant company the road trip seemed shorter. On the way back we stopped by Yong Peng, and later, at a Gelang Petah seafood restaurant popular with golfers. Ahhh…Malaysian food.

What can we learn from Pope Francis on homosexuality?

30 September 2013 blogpastor 31 Comments

What the Catholic Catechism says about chastity and homosexuality

Homosexuality refers to relations between men or between women who experience an exclusive or predominant sexual attraction toward persons of the same sex. It has taken a great variety of forms through the centuries and in different cultures. Its psychological genesis remains largely unexplained. Basing itself on Sacred Scripture, which presents homosexual acts as acts of grave depravity,tradition has always declared that “homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered.”They are contrary to the natural law. They close the sexual act to the gift of life. They do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity. Under no circumstances can they be approved. (2357)

The number of men and women who have deep-seated homosexual tendencies is not negligible. This inclination, which is objectively disordered, constitutes for most of them a trial. They must be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity. Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided. These persons are called to fulfil God’s will in their lives and, if they are Christians, to unite to the sacrifice of the Lord’s Cross the difficulties they may encounter from their condition. (2358)

Homosexual persons are called to chastity. By the virtues of self-mastery that teach them inner freedom, at times by the support of disinterested friendship, by prayer and sacramental grace, they can and should gradually and resolutely approach Christian perfection.(2359)

Pope Francis’ recent remarks on homosexuality

“We cannot insist only on issues related to abortion, gay marriage and the use of contraceptive methods…. The teaching of the church … is clear and I am a son of the church, but it is not necessary to talk about these issues all the time.”

“I used to receive letters from homosexual persons who are ‘socially wounded’, because they tell me that they feel like the church has always condemned them. But the church does not want to do this.”

“A person once asked me, in a provocative manner, if I approved of homosexuality. I replied with another question: ‘Tell me: when God looks at a gay person, does he endorse the existence of this person with love, or reject and condemn this person?’ We must always consider the person … In life, God accompanies persons, and we must accompany them, starting from their situation.”(Excerpts from Pope Francis’ recent interview with Italian Jesuit magazine)

Has Pope Francis changed the position of the Catholic Church on homosexuality?

In my opinion, Pope Francis’ statements does not represent a change in the Catholic Church’s stand on abortion, homosexuality or contraceptive methods. It represents an attempt by the Pope to reform the image in which the Catholic Church has been perceived: that of an unfeeling moralizing institution without a heart. He is concerned that the Catholic Church insists that abortion is wrong and that homosexuality and gay marriage is wrong, (which Evangelicals agree), and that the only right contraceptive method is the natural rhythm method (which Evangelicals disagree), but it does not seem to care about weightier issues like respecting and accepting the human being, and the pain of poverty, respectively, in those contexts. He wants the Catholic Church to show its gentler side. He wants her to view all human beings with dignity and as persons that God loves.

The Church is to be the face of God. She is to reflect a Christ that mingles with outcasts and has compassion on the marginalized, treating them with acceptance, love and reconciliation. The church is to reflect the message of reconciliation it preaches, which is primarily one of God’s mercy and grace. People will then realize how untrue is their perception that the church is full of upright people of superior moral standing with pointed fingers that upbraid wrong-doing. We are a people with many weaknesses but recipients of God’s manifold grace: a forgiven community welcoming all who also need forgiveness.

Pope Francis does not want the Catholic Church to be perceived as strident and preachy as that would be counter-productive in convincing people of the truth of its positions. He is still a “son of the church” – he still holds to the Catholic dogma, or he wouldn’t be Pope. He is more concerned about harsh condemning attitudes towards wrongdoers and the wrong perceptions the world has of the Church.

We Singapore evangelicals can certainly learn something from this Pope.