Singapore churches – Page 4

Category: Singapore churches

Sip. Drink. Be Blessed

1 August 2024 blogpastor Leave a comment

Pastor Francis Ng from the Tabernacle of Christ gave me a complimentary book that celebrated the church’s 30^th anniversary. I was surprised at the book’s quality when I took it out of the brown envelope. My wife took it and read it. Later, my wife and I could not remember where it was placed until I searched a bookshelf for something else and found it stuck on top of other books.

I opened the book, began reading and could not put it down. I finished reading it in a day. What is it about the book that kept my eyes glued to it?

The design is superb: the size, the colours, the typography, the paper, the size of the book and the lovely portraits of the members whose stories were told. The book looks classy and expensive.

I also liked the subtle and smart presence of coffee and teacups in many pictures – an allusion to the theme: “Sip. Drink. Be Blessed.”

The book is square (reminds me of Instagram) and the way its content was arranged and the length of each faith story is directed at a modern audience with an increasingly shorter attention span. I wish they had an electronic version for digital natives, and for members to forward the e-book version to friends and colleagues.

I liked how the church’s history was limited to eight pages. It described the few changes in location that the church made: from a Horne Road warehouse to its final building in Yishun, its present location.

The bulk of the book was devoted to faith stories and testimonies of thirty members. This is the real history of what God has done for the church: stories of healing, salvation, God’s provision, life transformation, and acts of kindness. Each story inspired my faith, hope and love for the Lord. God is good. God is faithful.

It would make the book complete if it had a gospel presentation at the end but I am sure they have some reasons not to do so. Other than this, I would warmly recommend this book to Christians and non-Christians. It inspires hope at a time when all around us we see broken lives, marriages, families and nations.

If you wish to know more about this church go HERE. If you want to read more about my visit as a guest preacher to the Tabernacle of Christ, go HERE.

MFIS Thanksgiving Dinner 2023: A Milestone in Leadership Change

24 November 2023 blogpastor Leave a comment

In celebration of Ministers Fellowship International Singapore (MFIS) Thanksgiving Dinner, on Thursday night, 23 November 23, we were blessed with a sumptuous dinner complete with roast turkeys from Goodwood Park Hotel (courtesy of Mr & Mrs Luar Eng Hwa). We had about 120 pastors and leaders from some 45 churches coming together at Harvester Community Church in Geylang. The program started at 5pm and ended at 8pm. No one was bored, everything flowed according to schedule. We had a great couple Tom and Ethel Cannon as our emcees.

We were particularly blessed by the opening speech by Apostle Patrick Low (Founder & Apostolic Overseer of Christian Community Chapel). He started by asking all of us this question, “What are we thankful for?” We are to give thanks for all the blessings we have received in 2023, but we also need to give thanks for our trials and sufferings. Suffering, is a sign of the true apostolic church. Besides the working of signs & wonders in our ministry, how we handle difficult times in our lives, speaks as loudly as our works. I felt that this is a word that we all need to hear for this season and to prepare God’s people for the coming season.

There was a good time of fellowship, and the evening ended with powerful prophetic prayers and proclamations, led by four pastors across the generations. And of course, the celebration highlight was for the birthday boy, Rev Chua Hock Lin, who has been a dear elder brother who always cared and pastored MFIS pastors these few years. He just turned 80! The following landmark announcement was also made by him: “Before I share the message the Lord has put on my heart, I have a short announcement to make. Earlier this year, I felt my time as the first Chairman of MFIS would be over by end 2023. Time for us to transition to a younger person. I shared this with the leadership and they concurred. We also agreed that Ps Sam Gift Stephen, Senior Overseer of Life Centre, would be the next Chairman of MFI Singapore. Ps Sam is on a family vacation and will assume this role on his return. I want to thank Ps Han, our Lead Apostolic Elder, the Apostolic Elder Council, Apostolic Leadership Team and all the members of our Fellowship Teams for their encouragement and support during the last three years. I believe the next season, with Ps Sam at the helm, will move us to a higher level for the mission of MFI Singapore”.

To God be the glory, for Pastor Gabriel Han and the Harvester Community Church team who worked to put this together for us. We praise the Lord since every good and perfect gift comes from above. We look forward to 2024, the year ahead of us, a year closer to the return of Christ.

-A report by Pastor Lawrence Lee (former Senior Pastor of Glad Tidings Church)

Tabernacle of Holiness: Blessed Pastors’ Children

21 November 2023 blogpastor Leave a comment

They are blessed by the Lord. At least that is my limited observation of pastors’ children. During the praise and worship at the beginning of the service at Tabernacle of Holiness, where I was a guest preacher, I noticed the worship leader guiding the congregation to experience God’s presence and to rightly honour him. They were a mere three man worship team but I felt like I was taken up in a spiritual whirlwind into a heavenly space and was filled with the Spirit and brought back down to earth again. Later, I found out the worship leader was Pastor Isaiah’s son. Now Pastor Isaiah has a special worship anointing. I have experienced that at the Covenant Pastors’ dinner fellowship many times. The son also has a similar anointing. Not a co-incidence. Passed through the genes? Nah. More likely: son sees father, wants to be like father, God sees his heart’s desire, and gave it to him by sheer grace and generosity.

Later, after the service ended, I chatted with Pastor Xavier and said I have been trying to write a book for some time and it will be an ebook. Then he mentioned about his daughter who had written a book and put it up on Amazon, which I found amazing, and wanted to chat with her. She told me about the fantasy book she had written, one with underlying Christian themes, which straightaway brought to mind, the Narnia Chronicles and other such books. I was impressed and inspired and energised to overcome writer’s block and complete the book I had started.

Two pastors of the same church with adult children they can be proud of, faithfully using their gifts of worship and writing for the kingdom. The interesting twist is that both of these pastors’ children are married to each other. To me this is a bonus: they can expect more blessings ahead.

I enjoyed my time at Tabernacle of Holiness. They are years ahead when it comes to the prophetic gift. In fact they are so gifted that they run a course called Academy of Prophets, both locally and abroad. I have attended it before when Prophet Amos Jayaratnam conducted it in some form years ago. It is informative and it inspires faith. It is practical and it gets you started on prophecy. It is sound and I would recommend it to anyone who desires the gift of prophecy.

If you wish to learn more about the Tabernacle of Holiness you can go HERE.