Pastoral ministry – Page 2

Category: Pastoral ministry

Deaf Faith Fellowship: Preaching to the deaf congregation

8 November 2024 blogpastor Leave a comment

They may be deaf or hearing impaired physically but spiritually their ears are opened by the Lord and they have come to know Christ and to follow him. Pastor Barnabas Phua has retired after decades of faithful and fruitful service and the ministry staff Mui Keng is now in charge. While I was their senior pastor, I could not help them much. I preach there once or twice a year because I have to be at the English congregation most of the time. Now that I have retired, I have more time to preach there. In fact, after retirement, I preach there four or five times a year.

Kenny, Ps Barnabas, Mui Keng, Daisy (sign interpreter)

I do enjoy these preaching opportunities. Communicating with the deaf has its challenges. Abstract ideas are difficult to communicate. To give them a definition of “faith” in abstract terms makes it difficult for them to grasp. I have to concretize it into a story like how Abraham believed in God and demonstrated his faith by forsaking his household gods to follow God, and by accepting God would fulfil his promise and give him a descendant when Sarah is barren and he is already old. To make it even clearer, I have to provide them with practical examples of what faith looks like in today’s life situations and context. It trains me to condense a message to its bare essential truth and explain, illustrate, and apply it multiple times. I learn to keep it simple and understandable. In other words, I have to preach the way Jesus preached!

Jesus did not have to do PowerPoint slides, but I had to do many slides because though they cannot hear, they can see. A picture is worth a thousand words and it really helps them understand.

I work with someone who translates my message, using American sign language and gestures of face and hands that express what I mean. This in itself isn’t easy. Furthermore, I like to converse with them from the pulpit to keep them engaged, asking questions, and hearing their replies. More work for the interpreter! This requires thorough and earlier preparation so that the interpreter can have the slides and message notes beforehand. This helps the interpreter to get ready. The advantage of an interpreter is that I have time to frame the next sentence while she is interpreting my earlier sentence. I can also observe the cues from their body language that tell me if they understand and are engaged with what I have been saying.

The deaf members appreciate my preaching. They find it relevant and helpful. I normally pray that God will fill up where I may fail to deliver. God is faithful and he always does his work of guiding them into all truth.

If you know of deaf people who need a church family please direct them to Deaf Faith Fellowship. They worship in the same building (on the third floor) as World Revival Prayer Fellowship , and are the deaf congregation of the church.

Pastor Rony Tan: Evangelist Extraordinaire

18 October 2024 blogpastor Leave a comment

Pastor Rony Tan went home to his Lord and Master on the 16^th 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.

New Horizon Church: Blessed with Hope and a Future

15 October 2024 blogpastor Leave a comment

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.

*The board members prayed for the pastors*

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.)