Pastoral ministry – Page 50

Category: Pastoral ministry

Missions to Mt Bromo, Peshwar and Karachi

10 September 2010 blogpastor Leave a comment

In my office shelf I stumbled on an old photo album of some mission trips to the Mt Bromo area in 1990 and in 1991, and Peshawar in 1992. The photos were fading, and the album’s spine had unglued from the cover. Digitizing photos are so easy to do now with the macro function on digital cameras. There was no need for me to send photos to the experts. So I took some nostalgic photos for posterity.

The Tengger unreached people group who live in the mountainous region of Mt Bromo, Mt Batok and Mt Semeru are Hindus. Some mission groups have been reaching out to them and we went there for missions exposure and teaching in a training school in two trips. On the side we visited a tourist site: a beautiful active volcano called Mt Bromo. This region is many hours away from Surabaya, Indonesia.

In the second trip we did some teaching with a training school there. When we went to the village, the church pastor was not around as our partners did not make proper arrangements for us. For us highly organized Singaporeans, this was frustrating but we learned to “go with the flow”. We slept on the floor in sleeping bags in a poor villager’s house – a kind of home-stay to help a local contact the missionaries were trying to reach. Our meal were noodles and egg, cooked over kerosene powered fire and lights.

In 1992, a church team visited Peshawar our missionary in Pakistan, Pastor Thomas Tan and his wife Beng Choo. This was before Zephaniah was born. There were four of us: myself, James Soo and Priscilla, Angela. It was culture shock for us. We preached in two churches that met in houses and saw how secretive the follow-up of seekers were in Peshawar. This kind of work was sensitive and missionaries have disappeared and have never been found. No megachurches here for sure. Missionaries faced a great deal of daily security and identity issues. Later on we passed through Karachi and worked with Eugene from the St Andrew’s Anglican church in Singapore. He hooked me up to preach in a squatter church and the city’s Cathedral, St John’s, if I remember correctly. We also visited a drug rehabilitation center. An eye-opening trip indeed.

The value of a sabbatical

3 September 2010 blogpastor 8 Comments

The church board of elders granted me a 6 months sabbatical and I felt grateful and relieved. Grateful because they knew I needed it even though the timing was not perfect. There never is a perfect time in church life for sabbatical. Wait for the perfect time and it will never come. Relieved because I am like a mobile with only one bar left in its battery. So beginning 1 January 2011 and ending in 30 June I will come apart from church work and routines and seek the Lord for healing, focus and restoration.

Healing because along the way of service there have been scrapes, ambiguity, guilt, bad decisions, hurts that needs to be surfaced by silence, meditation and the illumination of the Spirit of God. Journaling, silence, reflection and prayer have a way of opening me up to experience healing grace, peace and reconciliation. Having a ten day silent retreat under direction, at Seven Fountains retreat center in Chiangmai, would be a good kick-off to this process.

Ministry gradually degenerate into fragments with its mobs of demands, distractions and drainers. The sabbatical will give me time to reflect on the past to gain sightings of how God has been at work in my life, and where the finger of God is pointing. Invitations will then turn into convictions and specific callings, and if not, at least faith to take the next step in the midst of uncertainty.

Emotionally and mentally and physically I need fresh input and restoration. I do get frayed and enter a mode where I’m not fully living and tasting the whole range of life and relationships. My senses get blunted as I hurry, rush and hurry. The sabbatical will slow me down and heighten my senses and help me to be fully present to God, to life, to people, to loved ones, to the hurts of the stranger.

Read this NY Times article on “Taking a Break from the Lord’s Work”

Even corporate people are appreciating the need for time off. As I started planning for the sabbatical and did some research online I came across this interesting video of Stefan Sagmeister sharing how time-off made him productive and creative for his design company.

John Maxwell: what I would have done differently as a pastor

18 August 2010 blogpastor Leave a comment

John Maxwell is well known in the church world and in the secular organizations. He is a trainer and motivator of leaders. As an author he has sold 13 million books. His training organizations have trained more than 5 million people. He left Skyline Wesleyan Church in San Diego to concentrate on training leaders. He has enough distance from his pastoral ministry to offer insights that would help younger, and even experienced pastors. Here is his reflection on what he would do differently if he had a chance to, fifteen years after he has left the pastorate. This extract comes from an interview done by Michael Duduit and was published in the Preaching magazine (Jul-Aug 2010).

Question: You have been at this for a long time- you have been preaching since you were a young man and you continue to preach. What are some things you have learned about preaching, things you know now that you wish you had known when you started?

John Maxwell: Well, something interesting has happened. I resigned Skyline in San Diego, Calif.- this just shocks me – 15 years ago. when I left the local church after pastoring it for 25 years and loving it so dearly, I felt pretty satisfied, successful. I felt that my churches grew, that a lot of people came to faith in Christ. I felt I had the respect of the Christian community as far as being a “successful pastor.”

Now that I’ve gotten away from it 15 years, I get more disillusioned with my work every year. I told Margaret, “I’m not sure I can live long enough here in this process. I just feel like I didn’t do a good job.” I wish now that I had done this differently.

Just like I was talking about – I would talk to my people about how to share their faith. I didn’t teach them how to get respect in their business world. I didn’t know how to do that. I didn’t do nearly enough social stuff that really would get into their world – help people with hunger, clothing needs or whatever. I didn’t do that enough. Now I look back and think, “I could’ve done so much better in my teaching and communicating.” I just came from my perspective all the time. I never would do that again.

If I was developing messages on a weekly basis, I would find un-churched people – hopefully uninterested people – and I would ask them to meet with me on a monthly basis. I’d bounce ideas off of them and see if I ever sparked their interest, see if I ever connected with them in any way. I would put a lot more of that teaching into my messages. One of the things I love now is that I don’t have to develop a message weekly, so I have more time to let it work in me.

When I was younger, I wanted to do a great work for God, which I over-emphasized and under-emphasized God doing a great work in me. I see it now, my shallowness. I get disappointed. I thought, “Wow, If I had been more interested in God doing a great work in me, my messages would’ve been more transforming. They maybe would not have been applauded as greatly, because they maybe wouldn’t have been as well honed, but they sure would have been from the heart. They would’ve been out of brokenness and out of a journey I was taking.” I wish I had known that when I had that opportunity.

Again, I look back and am very surprised at how disappointed I am in where I was. The only comfort I get out of it is that I know I did my best. I didn’t lack integrity in trying to give my best effort; I just lacked direction and wisdom about things that I could’ve done a lot better.”