Spirituality – Page 57

Category: Spirituality

It takes a community to make a disciple

16 July 2012 blogpastor 8 Comments

Burden of solo discipling

A burden of expectation lurks somewhere at the back of the minds of many Christians. It insinuates that they have neglected a key responsibility. This idea that a believer who is a good disciple will make other disciples who makes other disciples is one that has been embraced by many. The solo Christian is to take a new convert, teach him the basics of Christian living and help him grow mature in Christ, and for him while growing, to make another disciple. By and large, he is on his own in this difficult task, and by and large, he usually fails in multiplication. It is wearisome for anyone to carry the memory of such a discouraging, erosive experience.

Redressing a bias

Perhaps too much have been made of solo discipling. The Scripture may have been made to say more than what it may have said. A re-examination and a re-interpretation of the same texts may reveal an additional perspective that shouts for greater emphasis and weight to redress a Western driven bias towards individual responsibility and action. There is in Scripture a community aspect of disciple making that we have failed to give sufficient weight to. We missed it because our lens are too Western.

It takes a community

An Eastern, and more balanced perspective is this: it takes a whole community to make a disciple. Just as it takes a whole village to raise a child it takes a church to make a disciple. The Gospels seem to show that Jesus made disciples solo, and discipling actions emanated from him and the disciples’ learning was centered around Jesus. The rabbi of Jesus’ time would have followers and learners whose lives revolved around learning and imitating their leader, despite his imperfections. Jesus however was God incarnate, perfect and sinless, and filled with the Spirit without measure. The Twelve had a perfect model.

Discipling by the Spirit

With the ascension of Jesus and the pouring out of the Holy Spirit a new way of discipling has been opened up. Jesus was no longer around. He said, It is to your advantage that I go away. Now I am limited by my physical body. When I am gone the Spirit will come on you and where a community is gathered in my name, there I am in their midst; there is the body of Christ. In effect, the discipling that was centered around Jesus when he was physically present, has now shifted to the community, the body indwelt by Christ. Now it is the Christian community, together reflecting the fruit of the Spirit, and releasing the gifts of the Spirit, that makes a disciple. Discipling is still “centered around Jesus”, but Jesus is now present to us as a body, a community of believers not a solo disciple. This insight was developed most thoroughly and clearly in a book titled “Making Disciples” by Sylvia Collinson. Obviously no one person have all the strengths of character and gifts we see in Jesus. It takes the Spirit working through a whole community to get anywhere close to that. It takes a community to make a disciple!

Revival community

Let me give an example of what it means for a community to make a disciple. I became a Christian in a revival that began in Dunearn Tech Sec School. It happened around the same time as the ACS clock-tower revival but it developed differently: it became a church. It was a revival of tears, love and joy: one where the deep moving of the Spirit resulted in hundreds turning to Christ and being baptized, filled with the Spirit and having their lives transformed. I was one of them. As I reflected on my experience, I noticed I did not have a solo Christian who discipled me. There were key encouragers who told stories, shared experiences and life. There were the values of the revival community: intense prayer, enthusiastic evangelism and missions, love for the Word, desire for spiritual gifts, great love for one another, that I saw lived out in the lives, activities and ministry of the people of the revival. It was a community and its values that discipled me, a socialization for citizenship in the kingdom. I learned behaviors, values and beliefs just by being deeply enmeshed in the social interaction, and involved in the community’s life and activites. The Spirit that indwells the community was implementing His curriculum in His time and in His way.

Spiritual formation for young people

5 July 2012 blogpastor Leave a comment

Handcrafting young people

One of the main things we can do as a small church is to handcraft young people to take on the mantle of servant leadership in the church. One way is for us to actually use that period when young people are waiting to study in some institution, or for new semester to begin, or to go into National Service. It is difficult to find a similar period for Polytechnic students as the different polys have different breaks. However we managed to find a period for the former. We found a period of 40 days and brought together 6 of them. We “de-schooled” the training and made it more relational, interactive, research-active, digital and communal. Nine to 5 from Tuesday to Saturday is intense and by the fifth week we were feeling like climbing the last stretch of Mt Kinabalu at 3am in the morning. But it felt so satisfying to have persevered to the end-point.

One thing young people found very helpful

One thing that really struck me was how the participants were hungry to make sense of the Bible. They were looking for meaning that tied together the seeming jig-saw of Bible stories, laws, instructions, prayers, wise sayings, poetry that were written long ago over a long period of time by a host of different authors with different purposes. They was a definite search for thematic perspectives. Its more than a book by book survey. Its the blood red vascular system that runs through the flesh of the biblical text that begs exposition. It’s also the historical and cultural and literary context that they wish to unlock as these hid the treasure.

A memorable ending

Another thing that helped them was the challenge at the end. After they had viewed the mercy of God, and experienced His love in prayer and reflection, we brought them to Kranji War Memorial to reflect over how they would like at that juncture in their journey to offer themselves as a living sacrifice unto God. This experiential learning was poignant and helped to tie up everything they have learned and experienced into an appropriate response to God. For more pics and information go to wrpf.org.sg

Contemplative prayer in a Pentecostal church

9 April 2012 blogpastor 3 Comments

Worship hall rearranged

The chairs were removed from the worship hall for the Holy Week of Contemplative Prayer. A wooden cross had a robe wrapped around its outstretched arms. Around the neck, was a crown of thorns ingeniously made from rose branches and toothpicks twisted together. A large candle, and a porcelain blue cup and plate bought from Israel, were laid on an Ikea coffee table with a beautiful tablecloth. At the sides of the hall were three tables and chairs set aside for faith expressions: artwork materials, soft clay, and card making materials. The lights were dimmed on all four nights of the arrival of contemplative prayer in a Pentecostal church.

Holy Week theme

Holy Week as we all know starts on Palm Sunday and culminates on Easter Sunday. In the lead up to Good Friday and a Easter Sunday Baptism we created an inviting environment for God-chasers to contemplate the death of Christ. The theme this time were the 7 words of Jesus from the cross. It built up on Good Friday with 7 sermonettes on the same theme interspersed with music, silence and worship. Then the climax was an Easter celebratory service followed by a baptism in the East Coast – a most fitting end with all the church people having a picnic and food galore at the beach.

Contemplative prayer: what it looked like

Each evening of the Holy Week of Contemplative Prayer began at 8pm and ended at 10pm though people were free to leave earlier at 9.30pm. The evenings were led by a facilitator who guided the participants through the silence, the lectio divina, the journaling, and the holy communion. Instrumental music and silence were used and it needed no live music. On each evening, a scripture passage that captured the words of Jesus on the cross were read three times, and minimum comments were made, so that the participants can receive the word of the Lord.

Complementary to retreats

The attendance was encouraging. To make a retreat require annual leave, giving up weekends, and money. Though such contemplative nights cannot be compared with the sheer vastness of undistracted time devoted to attending to the Lord in a retreat, it is a good complement, as it is grounded in everyday life. Unlike in a retreat, the participant does his daily activities as usual and comes to the place of quiet prayer with some effort, and leaves to go home to rest and then to work/school the next day. The ordinary day becomes the space for “retreat”. A regular daily rhythm of prayer and reflection may take shape in the midst of ordinary living. This is something that cannot happen in a retreat. As many as half of the 20-30 participants came every night. Some of them wanted it to be a more regular affair. Most were blessed and helped by the guided times of silent prayer in a community context.

Contemplative and Pentecostal?

It may be regarded as rather odd that the contemplative and charismatic can flow together like streams that join together to water the people of God. How can something so “Catholic” be found in something more known for noisy meetings and emotionalism and evangelical fervour? But why shouldn’t the waters mix together in a heady, bubbly oxegenated mix? Weren’t the early Christians contemplative Pentecostals? Both of these stereotypes of ancient spiritual practices being “Catholic” (and therefore suspect) and Pentecostals being boisterous and uneducated spiritual drunks do not belong to the 21st century. They are baggages that should have been left behind in the last century. We need a spiritual humility, one that discerns what is good in other traditions, acknowledges them as God’s gifts, and adapt them for use in one’s own tradition.