Writing and blogging – Page 4

Category: Writing and blogging

Stirrings From My “Sabbatical”

21 December 2021 blogpastor Leave a comment

My staying away from church was meant to be time away from the church so that the new pastor of the English congregation could establish his leadership and bond with the people in peace. For me this has become a blessing partly because this separation was not painful or stressful. Not painful because I was unseen in church but present in spirit through the online services. I also did not have to plan in which church to hide myself. It has become a sabbatical of sorts for me. I could not travel out of the country. I stayed home most of the time, which suited me fine, as I am a homebody. Interestingly, while the ground was “fallow” during the past year, something was stirring deep within my soul – at least three stirrings I can discern thus far.

Writing

One was the stirring to write. Straight after my official retirement, it was prophesied over me that I should write. God has given me the enablement, inspiration and desire to write. I have organized ideas for two booklets, and I have more or less collated material for one and now have to learn how convert my material into an e-book. I have begun work on my second book idea but I can see it will take some time as I am working at a leisurely pace without any deadline pressures. Pray for me please.

Evangelistic Preaching

Another stirring has to do with an amazing shift in interest and desire from teaching God’s Word to preaching/proclaiming the Good News. During forty years of pastoral ministry my main focus was explaining and teaching scriptures to God’s people, making truths understood in clear, simple words and without jargon. I always shunned from evangelistic preaching. It was not my gift. Or so I thought. Now I found myself preaching with an evangelistic zeal and intention I never had before. Even though I knew that I was preaching to the saved and converted, I would include evangelistic content and appeals. God is stirring my heart to pray for an anointing for preaching the Gospel and for the salvation of souls. I saw this develop in my past few sermons. They all had an evangelistic thrust and passion. I believe God is up to something exciting because that is how I feel about this shift. I feel motivated to retool myself and I am praying for an anointing to do this work. Pray for me.

Spiritual Direction

The third stirring is a desire to be formed and trained for spiritual direction. Since it was in silent retreats and through the ministry of spiritual direction that I was saved after experiencing two burnouts, I feel indebted and enthusiastic about making this ministry available to more people. I have tried on two occasions to attend such formation courses but both timings were not right. Then during the recent months an opportunity arose with an ecumenical group of experienced spiritual directors feeling led of the Lord to run a course in Singapore. I nearly did not sign up, but for an anonymous donor who generously offered to pay for half of the fees of the course. I saw this as the Lord’s intervention and invitation to me. Starting in the new year, I begin my twenty one months formation course in spiritual direction. Pray for me please.

Facets of Pastoral Work I Enjoyed

10 December 2021 blogpastor Leave a comment

Teaching God’s Word

Equipping the saints is not a cliché for me but a major reference point for pastoral ministry. It is therefore not surprising that teaching God’s Word through sermons and Christian education courses was something I found great joy in. I loved teaching the Bible and every year I devoured books on preaching, and experimented and incorporated new homiletical insights, ideas and styles into my preparation and delivery. I found satisfaction when I received feedback that the adaptations were effective, and concerned when they fell flat. I also enjoyed the development and execution of Christian education curriculum. I enjoyed running Life in the Spirit seminars to help members receive the baptism of the Spirit, and conducting membership and foundational courses for new believers.

Pastoral Care and Mentoring

Another facet of ministry that I enjoyed was meeting with leaders and members individually and giving them pastoral care, personal counsel or coaching. Patient listening to members’ concerns and struggles is a powerful way of equipping and helping them move towards wholeness. When I first began pastoral ministry in the 1980s, visiting families in their homes was the norm, but gradually I noticed that with the formation of home cell groups, the pastoral care that came through cell groups lessened the need for pastoral home visits unless there were special needs or circumstances involved. Still, it was the one on one sharing and sharpening of life that I found fulfilling.

Blogging as Ministry

Halfway in my forty years of pastoral ministry, I stumbled into blogging through my son Joshua’s suggestion. At that time around AD 2000 I began blogging on Xanga to reach out to the youth in church, and later moved my blog to my own website. Somehow this blogpastor.net website was blessed by the Lord to influence its readers. Readers from around the world read the blog. The blog was cited in the Asia Wall Street Journal, the Straits Times, and in books and articles. The discussion was very active and beyond my ability to monitor and I saw that blogging allowed for conversation/discussion and thus was a good platform for teaching and influencing thought and attitudes. I enjoyed this thoroughly as it also led me to see my writing as an extension of my teaching and pastoral ministry.

Soul Care

Later in the last decade of my pastoral ministry, I was more interested in spiritual formation and spiritual direction. I saw how waiting on God in silence in a retreat setting with a spiritual director to guide helped me recover from a burnout, and I became convinced this kind of ministry to be vital for the spiritual health and vitality of pastors, church leaders and members. I completed a Master’s program on Christian Education and Spiritual Formation with AGST Alliance, went for annual silent retreats, and searched for spiritual director formation training. The whole area of spiritual formation of the soul became a focus for me.

Coaching

During the last five years of my role as senior pastor, I also became more engaged with issues of pastoral succession and sought to equip a team of new ministry staff so that when I retired, the church would have a leadership team able to feed, care for and lead the church. My main concern was to equip them to do what would be a major means of equipping the saints – the Sunday sermon. As this was my main strength, I designed a simple program to give them opportunities to develop their preaching ministry. They have all been trained in Bible Schools but I wanted them to apply what they have learned in a systematic way and with peer group supervision and encouragement. I enjoyed this coaching role in the last five years of pastoral work.

If leading, feeding and caring are the main roles of a pastor, then I would rank the roles in order of personal fulfilment this way: 1) feeding, 2) caring and lastly 3) leading.

Gleanings From My Blogroll

1 November 2021 blogpastor 4 Comments

I enjoyed reading some of the bloggers I follow in my blogroll. As usual some blogs have remained at hentai kaki (Malay for marching on the spot) while others have recently updated their blog.

The most prolific would be Rev Dr Tony Siew who blogs regularly about his faith ministry of bringing the word of God to rural Sabah. In his recent update he mentioned how he turned down two offers to teach in seminary, and one offer of a denominational position, in order to obey God’s instruction to him. Respect. Click here.

I loved the story of Ps Timothy Pang as he reminisced about the love of his late grandparents. I never experienced this at all. None of my grandparents were around – they all passed away before I was born. Click here.

Fr Chris Soh, a Jesuit priest, puts his homilies online in his blog and I believe we Protestant pastors can learn from him how to be more interesting in our introductions, and succinct in the content of our sermons, especially with the short attention span of the many who “watch” online services. Click here.

Ps Henson Lim has written an Ebook of his reflections on the Psalms that he is giving out free of charge. Don’t miss it. Did I say it: IT’S FREE. Click here.

Christina Siew reflects about Hell after her daughter told her non-Christian father, “Those who don’t believe in God, will go to health!’. Click here.

My Primary and Secondary school classmate, James Tann, reveals some interesting secrets about a breached dam wall and an old Bukit Batok Park. I admire his attention to historical details. Completely reliable stuff. No fake news. Go here and here.

Joanne Lee Wong writes another authentic piece that moved my heart. She is really good. Is it the University of Oxford? Methinks she writes from the heart. Click here.

Finally, I also had the pleasant discovery that Dr Alex Tang has produced quite a number of YouTube videos and I immediately subscribed to his channel before he asked me to. Here is another positive development that came out of the pandemic lockdowns! Here is one of them.