Writing and blogging – Page 4

Category: Writing and blogging

Gleanings from my Blogroll

18 July 2021 blogpastor 2 Comments

I spent an enjoyable evening reading some of the blogs I follow. I do this on and off. Often to my disappointment there were few updates. This time round, my net was full. Here are a few gleanings from my readings:

Michael Han writes like an editor who highlights a news event or figure and analyses it in depth and makes his comments about it from a Christian viewpoint. I found this blogpost about two successful men stimulates hope and encourages faithful living.

Jacintha Teo’s piece about the wisdom of completely surrendering and entrusting to God our love relationships with a special other totally is one that will release people in entangled, one-sided, conflicted relationships from anxiety, fear, and anger and bring them to a place of peace.

I was moved by the honest and vulnerable self-disclosure of Joanne Lee Wong about her sufferings and struggles with depression. It made me want to pray for her regularly. It takes a lot of courage and humility to write such beautiful truth.

I like Christina Siew’s honest struggle of whether to support or detract from Joseph Prince after reading all the negative stuff about his teachings on the internet. She let’s you in on her thought process as she describes her journey.

Pastor Henson Lim tries to describe an interesting spiritual adulting stage he finds himself in. It is one in which he feels the Lord is entrusting more matters to his judgment knowing that he could be relied upon having seen how he has been faithful these past 21 years . Read it to know fully what he means to say.

Bookstagrammers in the news

16 April 2021 blogpastor 2 Comments

I was so happy to see these two sisters, Grace and Sarah Phua gain some recognition in the Straits Times, Singapore’s national newspaper. They are pastor’s kids and they grew up in World Revival Prayer Fellowship, the church I served as senior pastor, before I retired recently. I know them and rejoiced in the fact that their pictures and work were highlighted in the article about bookstagrammers.

WHAT’S A BOOKSTAGRAMMER?

I learned a new word: Bookstagrammer -someone who loves books and reviews them on their Instagram account. Those with substantial followers, for example @jemmawei that the report featured has as many as 69,700 followers. If 10 percent of those followers read her book review and were motivated to buy the book, that would mean an increase of sales of about 6,970 books. Which publisher wouldn’t be eyeing this kind of influence? So these bookstagrammers do receive requests to review books which publishers sent to them for free. It is such a blessing if you love reading because when you love books you spend a lot of money on them. Besides freebies they also get acquainted with a virtual community of people who also love reading.

GRACE & SARAH PHUA

Both sisters are very talented in many ways including musically. Grace works in the media industry. She is the arty, aesthetic right-brainer. Sarah owns an accounting business and works part-time on the church pastoral team. She has strategic leadership skills, a good communicator with a sharp intellect, and contributes greatly to the church community. They have great parents who have faithfully served the deaf faith community in church. Their father was the pastor of the deaf church. He too, like me, has recently retired.

If you love books and want to read their reviews on Instagram you can follow Grace at @curiousreviewer and Sarah at @bookandbriefcase. If you wish to read the full Straits Times article about how book sales have gone up during the pandemic and how book reviews on social media platforms are fuelling reading, click HERE.

Write Every Day

7 January 2021 blogpastor 2 Comments

It was so simple. I knew it from reading about writing. WRITE EVERY DAY. The discipline of writing every day yields benefits, as sure as sowing results in the joys of harvesting.

For the past week, I tried a few times to write, but could not get down to it. I did not feel like doing it. I did not feel motivated nor inspired. However, on Sunday, when a friend asked for help to write something about frequently asked questions about retreats, I got it done in less than an hour. I actually could write (without inspiration). I suppose the motivation was there though: the desire to help out as a member of a team that supports retreats. So I wrote, and as I wrote I did not feel inspired, just motivated.

Today over tea and curry puffs, I talked with a friend about writing, and journeying with younger pastors, post-retirement. I was pretty sure this is what the Lord is leading me towards thus far. I have given God a blank page and he has written. My friend casually mentioned something about the importance of writing every day. It hit me, like God was prodding me: Just write it. Don’t have to post everything you write every day. Some days the post is not complete. Leave it to stew. Work on more than one posts. Edit. Rewrite. More thinking and research. Then shoot when its ready to be sprung from the bow. That motivated me.

I sat down in the evening, and wrote this. Ha!

Thank you, Lord. Let this be the start of a fruitful and godly and happy habit. Amen.