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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.)

Kum Yan Methodist Church: Church with a Missional DNA

2 October 2024 blogpastor Leave a comment

It was with a sense of awe that I read about the history of Kum Yan Methodist Church (KY) in a May 2021 excerpt from the Methodist Message about the 103rd-anniversary celebration: “…. I learned how KY’s founding father, Mr I.C. Lam started the church because he sensed the needs of the people around him. As a teacher at Yeung Ching School, his heart was stirred and filled with compassion for the Cantonese migrants who did not know Christ. So, he started a fellowship and reached out to them with the Gospel. As the congregation grew, they eventually needed a place to worship, so he began a Sunday worship service at the school.” Kum Yan has a missional DNA.

I was invited by Pastor James Chan, their missions pastor, to preach in the English worship service. I knew James from the early years of the charismatic revival of 1972. We were in the same church immersed in an intense outpouring of God’s love and power among students from different schools. Out of that revival, a fierce love for Jesus propelled us into four decades of dedicated ministry. We served together for several years until James travelled to the U.S. and Canada for his theological studies while I completed mine at Tung Ling Bible School and Trinity Theological College. James had extensive and varied experience in churches of different sizes and cultures. He taught and ran a missions training centre (Bethany), led YWAM Singapore as its National Director, and gave member care and leadership training. For several years he was doing missions in China. Later over lunch, I heard that next year he would head to Japan as part of a church planting team. For me, I stayed and served the home church for forty years before I retired in 2020.

Ps James(L) and Pastor in charge Philip Lim (R)

I received a warm welcome at the car park from James and Joanna, whom I knew from my years serving in Church Resource Ministries Singapore. It was with a strange mixture of excitement and anxiety that I entered and surveyed the worship sanctuary. It was a beautiful sanctuary, built like a junior college auditorium with plush crimson seats, and a huge cross as its central focus. The service was about to begin and the worship team and pastors were praying. I met the pastor in charge and recently elected bishop of the Methodist Church, Rev Philip Lim, Pastor Simon Say and Pastor Stephanie.

The songs of praise were a wise combination of new (at least to me) and familiar songs. The over 300-sized congregation comprised a majority of young and middle-aged people (65%) in the 20 to 60 age group, and about 35% who are over 60 years old (the young old and middle old). The age group breakdown is a good mix for inter-generational discipleship and ministry. The prayers and announcements reveal that this church has a missional heart, praying for their missionaries in Lebanon, and giving a report about their recent mooncake outreach event. It also shows there is good collaboration between the English and Chinese congregations.

James had invited Salome Wong our former church missionary to China. He wanted to catch up with her. We walked to a nearby place for an early lunch and a long fellowship together. We had hoped to meet up with Sarah (James’ wife) but she was busy with ministry to the children’s church. That is Sarah: always dedicated and responsible.

Spiritual Direction: What’s Been Happening

23 September 2024 blogpastor Leave a comment

What is spiritual direction

It is not giving direction as in advising people and giving them biblical solutions to what they are seeking. You can get that from pastors, specialized ministers, and counsellors who use guiding questions to help you form your own solutions. It is “spiritual” in that it has to do with your relationship with God, of knowing God and what he is doing and communicating with you through your life experiences. It is “direction” in that the director directs you towards God, to seek and dialogue with God himself for what you are seeking.

I like the descriptions given by Life Direction Singapore (LDS) in its tiny brochure explaining its identity and the meaning of spiritual direction. It describes its identity this way: “Life Direction is an ecumenical community of trained spiritual directors (SD) offering spiritual support and accompaniment to all persons in their faith journey. The SD helps the pilgrim to pay attention to God’s presence in ordinary life experiences and reflections in prayer.”

The brochure then describes spiritual direction: “Spiritual direction is meeting with a trained director to reflect on how God is present and active in your life, and how God might be calling you into a deeper relationship in your everyday experiences. The content of the direction session is simply your life journey: whatever aspect, story or experience you feel moved to bring to prayer and reflection. You the seeker, the spiritual director and the Holy Spirit meet in holy conversation so “you may have life and have it more abundantly.” (John 10:10) The purpose must be a desire to deepen your journey with God as he journeys with you.”

What has happened since the formation program ended

It has been almost a year since I completed my formation program in spiritual direction and went on to accompany others. Thus far, I have found the journey fulfilling. I have learned much from the spiritual direction that I gave to individuals regularly and the supervision I received. In addition, I have learned from providing spiritual direction in a different context – the few short retreats I have been involved in.

SJSM Anglican cell leaders

I led a preached retreat in March 2024 for cell leaders in a zone with St John’s -St Margaret’s Anglican Church. It was a preached retreat and I introduced them to meditative prayer using a few passages with the theme, “Let God Love You”. It was an overnight retreat at Orchid Country Club near the Lower Seletar Reservoir. I could only give each person one session of thirty minutes each. Not the most ideal, but it is what it is. The priest, Rev Vincent Hoon, is a friend of mine who is also trained and experienced and could have conducted it but I suppose it would be wholesome and enriching to have a retreat leader from outside his church. It was a privilege to listen and converse with the committed leaders of the zone he pastors.

Trinity Theological College retreats

In September 2023, soon after we completed the same SD formation course, Seng Chor and I provided support in spiritual direction, as Dr Jimmy Tan led the retreat with Trinity Theological College students who had attended his course. I had written about the retreat HERE. This year, we helped out in a similar retreat with a new batch of seminary students and I was delighted to see one of the church members, Jean Lim (see above) . I found it a privilege and joy to have this opportunity to be fully present to listen and discern what God has been doing in the retreatant’s lives.

The two Dianas – key leaders of the SD formation program

Praying at the threshold Day of Prayer

The Life Direction Singapore continued to form us after the SD formation program. They went the second mile to ensure all the SDs had opportunities to accompany others. They organized days of prayer every few months, creating opportunities for us to accompany the participants who signed up. Each of us could offer ourselves to serve in two of these Days of Prayer.

Recently, I was involved in one. The theme was “Praying At The Threshold”. The purpose was to guide people to pray and ponder during times of transition. These are the in-between times of uncertainty, impatience and anxiety. It was a long day but I enjoyed the whole day of prayer particularly the spiritual direction with the participants assigned to me. It was always my desire to accompany pastors and both men assigned to me were pastors. It was satisfying to hear the takeaways of most of the retreatants. The next Day of Prayer is on the 26th of October. The prayer theme is “Gift Immeasurable”. Lord, bless those who signed up with your loving embrace and surprises.

I now desire to experience accompanying retreatants in silent retreats for a week as I believe it would be an even deeper and more meaningful accompaniment.