BLOGPASTOR – Page 27 – blogging since 2004

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Spiritual Direction Formation Program: The Practicum Phase

6 December 2022 blogpastor Leave a comment

It has been a year and I am in semester three of my spiritual direction formation program. I have observed that formation always took priority over information. This is good. This is the way it should be. We learn to listen to God, to listen to one another, and listen to movements in our soul. This growth does not come by more information, but by more formation: awareness and discernment through personal reflection, through spiritual direction with a spiritual director, and through faith sharing in groups.

After three rounds of giving direction to one another in-house, we now enter the phase of spiritual direction practicum. Each us have to find two directees to give spiritual direction to under an experienced supervisor. I feel excited about this phase, and look forward to learning more about spiritual accompaniment. The formators are very serious about the formation of spiritual directors, and want to ensure that even during this phase the volunteer directees will benefit from their sessions.

On Saturday, we had a Day of Prayer at the Franciscan Missionaries of Mary retreat house opposite the Botanic Gardens at 49 Holland Road. In each semester, a few days are devoted to such retreat days or week. We learn to be aware of what God is doing in our life and to respond to his invitations.

For the first half of the day, we were instructed to reflect on the past year and to observe movements, encounters, people, blessings and joys, struggles and burdens, doubts and certitude, passion or aridity, hope and longing. As I reflected on the past year I gave thanks for the excitement and joy of observing the personal and spiritual growth in my formation. The highlights of my year were mostly related to the formation program.

Lunch was fulsome: bento sets, beverages, banana cake, chocolates, and grapes. All was eaten in silence. We were to savour the fullness and richness of this blessing. I was so satiated I found myself wishing for a nap.

The afternoon reflection was thankfully more tangible, since we had a heavy meal. We each took prayer shawls of different colours, cuttings and patterns. The long prayer shawl of the Jews is called “tallit/tallith”). “Tal” means tent. “ith” means little. Thus, with the shawl over our heads we set up a little tent, and invite God into our home, and we fellowship with Him in private prayer. The four fringes of the shawl are called “tzitzit” and comes from the Hebrew word “tzutz” which means “to gaze”. What a beautiful description of what should happen in prayer. With this “tent” we were instructed to meditate on the uncertainty of the journey ahead of us, similar perhaps to the twists, turns and movements of Joseph and Mary, accompanied by the holy infant Jesus. I have no certitude of what the future holds, but with God’s presence, I feel very assured and rested that like Joseph, who was entrusted with Jesus, I would experience the provision and providence of God.

***meaningful brass engraving of infant Jesus***

At the end of the day of prayer, it was announced that we will get a confirmation via email of who we are giving direction to and what we need to do. I look forward to this new movement.

Meeting Up With Blogging Friends

21 November 2022 blogpastor Leave a comment

It was pleasant to meet up with blogging friends of yesteryears. I have been blogging a long time and in the course of these years I have met some fellow bloggers and chatted with them. Well it so happens I met with a few of them in recent months.

With one of them, Terence Yeo, we planned morning ride to the Jurong Lake Gardens, culminating with a brunch at Taman Jurong Food Centre. The day was cloudy and pleasant. The weather prediction was that it would rain but thankfully he was already on the way when I informed him of my wet weather plans. Too late. But as it turned out, it hardly rained.

We talked about a range of different things. Terence has always been well informed and has intelligent views on all kinds of information and news whether biblical, extra-biblical, or current news and events. Of course, we also caught up on personal matters and talked about what we have been up to and about our families over a meal of the famous bak chor mee of Taman Jurong.

A fortnight later I met up with Jeffrey Teo and pastor Joshua Lye, two acquaintances from long ago. We met at the Republic food court at Westgate and caught up after a period of about a decade. I was very apologetic because I had forgotten an earlier appointment with them.

Big changes have taken place since I last met them. Jeffrey Yeo who is one of those serious runners who travel overseas to do races, had moved to an Assembly of God church, and Joshua had planted a church, which meant he was a bi-vocational pastor for several years, until he recently answered God’s call, “left his nets” and went into Singapore Bible College’s Master’s program. I shared with them some of the things happening in the church and I was happy to hear that both of them are still very much involved and interested in the church at large, and what’s going on today in the world.

Joshua was a participant in a revival among the members of the Lutheran Church of our Redeemer at Duke’s Road. I asked if he minded if I linked him to Galven Lee and Sina who are collecting Singapore revival stories, and he did not mind. I thought such a story is worthy of retelling over and over again, recorded for posterity to read and be inspired at what the Lord can do when hearts are open to him. Just think about it, the Lutheran Church experienced some form of renewal among some of its members the extent of which I am unsure. Evidently it did not spread as widely in the denomination as the renewal that spread in the Anglican denomination.

I have referred quite a few of these pockets of revival in schools and churches to Galven and Sina and they are very earnest and diligent in seeking such stories so if you know of any let me know in the comment box, and I can pass the tip to them.

Christ’s Finished Work: Love of God

31 October 2022 blogpastor Leave a comment

The 1972’s revival, in my limited experience, was a revival of love. It was a crying revival, not a laughing revival (not that I have anything against holy laughter). It was a revival of tears – tears of contrition, and tears from being intensely flooded and overwhelmed by an outpouring of God’s love in the hearts of his children. “God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us” (Rom 5:5). This love is first God’s love for us, and in the recipients’ response, becomes their love for God. Revival is a love transfusion to the half-dead.

This love was made available only after Christ has completed his atonement on the cross and was raised from the dead, and ascended to the right hand of the Father. “Now this he said about the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were to receive, for as yet the Spirit had not been given, because Jesus was not yet glorified” (John 7:39). It is one of the many blessings of Christ’s finished work.

A love that grows

This love that we receive by the Spirit when we begin to follow Jesus is the starter kit. This love is not static. It is dynamic and it can grow richer and deeper or wax cold and fade. St Paul prayed for the church in Ephesus to experience and explore this love in greater measures and dimensions. He wanted the church to “have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with the fullness of God (Eph 3: 18,19). This not a conceptual, cognitive, head knowledge understanding of God’s love, but a love that is experienced in encounters with God, or in simple every day real life, where God’s action and presence is experienced.

A prayer experiment

When I was new to the faith, I prayed almost daily, St Paul’s prayer of Eph 3:14-19 for myself, for more than a month. I remember very intense and deep encounters with the Lord in prayer. I was baptized in God’s love a few times over. It felt like I was been washed and rinsed over and over in the cleansing waters of his presence and love. Why not pray this prayer and ask God for a broadening, heightening, deepening, and lengthening of your experience of his love? This is one prayer that God loves to answer. It will not be the same answer for everyone as it was for me. He knows what kind of experience each of us need. Try praying like this, and after a month, write in the comment box above, what you have experienced.

Transforming love

God’s love has the power to transform lives. Love casts out fear. Yet it constrains us towards discipleship and evangelism. It satisfies us and defines who we are as beloved children of God. We are not defined by what we own or have or possess. We are who we belong to, and who we are loved by. God’s love strips away the burden and yoke of having to meet people’s expectations of us, frees us from insecurities, worldly and fleshly desires and pursuits. It gives us hope and steadies us. I pray you will experience a growing love in these last days when the love of many Christians will grow cold.

Lord, thank you for the love of God that has been poured out in my heart by the Holy Spirit. Help me keep the fires going by gathering together with other believers in authentic relationships and God-honouring worship. Amen.

This is part of a planned series of writings on the topic, “The A to Z of Christ’s Finished Work”. I am writing it alphabet by alphabet Thus far the others that I have written can be found HERE.