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I met a talking snake

25 January 2013 blogpastor 13 Comments

I met a talking snake as I trekked the Bukit Timah Hill.

With shaking head and cold eyes, the snake hissed: Aren’t you surprised?

No, why should I be? I am a pastor and the Bible has stories of a talking snake and a talking donkey. It has a rod that turned into a snake, and a virgin that gave birth to a child. Why would I be surprised?

Snake: But a talking snake is totally contrary to normal human experience. It is just totally unscientific and irrational. Doesn’t that bother you?

Pastor: Frankly it does unsettle me at times that there is a talking snake in the Bible. I mean, I’ve seen snakes in Penang, and in the Singapore zoo, and on TV but never a talking snake. However, this dissonance has never derailed my faith in Christ.

Snake: You should explore that dissonance and it should cause you to weigh the facts and throw the Bible with all its superstitions, scientific inaccuracies, and myths out of your life. Snakes don’t talk and trees don’t impart knowledge.

Pastor: Animals have been shown to be able to communicate among themselves. Some humans demonstrate an uncanny ability to communicate with animals, albeit at an elemental level. Why then can’t you conceive that in a pre-Fall world, there could have been an amazing harmony and an incredibly higher level of communications among God’s creatures than is seen now. Though inconceivable now because of the Fall, couldn’t it have been different then?

Snake: Ridiculous! Utter nonsense. Sheer speculation.

Pastor: Well, it’s just a thought. Perhaps you should be more open to seemingly impossible possibilities. After all, creation keeps us on tiptoe with strange and magical surprises in nature and in the invisible realm. That snake probably never talked again after tempting Eve. I have seen cases of evil spirits temporarily talking through its victims in a different voice and personality. You must be mocking me now!

Snake: Are you one of those Pentecostal snake-handlers or tongue-speaking charismatics who believe in all things supernatural?

Pastor: No I am not. However, I am a Pentecostal with a deep respect for snakes ….. and snake-handlers, and I do speak in tongues, certainly more than you. Yes the world of the supernatural and spiritual phenomena does not scare me. I view all these things that I do not fully understand with my finite mind, with a sense of hush and awe (and some wariness), as Moses did with the burning bush and Joseph with his dreams of angels.

Snake: You believe in all the miracles of the Bible.

Pastor: Of course, I do. Not just because I am a Pentecostal and brought up as one soaked in a tradition of belief in the supernatural gifts and in miracles, but also because the Bible speaks of these miracles and angels in a matter of fact way. Call me naive if you will but I have heard so many modern day miracle stories myself and despite my natural tendency to doubt, I have become a believer.

Snake: Have you considered that the whole story of Adam and Eve, the talking snake and the tree that delivers knowledge is all a myth meant to teach religious truths about God? It’s just a literary device to teach readers that God is the creator, and he made humans to be like him and to be the top of the chain, and something wrong happened to cause the world to be as messed us as it is today.

Pastor: Well do you believe in the truths that the literary device seek to proclaim? Do you believe in God’s goodness and affirm that creation was good but evil came into the world and messed it all up? Do you believe that Jesus came to die and rise again to clear up the mess? If you do, you are closer to heaven than you may dare to think! Have you heard of the 4 spiritual laws?

Snake: Don’t patronize me with your fixed formula of converting me. It won’t work. You should take a closer look at your faith – it has no substance, no factual base, insufficient evidence.

Pastor: Pardon me. I don’t mean to be patronizing. My faith is based on the person of Jesus Christ. He lived in the Roman-occupied first century Israel. He was a carpenter-construction worker and a man whose birth, life, ministry was marked by the amazing, truth, miracles, love and remarkable perfection. He died and rose again from the dead and ascended to heaven. All these things were seen and witnessed by men close to him. My faith is based on the testimony of these witnesses. In addition, I have experienced his forgiveness and peace myself. I have a wonderful inner assurance that all this is real and true and somehow all the scientific and rational dissonance that bothers and troubles many others does not affect me at all. It just does not ruffle my faith at all. By the way, have you heard of Jesus?

The snake, weary from trying to convince me of the unreliability of the Bible, slithered away, hissing in frustration at this poor blinded Pentecostal pastor. The talking snake had to admit though, that it envied the fact that I seemed so persuaded and assured in my faith, and looked so happy for one so steeped in irrational beliefs and superstition.

The talking snake was almost persuaded to be a Christian.

Spirituality and faith formation at AGST

22 September 2011 blogpastor 3 Comments

New eyes

So far the courses I have attended covered discipleship, building formative faith communities and this time round, “Spirituality and Faith Development”. Hands touched my eyes, and I find myself learning to cope with strange light and blurred images, and a new way of seeing how learning can take place more effectively in church. It is stimulating to view the same things from a new framework, and to have clarified in books, lectures, discussions and journal articles, insights and patterns you have sensed but could not give precise shape to. It is uncomfortable too, because you see methodology and philosophy in the church that does not maximize learning, but will require great energy to modify.

Different Christian traditions and spiritualities

Dr. George Capaque, the Dean of Discipleship Training Center was our main lecturer together with Dr Allan Harkness, the Director of Education programs in Asia Graduate School of Theology. There were eight of us in the group from four countries: Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore and Philippines. We were introduced to the different traditions and spiritualities of the church and to the ways our faith is formed and developed, always with an eye to how we can incorporate what we have learned to benefit our respective contexts.

Though academic there was thought put in the program to integrate elements that would impact the heart and behavior. While we examined the six traditions expounded in Richard Foster’s “Streams of Living Water”, we took it down from the cognitive domain to let it work in our hearts and hands. We used the workbook for the first hour of each day to actually discuss where we are personally with respect to each tradition and how we will weave it into our actions through specific applications. The sharing were times of openness, fellowship and mutual encouragement.

I’m liking it

Besides exploring the contemplative, evangelical, social justice, charismatic, holiness and incarnational traditions, we also examined the nature and contributions of the pietist spirituality, Ignatian spirituality, and John Wesley’s teachings. We looked at how different types of personalities have preferred spiritual pathways, the spiritual disciplines, different types of prayer and how to develop a personal rule of life.

Dr Allan lead us through stimulating discussions on various theories and several paradigms of how faith develops. Some of the stuff here includes John Westerhoff’s styles of faith, James Fowler stages of faith, and Hagberg and Guelich’s Stages in the life of faith. These are interesting stuff that I will need to process and synthesize and reflect in the context of my ministry situation.

The papers we have to do are geared towards our own growth in spirituality and faith, and that of the community we serve and find ourselves in. They press us into integrating the insights and new learnings into our life and ministry context. This is anytime better than doing purely theoretical stuff that does not result in real change in attitude and behavior. True knowing involves life transformation.

Meeting friends

In such courses, we do make new acquaintances occasionally, and when we meet in an intensive 7 days schedule, inevitably friendship grows, and we even discover new things and meet old friends. A new aquantance shared with me personal anecdotes about the late Anthony Yeo that really moved me, and I said to myself, I must write at least a blog post about this great man, even though a book is more appropriate. Another pleasant bonus was meeting Ee Yiung, a member I baptized 21 years ago in the East Coast Park and with whom I keep in touch via….what else but Facebook. It was heartening to see that she has found her place in God’s economy and enjoyed the work she did for East Asia School of Theology, the Campus Crusade’s training center.

Inspiring people in Cebu mission trip

28 February 2011 blogpastor 7 Comments

This was the first time I went on missions with the Soon family. Michael Soon had been a missions man for decades. He had migrated from Singapore to Perth and the missions passion, instead of waning, burst aflame in the land of the relaxed. He operates in a dependency on the Lord, and makes connections between needs and resources. Thus I ended up on this scouting trip to Cebu island in the Philippines. He and his family were in Cambodia for about a week, and spent a few days of Chinese New Year with relatives in Singapore and then it was off to Cebu. This was one long missions cum reunion trip for them. They traveled budget so that they could pour more resources into the ministries they were helping. They were seasoned missioners: traveling light, no complaints, adaptable, culturally sensitive, encouraging, not patronizing and intent on serving and helping the people.

It looked like his missions passion had rubbed onto his wife, Soo Kheen, son Ansen, and daughter Anwen. Ansen had spent a gap year with Youth With A Mission doing a DTS in Perth. He had gone to Mexico for the outreach. It was a joy to see this family serving together in missions. Most often in church, family members would serve in different ministries and spheres, and that is okay because God gives different gifts, passions and grace to each one. Missions is one of those occasions when temporarily you can see the manifold grace of God at work through a family. Their strengths, training background, temperaments, spiritual gifts and passions come together like a lively and lovely dance.

Stephen and I shared the room and it was good to have a partner with you on any trip. Jesus sent his disciples two by two into the field. We could share our reflections and process what we were experiencing. This mission trip was packed. Morning we left the small hotel and we returned about 10 most nights. An interesting first for both of us was taking the night ferry in the tourist section. Told a few distasteful stories of overcrowded sinking ferries to the group but I suspect they thought I was kidding. Anyway the cheaper fare was in the open air bunk beds on the deck, which seemed safer to me, while the tourist fare was below the deck in a smaller air-conditioned section.

Both Stephen and I were impressed with the ministry of Grace Community Empowerment. Sharon and Manny Pastre are the leaders of the ministry. This couple complemented each other and are both vital to the success of the ministry and its outreach. Sharon was born in Singapore, raised in Hong Kong, but a US citizen, and a missionary in Philippines. She sold off her successful architectural practice. She used to design the interiors of hotels, and sometimes the facades of buildings. Now she designs programs to meet the needs of the poor and the proclamation of the gospel. Manny was an Assemblies of God pastor and had experience working in a community aid agency. He was an ex-Marine and still sported a Marine haircut. “Keeps me cool”.

Another lovely Singaporean couple were Seh Chuan and Brenda, who have been following Michael Soon in his mission trips. They retired long ago at around the age my father’s generation retired: 55. (You see in those days, unlike today, the Singapore system did not have scholars running it! Under them, the retirement age is currently 62.) This couple was sincere and generous, and they wholeheartedly threw themselves into all the mission work, especially the dental sealant project, with admirable zeal. They braved the dumpsite visit, the travels in jeepneys and ferry, shared their testimony with the marriage fellowship, and bought about 30 pairs of jeans for all the local workers and “scholars”.

Missions has a way of yielding interesting stories. Its always a privilege to connect with people, and be inspired by them. One of the simple joys of missions is to hear their stories of faith, love, failures and successes. Although our intent is to give and sow much, we inevitably receive much too!