Pandemic – Page 2 – BLOGPASTOR

Tag: Pandemic

Singaporean and Indonesian churches during covid 19

11 August 2020 blogpastor Leave a comment

I was curious about how our neighbouring churches were doing during the covid 19 pandemic. I was familiar with what’s happening in Singapore. But try as I would I could not find much news about what’s happening among Malaysian churches except that 300 churches have applied in June to re-open for worship with all the usual safety measures in place and a maximum of 30 worshippers and for an hour and a half. Surprisingly the Indonesian church is the one with the best information due to a survey done by a research organization. Here are the links I have found pertinent and helpful:

SINGAPORE CHURCHES: https://www.straitstimes.com/lifestyle/christians-rise-of-the-hybrid-physical-and-digital-church THIS is definitely the best article that wraps up where the Singapore church is in terms of external response to Covid 19. It covers the rise of the “hybrid physical and digital church”, the generosity of churches in helping the foreign workers and the people hit with financial problems and job losses, and how some churches are resourcing other churches. Good, comprehensive and interesting article.

INDONESIAN CHURCHES: https://asiaevangelicals.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/AEA-Newsletter-202008.pdf THIS ARTICLE written by Dr Babang Budijanto, general secretary of Asia Evangelical Alliance is based on a national survey of 600 pastors in small and big cities in Indonesia done by Bilangan Research Center. Five concerns that the Indonesian churches face are: 1) Lack of capacity for digital engagement; 2) Decline in church revenue; 3) How to meet spiritual needs and give pastoral care; 4) Helping the poor and needy (job loss and health issues); 5) Members switching to another congregation with better online services. One interesting factor worth highlighting is how the presence of youth in the churches increased the church’s digital engagement and social involvement with the poor.

Zoom Christian Education

27 July 2020 blogpastor Leave a comment

I am currently doing a Zoom Christian Education course on “Interpreting Scriptures” for the church. It will run for 11 sessions and this Wednesday night I would be doing the third session of one-and-a-half hour workshop.

Tom Cannon, one of our pastoral staff, gave the rest of the staff a basic training on how to use Zoom. It was a good orientation. However, I lacked confidence, so I had to practice on my own, some of the functions needed in my workshops: like how to share screen, and how to use the whiteboard. Even then I needed another staff member, Ethel Shin-Cannon to help me with the organization of the rooms, when participants are put in virtual rooms for work on the scripture texts.

The first session I was too ambitious. I wanted to get past the introduction quickly and crammed all the introductory material in one session. It was too long -two hours. After feedback, and also because there was less content material to cover, the next session was a sweet one-and-a-half hour. I will definitely get more and more comfortable as I get skilled in presenting material online through Zoom.

I can see a potential in this format that Covid-19 has forced upon the church. Before this, it was almost impossible to imagine members fighting heavy traffic, or after work gulping a quick meal to go to the church premises for Bible studies, and then after that take a one-hour commute home. Now with Zoom, they can comfortably go home, have a meal, and even a shower, and tune into a Zoom meeting. He or she still has to be hungry enough to fight the natural preference to chill after a day’s work (perhaps of staring into a computer), rather than to sign up and show up for a course (again on the computer). We are just lessening the number of hurdles that he or she has to jump over.

To keep the level of engagement high, the content has to be formatted in such a way that there is interaction, actual practice segment, and more conversational and less lecture like.

Perhaps it is too early to get over-excited but I suppose with the Covid 19 situation unlikely to improve anytime too soon there will be a need to use technology to build the faith of God’s people. The church staff thinks that even if things return to “normal” we can still reach out to more people for spiritual formation/Christian education courses. So we signed up for annual zoom subscriptions to get a discount on what we are paying currently on a monthly basis.

Welcome to the “new normal” church of tomorrow.

Father’s Day

23 June 2020 blogpastor Leave a comment

This Father’s Day was doubly special because it was the first time my family are all together for the first time in a long time. At one time all my children were working or studying overseas. One by one they came back to work in Singapore. Except my daughter. However, the pandemic opened the way for her to work from home in Singapore. So everyone was back, but covid-19 kept everyone away. My two sons have their homes and they had to stay home. Only my daughter was at home with me and my wife. While it was great to have her with us, Mother’s Day went by without the whole family together. This Father’s Day then was the first time my whole family were together for the first time since the Circuit Breaker, about 70 days.

They brought over beef steaks, sausages, baked vegetables, mashed potatoes, mushroom soup and garlic bread. We sat around the round glass table and ate a decent Western meal, talking about what’s happening, my retirement, the election, the grandchildren, working from home, and news about our in laws in US and in Korea.

We started early so that we could end early and the children can go home to sleep early and prepare for school. Chloe insisted on a game of UNO before they went back and it was fun to play card games as a family.

A wonderful evening that is gratifying and filled with pleasure and fun and relaxation. When everyone said their goodbyes and left it was still early and we could wash up and watch some TV before we retired.

Grateful to God for watching over and blessing all the children and their spouses and the grandchildren. It is every grandparents prayer that all will go well for their descendants physically, spiritually, relationally and emotionally. May God bless and keep them.

We were so absorbed that we hardly took any photos all that time!