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Covid 19 impact on church and pastor

27 February 2020 blogpastor Leave a comment

The covid 19 virus has had a significant impact on the churches in Singapore. Every church had to make adjustments to its programmes. The Roman Catholic Church suspended its masses shortly after the government activated the DORSCON orange alert. So did charismatic megachurches like FCBC and City Harvest Church, as well as a large Presbyterian church. This is besides the two other churches that the Ministry of Health intervened in, and suspended its services, because of the infection cluster among its members.

However, for most other denominations and independent churches, the essential worship service continued, and other peripheral services, events, and programs were cancelled or postponed.

Various precautionary steps were initiated in most churches: temperature readings, attendance taking, handwave instead of handshakes, more hygienic ways of delivering Holy Communion, shorter services, dismissal and dispersion of members after service, and live streaming of services for members who opt to stay home.

This meant more stress on the pastors as the dilemma of decision making in the midst of DORSCON orange was a tug of war: to continue with services might be misconstrued as a lack of prudence and sensitivity; and to suspend the services may be perceived as a lack of faith in God.

Thankfully I have a pastoral team to work with and to discern the best decision to go with at each point in time. In addition, I have good pastor friends from other churches, and we share notes about the decisions we were making. Finally, the church I serve is a part of two larger network of churches: the Love Singapore movement, and the National Council of Churches of Singapore. We take to heart their advice. These support systems helped to take the stress off me, and in the end our group discernment led to a decision to go ahead with the services, doing live streaming of the services, and encouraging our parents with young children, and the Pioneer generation to stay home, if they wished to.

The staff also had to plan for continuity in case the covid 19 hit the church. So we formed two teams, worked from home, and we tried using Zoom, a software for group meetings via internet video conferencing. The first time we used it, it took us 45 minutes just to get all seven of us on the screen. It was an interesting experience. One thing noticeably different was that I had to consciously concentrate and listen. We also interupted each other less and listened better. The Bible injunction to “Be slow to speak and quick to listen” became a reality!

I worked more from home and this gave me more time for prayer, reflection and reading. A prophetic word from Tan Gee Paw, the man who spearheaded the cleanup of Singapore River, stated that God had pressed the PAUSE button for China and for the church too. PAUSE to halt mindless pursuit of wealth and pleasure, to pray and listen to God. I believe God is squeezing good out of evil, and my prayer is that more of God’s people will spend more time seeking the Lord in prayer than they had before.

There are many reasons to be thankful in the midst of walking in the valley of the shadow of death. There may be fear, anxiety and even panic, but these should reveal something about disordered values in our life, and an invitation from God to take an inward journey that will hopefully free us to be all God wants us to be.

I felt inspired when I saw members still attending worship services with increased earnestness in their singing and praying.

I feel thankful that we have a government that is organized and efficient.

I feel God’s hand is on this nation in the midst of the covid 19. May it bring a greater clarity to all Singaporeans that a man’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions, power, honour, or achievements. Life can be unpredictably short and we need Jesus Christ to be Lord of our life more than anything else.

Four masters at Kung Fu Inn

20 February 2012 blogpastor Leave a comment

Four masters at Kung Fu Inn

It was beginning to be an annual affair. Tammy Tang would treat us to lunch and we would update each other on what’s been happening in our lives. So there we were, the four of us who served and shared our lives together in WRPF church. Tammy brought us to an interesting kung fu-themed Chinese restaurant along Temple Street in Chinatown. Pardon my ignorance of the restaurant’s signboard, so I shall just call it Kung Fu Inn. That’s because every table had a plaque on the wall with the name of an ancient kung fu sect. There’s the Shaolin, the Wudang, the beggars sect, with the famous gourd and fan hanging on the wall. We sat at the table with a sword on the wall. Without asking permission, we took the sword from off the wall and its scabbard, and posed with it for fun. It was the real thing, heavy but not sharp.

Food for pugilists

We enjoyed the food (concocted to improve kung fu capacities) that Tammy ordered: braised duck cooked and stuffed with rice wine residue(for internal strength), frogs’ legs (helps us jump over walls in one leap), some wild vegetables(gives us aggression), fish slices baptized in chili oil (to help us withstand critcisms), and glutinous rice balls with meat and egg fillings (helps us to throw deadly darts accurately). Amidst light banter and ribbing we reminisced between sips of Chinese tea. After the meal, I felt I could have taken on Jet Li and Jackie Chan together, no sweat. We topped up the experience with some famous Chinatown cool-down iced desserts just a minute’s walk away.

Tammy Tang

Tammy Tang has been writing and telling stories on FEBA radio as a volunteer. Besides that she has been preaching in Teochew or Hokkien on radio. She enjoys what she does and I admire her command of Chinese culture and dialects. She speaks Mandarin, Hokkien, Teochew, and her native dialect, Cantonese. She was a staunch Buddhist and read literally scores on religious books until she came to Christ in a life transforming way. She graduated from her theological studies and served the church for several years. The Lord has used her and is still using her in His kingdom’s work. To listen to the broadcast of this radio evangelist go HERE and click on these program dates 2012-02-06 am [ 28:11 ] and 2012-02-02 pm [ 29:53 ].

Because the pastor said so

19 December 2011 blogpastor 1 Comment

Ben drew a deep breath and closed his bank account. All that he had saved for the past decade of working in the premier Administrative Service is now in this cheque that he would put in the offering bags on Sunday. He had been saving to invest in a private property he had been assiduously evaluating. Now he wrote the church’s name on the cheque. There was hesitation, but once he put pen to paper it was quickly over.

He was not the only one. Many in his cell group from the church had already done the same thing over the last few months. In fact he was his usual cautious reluctant self – turning things over in his head till his mind was exhausted and drew a blank. It was not just a matter of copying others in the cell group, or the many other cell groups. The whole church had been feverish about being ready for this greatly anticipated event the pastor had spoken about. Now he has decided to dive in too with the rest of his friends.

The pastor’s words had reverberated in the corridors of churches in Singapore. As the messages were being broadcasted in other countries in the region as well, there had been a groundswell of hostile reactions in Facebook. Many heads of denominations and pastors have taken to pulpits and pen to write against the pastor’s prediction. “Heresy!” they declared. “Dangerous doctrine!” they shouted.

Ben, 34, had heard from colleagues about how other churches had raised the alarm about his pastor’s prediction. This must be how the early Christians felt when opposition battered them, he thought, shaking his head. The pastor had said it, with scriptural backing, scholarly argument and numerical precision too, and that was convincing enough for him. Like him, many in the mega-church, cannot accept what the critics have said, for their lives had changed and became better and happier as a result of being part of the church.

On August 4^th, he was among the first to go to the top of the Marina Bay Sands to get a better view. All the earth will see and know, the pastor had said. It would be a spectacle that cannot be ignored by the world’s media.

Ben had not married, not even fallen in love once. He had wanted to travel more, especially to visit the Holy Land, but was too busy to have done so. He hadn’t even had a chance to vote once! Though he was high up there in the civil service, he had not even attended a National Day Parade in his life. As the elevator shot up, regret bit him as he thought of all the things he wished he had done.

He also wondered, How would his meeting with the Lord be? What would he hear the Lord say? He had mixed feelings about meeting the Lord in the air, but the pastor said it would happen on 4^th of August, and he had done all he could to prepare for this day.

Because the pastor had said so.