Singapore local churches – Page 9

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Aldersgate Methodist Church: keeping tradition and yet stepping beyond

11 August 2011 blogpastor Leave a comment

In the wrong place

It was a traditional service, but it took a step beyond the traditional.

Like clockwork it began at 8.30am and ended at 9.40am. That’s about an hour and a quarter, with the eucharist included. This was Aldersgate Methodist Church. It had been a long time ago when I last attended a Methodist service in 1981 when I was a seminary student.

I was early and ended up in an empty auditorium in the Fairfield Secondary School. Good thing an early parishioner told me that I was in the wrong place: they were the Holy Covenant Chinese Methodist Church.

When I entered the right church sanctuary five minutes later, in the primary school, I felt the warm browns of wooden pews. There is something about wood that conveys stability and tradition. This Sunday I chose to attend the earlier traditional service rather than the contemporary service at 10.15am.

In keeping with tradition and yet

After three violinists finished the prelude, the procession was led by the choir singing as they walked in redemptive red robes. The service continued with a call to worship and an old hymn, “O God Our Help In Ages Past”.

Then they did what I thought was a beautiful thing to do, something you do not traditionally do. Beyond praying for the world, and the growing rich-poor divide in Singapore, they prayed for their “competitors”. They blessed and prayed for the churches around the Dover/Buona Vista area, which included 3 other Methodist churches, St John’s –St Margaret’s Anglican Church, Shalom Baptist Church, Ebenezer Church, and even one that has yet to move to the area: the New Creation Church! And all these before praying for their own church needs! This 5 minute prayer said more to me about brotherly love and the unity of the Body of Christ than a hundred sermons. I very like it, to use Facebook lingo.

This was followed by the collection of the offering, and giving of announcements and the confession of the Nicene Creed.

Rev Dr Lorna Khoo had been in this new church assignment for about seven months and like Nehemiah had probably been just going around the city walls and surveying them before initiating changes. From the bulletin information you could see that she had begun to pray seriously about the region or parish that Aldersgate is in. She stood up and spoke a message about giving because it was a Pledge Sunday. It was an exposition of 2 Corinthians 8: 1-15 given succinctly in 15 minutes. Despite its compactness, it was filled with biblical goodness and clear powerpoints. The insight that interested me most was viewing the grace of giving from the angle of justice, an aspect of stewardship that is seldom highlighted.

The Eucharist was conducted prayerfully with liturgical efficiency. The participants went forward to the kneelers in the front circling the stage. There they received the elements that had been blessed and partook of it with devotion.

Contemporary service larger

The contemporary service usually attracted about 350 people, younger ones, but the traditional service attendance was about 150 faithfuls in the 45 plus age bracket. However, on this Sunday I could see that the congregation has thinned due to members probably out on a long weekend holiday in addition to the National Day holiday on Tuesday.

Brunch was on my mind and my right hand was full as I left the church doors out into the school carpark into the morning drizzle. I carried the Sunday bulletin, the Methodist Message – a denominational magazine, and Rev Dr Lorna Khoo’s book, Wesleyan Eucharistic Spirituality, which I bought from her.

Almost two months into the sabbatical

23 May 2011 blogpastor 2 Comments

Listening to my body

Almost two months have passed. Physically, I have rested well. This April and May has been months when I listened closely to my body. Whenever I felt tired, I laid in bed and napped or slept. Most mornings I do not force myself to wake up. So it has been usually 8.30am or 9am when I have my breakfast. They say this is the best way to know how much sleep you need. My tentative conclusion is that I need about 8-9 hours of sleep each day.

Though I began with walking and jogging at the Chinese Garden, my preferred form of exercise and recreation is still trekking. So I have revived my Saturday trek with friends, and above that, during the weekdays I try to trek once or twice at Bukit Timah Hill or MacRitchie. Such treks are gentle on the knees and on the heart. The air is great and the forest sounds and sights perk me up. Over the several weeks, I have been gradually trimming down and firming up.

Outside enrichment

The AGST MTh(Ed) modules were fun and the subjects and readings, lectures and interactions have been fruitful learning experiences for me. Forcing myself to research, reflect and write my papers have also been pleasantly smooth riding, despite my early anxiety.

Helping out as a facilitator once a month with the Focused Leaders Network (Church Resource Ministry Singapore) together with James Creasman, Bishop Moses Tay, and Rev. Walter Lim has been enjoyable. This is a platform for me to journey with pastors, in this instance, pastors from the Foursquare denomination in Singapore.

Spiritual refreshment

More time also meant more time for meditation, reading, reflection, prayer and journaling, and listening to sermons with my wife, mostly Paul White and Andrew Wommack. This last month I have been slowly nourishing my soul on Psalms 42 and taking time to pour out my heart or be quiet before Him.

Visiting churches as a layman is so nice, so nice. To be free from having to preach or minister and to fuss over program or people problems is like one prolonged sigh of relief. It was plain good, a cosy and relaxing change. It was pure indulgence: like peering into the horizon with sunglasses, and sipping watermelon juice at a beach, as white clouds quietly tiptoed by. And then being able to indulge my spiritual palate in different church services and sermons, like a wandering charismatic, has become a prolonged epicurean feast I hope I do not become addicted to.

Anxiety squashed by word

Even as the days passed, colourful as they were, with a Kuala Lumpur jaunt and a chest thumping week of witnessing the Singapore election, anxiety about whether the days were productively spent bugged me for a while. For a Singaporean, even resting and restoration is an objective to strain for. So as the days passed quickly you wondered if God will get everything done that I wanted Him to get done in me. Mercifully, some peace prevailed after the Lord gave me a status update, “Enjoy each day as a gift and trust Me to accomplish in you all that needs to be accomplished by the end of the sabbatical”. That is so assuring and going forward, I will rest on that word.

Google reader

Recently, I have also learned how to use the Google Reader. Transferred all the blogs and websites I usually read from my blogroll and Favourites and moved them all there for efficient access and pleasure. This has been available for some time, but I am usually a late adopter when it comes to such things. I am still not on Twitter.

Centre of New Life: insightful Pentecostal pulpit

10 May 2011 blogpastor 8 Comments

Two churches in one building

It was an interesting concept. Two churches sharing one building is not new. It had been tried in the Clementi Bible Center, shared by the Bible Church and the Mt Carmel Bible Presbyterian Church; and in Yishun Christian Church, shared between an Anglican and a Lutheran church. This was of a different model: like a semi-detached house where each church had their own separate living space. No bargaining nor quibbling over prime time or space. The Center of New Life, and Victory Family Center shares a building on a HDB church site in Jurong West opposite the National Technological University, across the highway. It made sense to share, what with exhorbitant bids for church sites despite their limited 30 years lease. More churches should find a partner to do something similar.

This visit to Center of New Life was prompted by wanting to visit the church some of my trekking friends attend. Linda Teo, Eric and Christine Ng, Jeffrey, and quite a few others are members there. They used to worship at Orchard Hotel but two years ago they jointly developed this present site with Victory Family Center. While retaining the city centre’s Sunday worship services, now in River View Hotel, the bulk of the church moved west to its present site.

Insightful preacher

The unique feature of the worship service was the preaching. This is an Assemblies of God church. Pastor Terence Ong, a good looking tall young man in his 30’s, preached from the book of Acts. It was the commencement of a series and in conjunction with the preaching on Sundays, the church was urged to read and reflect on the book of Acts during the week. What was interesting was that the sermon I heard was an intelligent man’s message. This was not the typical Pentecostal message with the emphasis on inspiration, loud passion, moving people to action, and probing the conscience. This was a message that gave insights and perspectives that were creative and progressive. It enlightened and gave you food for serious thought. This was a message for the educated, the professional, the thinking Christian.

The pastor began connecting with the crowd by making some humorous remarks about the elections. Smart move as everyone was thinking of that anyway. Then he went into the text to explain the concept of the kingdom of God, and how it related to politics and power. This was not the traditional Pentecostal interpretive framework: he moved beyond that. Was I seeing one of a new generation of Pentecostal young preachers who were widely read, and have ventured beyond the traditional and hackneyed? (I did wish he mentioned something about mothers though – after all one of those who waited with the 120 was the mother of Jesus – and it was ‘traditionally’ Mother’s Day!).

With friends

The service started at 11am and ended at 12.45pm. Mingling among the members, I chatted with Jason Jin and Sam, both of whom were from World Revival Prayer Fellowship a long time ago. Went for lunch with the trekking group at Lam’s Noodles at TradeHub 21 in supremely humid and hot conditions. It was nice to just attend church: carefree, relaxed, and be open to receive.