When My Soul Flaps Over The Church

I suppose it’s because you can’t take the pastor out of me.

But I have these tendencies - of a mother hen. Before you genderise this, remember Jesus referred to himself similarly!

Just that I am not mothering a specific local congregation right now. But my pastoral-mother-hen heart clucks up a notch at news of those who are lost, burdened, and struggling to grow in the LORD.

Here’re some scenarios that get my soul flapping:

1. news that spiritual babies are not being fed a proper basic diet to establish their health

2. that children, the elderly and non-mainstream folks don’t have a place at the table, the worship order and the missions expression.

3. another leader doing what other leaders are doing (especially traveling overseas) and it smacks of “look, I am successful”

4. when we take our western diets and without taking time to learn, love and live with a different culture, tell them this is the christian life, spiritual progress…

5. turning to triumphalistic story-telling as our main way of gospel sharing which leaves many struggling in the dust

6. failing to love the whole person - body, soul, spirit + past, present and future - not doing the hard work of seeing with God’s eyes

7. hoarding souls rather than sending them soaring

8. pride: disguised, veiled, ugly and on display (including mine, especially mine).

9. going over the same debates (worship styles, women etc) as if the church has made no progress on these weighty matters - because we did not bother to read, think, dialogue.

10. impatience: it’s everywhere, in city-living, and it colours our own walk, and the way we do and evaluate everything.

11. refusing to learn from wider wisdom, do research and practise discernment which leads to all sorts of poor decisions, esp the decision to promote and appoint based on oftentimes very worldly values.

12. consumer faith (this is huge and I have written on it  here (back in 2007!) ) - which promotes not simple, but simplistic faith.

These are serious issues that weaken our faith life, communities and witness.



Singapore loves how her smallness can contain so much. It is true. Our miraculous nature is pretty obvious. So we are excited, excited that God has something special in store for us (actually, He has something special for every nation)… and this label that we are Antioch is such a great shorthand for us to park everything under.

Antioch represents a fresh wind - away from Jerusalem - where the buzz of global missions outreach and the site where we first got our IDs as ‘christians’.

Just that, we are now 2000 years away, in a very different world. The term ‘christian’ now means very differently to what it meant then. Since globalisation and the internet, the world is also both closer and more polarised than it ever was.

So we have a lot of hard- thinking and heart-searching to do.



I also found, that it is easy to complain.



But God has called us to edify. So this is what I decide to do these days:

- I talk to people who may share these concerns and have answers (and it is very heartening to find that the Spirit is stirring and people are doing things about some of these*)

- I use my platforms to raise them when I can (such as here and here )

- I pray, for God Almighty reminds me this old truth I learnt in my youth: “more things are wrought by prayer than… (EM Bounds I believe it was)”

Share in the comments:
Do you share any of these concerns?
What do you do when your soul flaps over the church?


And here's some cheer --

*Areas people are acting on - already and upcoming for points:

2. several churches now have teams that look into this (check The Cathedral Podcast where I speak to a few such folks!)

4. we have think-tanks...and there will be work to link, strengthen and maybe have our own version of Gallup or Barna!

I looked up some images of churches in Sg (of course, home churches and those in industrial estates etc won't turn up...) Look at the lovely architecture. God is building a thing of beauty, our call is to be pillar of truth in society (1 Tim 3v15). Ain't very often we pause to give thanks, appreciate and savour what we have!

See if you can recognise these few (selected randomly):

Celebrating Hope Together (and a podcast!)

Perhaps you share some of my initial reactions to the idea of a rally where Christians gather in the nation's only and massive stadium...for evangelism.

“Can we, really fill the stadium...with friends?”
“Mass things are so passe though”

These thoughts lasted a few minutes. A huge reason is because the person speaking to the few hundred of us pastors gathered for our annual prayer Summit was the Bishop of the Anglican church, a man I have huge regard for. He is known for his shining pastoral heart and prayerfulness. So I know this has nothing to do with grandeur.


Then I honestly struggled with the state of churches and Christianity in Singapore. We are far from a celebratory hope-filled people. I remember how as a young pastor I had to admonish my congregation about our obvious lack of joy, the way we come to church and leave as if by rote with low engagement and impact.

Not being a local church pastor who can rally the people, I also felt hamstrung about how to participate in this (leaders tend to think mobilisation, we can't help it).

My next huge concern was how the next generation, many of whom are now schooled in a postmodern milieu would take to this. They prefer more intimate settings which feel more authentic to them.

This in turn led to the issue of my age. For a few years now I have wondered about my role as an inter-gen person. In my fifties, and not being a senior pastor, I don’t belong to the older ranks of leaders. But I am certainly not a ‘young adult’ any more, no matter how much I feel like being a millennial trapped in a time warp, captured in this post: searching for my generation, in which I share about how the word ‘bridge’ came to mind. Clearly, I can be a bridge between the generations. I have grown up with the days of one guitar and praise songbooks, the overhead projector and cyclostyling stencil machines (you may need to google this), to donning a pager as a pastor (which my kids merrily drowned when they threw me in the pool once), and am now on social media et al.

My concerns began to be addressed!

First, there was an inter-gen session where we listened to four older brothers talk about their experience of the Billy Graham Crusade back in 1978 (I was twelve then!). All of us present witnessed the warmth between the men, two of them biological brothers… how the memories of those heady days of faith and sheer gargantuan hardwork to get a national level rally going in a mere eleven months, shone as they spoke. Most of all, all four of them still blazed with a fiery zeal for the Gospel. To say we were educated, humbled and inspired is an understatement.

(You can read about this gathering here: two generations talk about the BG crusade)


As I prayed and met with more people, I felt a genuine sense of conviciton and excitement growing.

We are not working towards an event. We are letting this vision of a people gathered in celebration catalyse us to ask hard questions, such as what is Hope to you?

As the gravity of our holy calling to seek and to love, to pray and to care dawns, may our spiritual poverty lead us to seek training, to pray, to believe afresh, and o unite deeper.

It is a beautiful journey that is propelling us towards our destiny, if we would see with eyes of humble faith.

A huge piece was this podcast conversation  with Bishop Rennis and Rev Tony Yeo. Their affable and genuine answers help capture a sense of all that God has in store for us through this! Be sure to listen.

Really, what is Hope to you?
Who around you needs Hope, and how can this Celebration be a part of sharing Hope with them?

The First Christian Podcast in Singapore, possibly

Let me guess. You have experienced this:

You pause and you wonder ... why?
You face a new challenge and you ask... is this really the way?
You are dog-tired and your heart whispers.. what options are there?

Questions. We all have them. As rational beings, we want answers. This is why there will be no end to "the making of books" as the sage reminds us.

There are questions when left un answered, probably won't impact or define our lives significantly:

why did the chicken cross the road
what's the next big ice-cream flavour
who is cranking up the new fried chicken wave
when is the next blockbuster and what will it be about

But there are questions that can suck the life out of us if we don't grapple with them, even if we may not arrive at a completely knowable answer, such as

Did Jesus really rise from the dead?
Does God actually have anything to say about work and how I manage my finances?
What do I do with my motley and at times morose emotions?
Is faith and science in conflict?
What is church, really?

Come March, join me in a fortnightly Podcast where I will talk with different individuals, share stories, discern trends, explore Scriptural notions and more.

Why am I doing this?

1. God made me a talker and thinker

This podcast comes at a time when God has called me, now that my children are more grown, to pastor the city with my gifts. I have noticed that when God calls me, it often comes with a backstory that makes me chuckle at how he has prepared me. Here's the story.

When I was in Primary 1 ( yes 1!), my form teacher told me at the end of the school year that she hoped I would not be in her class the following year. I wasn't traumatised, just bewildered. I skipped off...and two months later, skipped right into her class! She put up with me for another year and triumphantly sealed my fate with these remarks in my report book: ... 'is talkative and busybody'.

As far as I can remember, I was always asking questions. I wondered about the aunties in the neighbourhood, the injections I witnessed my Indian neighbour gave herself, the rows upon rows of books in the library, and twice I was so lost in my thoughts I was hit by the swing! Two gashes to remind me not to stop in the middle of potentially dangerous movement while I got lost in my thoughts.

As a pastor, I was even labeled a firebrand for asking questions at a denominational AGM.

So I guess I am meant to do this.

2. God made us all to think

We all think, and there's plenty of fodder to fill our heads each day and there's a desperate need for correctives. There is so much politicised spiel, profit-driven messaging, destructive input...that we need to hear some good, provocative stuff to get our brains hitched to a more productive gear.

And our thoughts are really the gateway to our lives. We act because we think. We continue to act the same way because we believe (rightly or wrongly). And our thoughts can become trails, and patterns in our heads and our hearts.

So it is critical to look at our thoughts and to have fresh ones.

In one of my first sermons, about the Holy Communion, I adjured the small family congregation at All Saints that the 'unreflected life is not worth living' (that got us off to a great start as a church).

Thinking is part of our design and destiny as imago Dei. We have to think our way through to responsible stewardship of the earth, a productive life, a deepening communion with God.

This we have to do, each of us. My mother who never had any formal education, showed me that being reflective, honest and value-driven, really has little to do with any certification.


3. The nation/church maturing needs to think

We are at a powerful juncture nationally. We need to think about what kind of society we want. We need to think about how our attitudes, commitments and participation is helping or hurting the society we want.

It is a tremendous time for us as we are storyboarding for the coming generations. There have been many voices calling for us to be more thoughtful, gentle, resilient, united...

Equally the church needs to think. We need to decouple from being so dependent on answers (especially from the West) as we grapple with a social changes. We need to figure how intergenerational partnerships. We need to be ready to re-examine and dismantle certain things that just won't' work any longer.

At the same time, some persistent questions which we did not answer too well in the past (like, 'aiya, just believe, ask so much for what' or, 'see what Deuteronomy 29 says') require stronger answers today.

The Cathedral Podcast became a reality after Vicar Terry Wong from the Cathedral spoke to me about it in 2018. Over our meetings, another story returned to my memory. Many of you know that I go to the Cathedral grounds once a month to facilitate personal solitude. I prayed several times for this historic church to impact our city and beyond. Now it seems God is asking me to participate in the answer. So I said, 'yes'.

Join me in the Podcasts and write me with your questions! Let's think it through together - to a more vibrant, earnest and winsome faith!


The Cathedral website

a personal Jubilee: starting over happens everyday

J.U.B.I.L.E.E.

It was much anticipated. Singapore's wildest, biggest, most extravagant national party! There have been many movements and moments leading up to it... groups doing craft, entire blocks of flats getting a makeover with all kinds of motifs (I just saw a block that had koalas on it!), folks making videos, writing songs, doing new and wondrous things! As citizens we were given SG50 goodie bags, and over the long celebratory weekend, there will be carnivals, free rides and museum entrances. On the first day of that weekend I even bought a yoghurt at half price!

For someone convalescing and with a few commitments to attend to; I resorted to a vicarious experience of it all via social media... everyone was totally soaking up the celebratory atmosphere over the four-day long weekend. One friend wrote, "hopping from one activity to the next, the fun never ends!". Sounds rather odd for Singapore honestly!

And of course it culminated in this parade la grande ~

largest fireworks in our history

party!

amazing black knights flew '50' formation 

-- which the family caught on TV. I totally missed it, having booked to spend time over a very special conversation with someone who just flew in. I must say I feel a hole in me for having missed our Jubilee Parade.

But losses don't have to be total! On the last day of the long weekend break, we finally headed to one of our favourite places: the Botanic Gardens, now a Unesco World Heritage site. It was so heartwarming to see families and folks strolling, enjoying the vast gardens... there was laughter and one family even did a little race across the lawn. Lovely, energetic fun with a generally cool weather to boot. It felt so good to be alive after the brush with death, and just soak up the Jubilee atmosphere!

So we're 50; and how old that feels depends on who's talking --

As a nation, this has truly been a poignant year. The fact that we are a tiny lil isle in a vast sea that is now bobbing with tremendous uncertainty is not lost to us. Looking back at our journey from colony to statehood to affluent cosmopolitan city-state is an exercise in wonder. So much and so many could have gone awry. Still, it's as if Providence charted a course for us and shielded us through it all.

Jubilee as a notion is of course far more than a mere counting of years. It is a biblical concept that is all about justice, equity and second chances. When the fiftieth year rolls around, everything must be restored. Slaves must be set free, land that was mortgaged must be returned, loans must be canceled. 

Jubilee is all of our cherished hope - the chance to start over. Can someone please wipe the slate clean? Take back my harsh words, rash decision, too quick to press 'enter' trigger finger? Can someone pls cancel away my debts, let me off the hook?

The Jubilee sounds too good to be true. It is also easily abused. The Bible warns against the abuses, and appeals to the heart that desires hope to offer it to others.

But we grasp for ourselves - first.

We want the Jubilee. We may not be so quick to offer it to others. Just forget, forgive, let go? Ask the person next to me.

The Jubilee can be mighty uncomfortable too. We are all creatures of habit and routine. To have to change course, loose bonds, re-imagine what you truly own is quite unsettling. If Ami has been making your breakfast, you could well wake up to having to make your own! From these small shifts to larger ones including taking out title deeds and handing them over; the Jubilee is hard to live out!

So each heart is squirming in the juices of calculation and wariness.

A Jubilee can only happen when we want things God's way and not ours.

It is easy to glibly raise our voices and blow our shofars at the prospect of it; but within our hearts nothing really shifts. We return back to our old ways and set patterns.

Unless -- we realise that the message of the Jubilee is about a just society that depends on God - and that happens when we are personally set free  to depend on God and not see each other as competition, see the world as a limited pie that must be carved up, see our lives as desperate, lacking, unfulfilled.

Jubilee for any society can only happen when it becomes a personal Jubilee.

We must reach for the freedom God offers us in the paradox of offering it to others.
We must reach for the freedom God offers us in the releasing of what we have crafted and engineered for our safety, security and significance.
We must reach for the freedom God offers us in the forgiving of others, and in seeking their welfare.

Listen to this:
Things We Leave Behind

It's hard to imagine

the freedom

 we find
from the things we leave behind

There is some nervousness about the future of Singapore. We have an election coming. We are maturing, asking questions and challenging norms.
There is always some anxiety in our hearts, especially those of us who are parents!


But it's the Jubilee - try to imagine freedom. And pray about finding it in your own heart first.
And that is a daily prayer, a daily discovery, a daily commitment.

More God-years Singapore!

Holy Week 3: the kingdom is in your midst!

I asked a few dear souls what this week, this season means to them:

Holy Week is a yearly time for me to take a journey inward, to let His light give illumination on some area of my life that needs His redemptive love and lift. Last year He whispered, "Choose what gives life.". – Kenny Chee

Over the past few years, I've come to understand and observe Lent as a season of identifying with Jesus who experienced the tension between his humanity and divinity, in seeking to relate with humanity. It is like standing between two mirrors: one reflects my pre-Christ human condition, which from time to time attempts to reach out from the flesh and seize control; and the other reflects my in-Christ condition, which I continue to grow in and into. Lent is thus the remembrance and observance of the preparatory journey in the inner man to the Cross and the Resurrection. - Ronald & Ethel

Holy Week serves as a timely reminder to us to "practice the presence of God" in our daily life. We try to slow things down, de-clutter our routine and be more mindful of God-appointed moments. All this in order to ponder again and to be renewed by what Jesus has done for us on the cross and what he is doing in us along the journey of life. — Aaron & Namiko Lee

Do you see it?

Their responses describe it so well. Holy Week is not just a rolling of the hours for some remembrance on Good Friday and then a trump of smallish victory at Easter service.

But -

with our eyes socked right in front of our skulls, we tend to look ahead and outward. Yet we have another way of seeing; one we need to learn to use and get used to. It is the look inward. This season, this week, we must use this other way of seeing; where we turn our gaze inward - to where the deeper things lie.

If you want to know --

why you react the way you do;
what truly motivates you
what matters to you
what grieves you
what has mastery over you

you need to look within.


The religious elite, the disciples, the crowd; they all looked outward. They set their attention of what Jesus did; and how it benefited or threatened them. They tried to interpret his actions, maybe even hoped to crack the code so they can do likewise; or otherwise ensure they don't lose out on the miraculous and the action they hope would come when Jesus stands down the Roman powers and ushers in God's kingdom.

So many missed it.

"The Kingdom is in your midst!", Jesus had pronounced.

How would you respond if you were a humble bread maker whose earnings were meagre, or wife to a fisherman who comes home each evening smelling of sea and fish? Would you sneer if you were an up-and-coming young rabbi who has been praised and selected to mingle with the religious big wigs?

We reason it: why, the King is walking about! The potential for the kingdom is always at hand.

But God is not looking for us to explain anything; and of course most of the time our reasoning is meant to convince ourselves!

Of course there have been miracles. Of course the teaching is enrapturing. It still is today. But we can - like the crowds and the leaders; even the disciples - still sort of miss it. 

Jesus was inviting them, and us today; to consider Him as-the-king right in the middle of not-quite-obviously-Kingdom. Jesus was inviting them, and us today; to look into our hearts and find that the Kingdom is what we long for: peace, rule, stability, kindness, compassion, one-ness, purpose...

And as we look, really look. we may find that our Kingdom notions are hazy. We will most certainly with honesty, see that our longing for the Kingdom is being challenged and perhaps undermined by other loves and loyalties.

This week is our appointed time to lean into our Kingdom longings, to feel deeply and really pay attention. 

Here in Singapore, we just lost a father to our nation. With the outpouring of grief and the demonstrations of consideration; we are feeling the rise of a new day. Like the crowds in Jerusalem; we mutter softly, "what if..".  But "what if's" never brought in anything solidly new.

In fact, the crowd, through bribery, coercion and the failures of individual hearts in the end turned on the One they had hoped would bring in the new day - because - they would not identify that God's kingdom must come by God's ways.

A new day for our own lives, families, and for Singapore won't come any other way; for God's ways are unchanging as they are rooted in His character.

If we want a new day to come, we want the kingdom of joy and peace; then we must accept that it comes by the way of the Dolorosa - the long road of cross-bearing and finally, death.

Bonhoeffer, the Kingdom dreamer who would pay for his dream with his life said,

"When Christ bids you come, he bids you come to die.".

A few years ago I began a habit of wearing black and being plain on Good Friday. I mourn not for Christ; for He is risen, but for myself. I am a reluctant die-er. I mourn how my dying is slow. I cling to a false life easily. It sounds crazy to stay hooked to a limited tank of oxygen when one is being invited to a clean, oxygenated garden of delights. But this is me. I am guessing this is you too some days, many days. So I mourn and repent.

But every time, I see that I am even more an eager live-er. I want to really live! So -- I am willing to die.


The kingdom of God, like God himself, is hard for us to get.
We won't quite grasp it with those eyes looking outward.
We need to look within.

And we shall find it lives there, brilliant and dazzling, enthralling and absorbing; and it is pulsing with Life. If we care to open our hearts to others and really receive; we find that it is alive and growing in the spaces between us, binding us to each other.

When we touch it, the Life flows into us and renews us. We get up another day and fight on, live on, laugh on, dream on -- as the Kingdom takes shape in, through and beyond us.

and perhaps this old, meaningfully-worded song: Jesus, God's righteousness revealed {click} as you look inward for a while.

a thousand lights that won't lead us home.. but one that will : Christmas peace friends!

Every year, the main shopping belt in Singapore gets lit-to-the-max. Yes, it is Christmas, the season for shops and retailers to cast a wide net and gather a huge catch. Lights help here: those glorious baubles, stars, 3D castles, machine-generated snow... the gold, blue, red, diamante colours.

It is a beautiful and enchanting sight that lifts the soul, if for a few moments, to some higher plane of wonder, delight, and relish.

Yes, we even call in those arctic creatures, the reindeer to help rein in the crowds and gamely remind them of the ho-ho of it all - the goodness of giving and receiving.

Perhaps these lights draw us in and lift us because we are afraid of the dark and darkness. Which one of us has not had a frightful experience with that? The child begs for the light to stay on for monsters lurk in the dark. When we cannot see, our minds run a lil' wild.

But there are lights, and there are lights.

Leaving a lil night light is helpful enough, but there are lights we torch that can hurt us ~

...all you who light fires and provide yourselves with flaming torches,
go, walk in the light of your fires and of the torches you have set ablaze.
This is what you shall receive from my hand: you will lie down in torment.   

~ Isaiah 50v11

Major ouch.

A lack of peace,
a turning and a tossing,
a fearful anticipation.

fretting over gifts (we hope to have and wish to give)
worrying we may forget someone 'important'
feeling still angry, even hating
knowing deep within we are unforgiven and unforgiving
lonely
afraid as the days are turning into a new year and your plans are drafts

For everyone single one of these we may well have some plan, answer or defense made ready.
But our little torches of how to answer and 'don't dwell on it' won't suffice to get us to experience the angelic announcement over this season: peace on earth and goodwill to man.

You have no idea how much light you need if you won't consider how dark it can get.

No one brings a toy torch light or a half-filled gas lamp for a camping trip in the wilderness.The dark will soon overtake and it will be futile. We are camping for a while in a wide wilderness, en route home. Yes, we can build a campfire in this case. But sometimes. the journey takes us to deserts and strong winds and all we have is sun, moon and stars. The Bedouins learn to rest when it's too hot to travel and navigate by moonlight and stars.

But we? We just push on. City folk with our days made long by artificial light, our sense of prowess and control reiterated to us with every successful sale, every goal attained, every relationship milked. We push on. When we are not sure, we look inside our bag for another torch to light the way.

All this while, the darkness can be encroaching upon us. We wake up and we are shocked at the world news. What has our world come to?!

Christmas is God entering this world engulfed in darkness and piercing the dark to let in the Light.

The storytellers are right: it is an epic battle of dark and light.

A battle out there,yes, but really, it begins inside us. Each of us.

How about this Christmas we let the smaller lights remind us of the Great Light.

Jesus said,

I am the Light of the world, whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life. ~ John 8v12

In the wild as in the desert, no one travels alone. You file up and you want to make sure you follow a trustworthy guide. Jesus offers to lead us, to light the way. He invites us to fall in step.

Stop dashing around. Stop ignoring your heart's cries, aches and longings. The caverns of our soul is a huge space for Light to enter and shine around - as the darkness flees.

This Christmas, amid all the lights and sights, how about slowing down and sitting with Jesus, rest from the heat of the day and talk about your heart; and invite the Light in.

Peace on earth, goodwill to man - - because peace in us, goodwill to you!

what a start!

on the 9th day of the new year and everything looks ... (complete the sentence for yourself!)
for the first time in a long while i went out for supper...early on new year's day. when we got back; we thought we would check in to see how the major cities are partying to welcome the new year (i still dont get why we do that?)...then we got the news: fire in Bangkok and soon enough... one of us has passed on..
i am sure parties are designed to take us out of the gloom and humdrum of life give us a lift, escape, sense of adventure and some kind of wishfulness...
But
within every heart and into every national psyche a fear has invaded us like never before.
i remember feeling nervous when i was 15 and people were talking about a nuclear holocaust.
15 years later, we have that possible threat and more.
*the invisible hand of price that the great economist promised would regulate things for us rational beings did not.
* it's not a few people in power that can press the wrong button and kill us; it's many of us killing each other today with compromise, corruption, hatred and vengeance

Naturally i shield these things from my kids or share it with them very carefully. No child needs to grow up feeling frightened and powerless.

And then yesterday's papers tell of grievous things that happen when our hearts are troubled: an abused child, a beat up youth ....right here in safe, sensible, practical Singapore!

we can hope these things do not hit us, that we wont be at the wrong place at the wrong time with the wrong people..we can pretend we are not afraid and chase a wild time..we can rant and rave...

or we can grief for our kind.
look inside out hearts
look for help

and then we can party, truly party - for time is short; and life is worth living fully, freely and well.

how to stop axing the education system

Everyone hates the education system it seems. Parents complain, students complan, teachers complain.
First off, complaining is a really bad way to live.
But as a mother of a Pri 2 I get to come face to face with the system! My main line of thinking - after I did some griping (which bonded me quickly to many other parents; 'misery loves company' see) - was how to help my precious one live with the system in a way that made her stronger (and i dont mean academically).
i think the whole come out strong academically smacks of crass consumerism really. It's the old 'let's get the best out of it' approach -- and sadly, what is best is quickly defined as a resume. Sure, i can understand that we want our kids to do well, excel and have a bright future ahead...
but consider this: does it really help a child feel motivated and excited to learn if it's always put down to the bottom line of 'success'? does it really help the child aprpeciate the larger world and important significant people in their lives (ever heard: but teacher say...) when they feel conflicted and wonder if they fully trust their teachers who parents may speak disparagingly about? does it help our kids have e healthy respect and confidence to relate to figures of authority when we ourselves rubbish the system these people serve?
Yes, there are serious challenges in the system. My own precious one has had 3 form teachers in one year! Parents have reason to be in uproar. But i thought, i want to position myself as a partner to the people in the system. i want to engender trust, confidence and goodwill. i want our teachers to feel appreciated and motivated.
Naturally my precious one came home with the systemic gripe disease. I was tempted to play along...but then I decided to turn it to up my child's adversity quotient. I spoke to her about being adaptable, focused, and determined. Her success may be affected but it is not determined by circumstances.

if you are a teacher reading this, thanks! as parents we have chosen to trust you and i hope we honour that trust as we honour you. dont let us down.

kid talk

I dont brag about it but i am immensely proud of my two year old's growing voabulary. of course, most words come out rather weakly enunciated - but hey, the guys' only TWO!
He just got up from his nap and snapped out of his drpwsy stupor when he heard the whirr of blades! His favourite guys around the neighbourhood are near....those noisy grass-cutters. if he was wearing a kilt he would have hitched them as he scurried tot he window, saying 'hurry, hurry'..
wait a minute. i taught my son 'hurry'? o dear...here am i, convinced life is going by too fast, making deliberate efforts to slow down -- and my son is saying 'hurry!!!'. Hm.
i hope life values transcend vocabulary.

speaking of kids, a young lady was visiting with me and since she is involved in sociological research, i eagerly asked if she knew what contributed to the fact that young children and even infants in Singapore go to bed at hours that defy logic. i have actually seen less than year-old children being carried home, wide-eye at 11pm, probably after the day at grand's or nanny's !
My question is: we are subjecting our kids to our work schedule. In Singapore work comes first really....

they-we? world without strangers?

wow. we studied about the world becoming a village nearly 15 years ago in school...then globalisation shifted from the imagination to the immediate. living in singapore - eager to maintain our economic security, and welcoming people from many lands onto our shores; i meet them everyday. from the foreign worker to the expat wife, from the chinese national to the ang-mo (caucasian).
it seems like the world - not its dream destinations - but the real world - the people - are right at our door-step. and it gets uncomfortable. i am no xenophobe and generally love adventure and the excitement of meeting people. but today i caught myself short.
a filipino lady was on the same bus as me. she wanted to get off near bishan park. that's all fine except bishan park is a huge stretch with several stops. i wanted to talk to her and help her clarify where she should actually get off. instead i sat there and watched as the bus driver told her to get off at the first stop of the park, 'this is bishan park la!' i felt tired. without thinking, my system knew well that this will not be a fun, easy conversation. i will need to work at understanding her and making myself understood. plus, after all the effort, it may actually not help her. so i sat there and just hoped she did get off at the right stop.
world without strangers? i think not.

eating in the pews part 2: 4 more Cs...in singapore christianity -- Zoe or Bios?

2. Conduct
So much of what passes off as spiritual content is spiritual lingo. After a few years in the church sub-culture, we learn to say the right things – but as the prophet indicts us, perhaps our hearts are far away…(Isaiah 29v13)
From being late at church, to skipping small groups; from discussing our latest golf scores to talking ad nauseam about the latest dish we ate; so much of our conduct gives away the fact that we live on the bios level. Young people dress just like the models in the media and we older ones have no wisdom to counter-offer them. Does it not matter how our conduct affect others? From the Bible, it definitely does! Yet we are mostly preoccupied with consumption and measuring everything by that yardstick. Church, let us see more radical giving, sharing and Sermon-on-the-Mount type living!


3. Community
The church in Singapore is abuzz with activity and hectivity as she lies on a relational sickbed. Perhaps the greatest give-away that we are being conformed to our world is the poverty of our relationships. Jesus has said that we will be known by our love. A certain quality of relating is meant to mark the Christian community. Do you and I know this first hand? Are we seeking it and living it? I was struck by Paul’s statement to the church: “from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view” (2 Cor 5v16).
Some bemoan the fact that society is fragmented and the church’s emphasis on age-group ministries deepen this divide. But simplistically lumping everyone together is plain naivete. We need to get beyond the forms to the heart of things and then put in place radical forms that heighten and affirm both reality and truth. With the twin tensions of increasing contact and intensifying depersonalistion in our world ; the church’s relational DNA is truly her best showcase of the gospel’s power to save. It is a power we must unleash.

4. Confusion and Conservatism
Humankind has always tried to remake God in our image. This danger is heightened today. As long as we treat God as a consume-able; we can slide dangerously into the muddy waters of changing our minds and fashioning for ourselves a God that is more acceptable. Perhaps you prefer a Jesus who is more emo, more sensitive, or (!) more retro…?
Trying to fend ourselves against the enemy; we so often foolishly cross swords with each other – when after all, no one has a monopoly on God. We must humbly assist one another to interpret and respond to the revelation given us in Scripture, tradition and current experience. We serve a risen and living Saviour; not a text book model.

5. Conflict
Recently, some spates of conflicts have made it to the pages of the national newspaper. Of course, the media does not owe it to us to celebrate our triumphs; but for the church to turn outwards and seek redress from the world is absurd. There is enough of God – through His Spirit – to unite, bind, free and heal us from everything, if we will but let Him lead. If we see church loyalties as badges of good taste and premium choice we brandy about, we have made a mockery of deep spiritual truths and break our dear God’s Father heart. Yes, one-ness is well nigh impossible. Perhaps this is why we have One who makes intercession for us towards this end. My husband always taught me to love Christ is to love His Bride.
Our witness is bundled with our ability to resolve conflict and move beyond differences and difficulties.

Zoe or bios; the choice seems inane to have to make. But in a world that thrives only on bios; we must be careful to appreciate, affirm and renew our commitment to zoe. And it will not be by sheer willpower, good intentions or right doctrine. As Zechariah was given to understand, it will be by the Spirit. (Zech 4v6)