Thoughts from Pastoral Exploration

Attending Pastoral Epistles class was an enriching and insightful module as pastoral care is very much in my heart of ministry. Studying the three epistles and attending the lessons have given me understanding and guidance in approaching and handling leadership and Christian behavior in response to the gospel of Jesus Christ. Paul has indeed laid out clearly the essence and theological basis of our Christian behaviour and leadership selection through these letters. Doing one of the spiritual exercise that on 1 Tim 1:3-7, recalling the people that have influenced me spiritually, brought about much thanks giving in my heart for God’s gracious hand in leading these wonderful people into my life and spiritual journey! I am so grateful to them for all the time, love, grace, patience and perseverance in making an impact in my life, believing in the intended plan that God has in using such a broken vessel as I am! The many areas of influence includes my salvation, understanding the heart of God for evangelism, the perseverance and Christ-centred discipleship, the wonder and faith for mission, the increasing longing for God and His Word, the wisdom, the critical thinking and strategic planning for ministry, etc. During the reflection, which I did not include in my SE submission, is how it also brought about much reminder of humility to be used by God for His purpose.

With the team being a small group of four, including an audit student as part of the team, the workload for the group project seems a little daunting as we went on to prepare for the report and presentation. Thank God for Cecilia who constantly gives many suggestions in doing and improving the project work, not to mention her many goodies that she brought to bless the class with! Her initiative to add ideas to the presentation and reminders for various areas of the report helped our team to keep to our schedule datelines. Thank God also for Angelina who though an audit student, helped with part of the report although she could not join us for the later part of the module. Thank God for Gary as well, the usual reliable team member that is willing to step in whenever the need arises in adding to the report and also the ideas for presentation. It was a tough schedule to take this module as it was in the middle of many work projects going on at the same time, even during the public holiday. Thank God for you Group 2! Indeed, team work is so essential in getting work done, not just for school work but so much more so for God’s work!

In one of the lesson when brother Casey was sharing about saying grace during meal times, the content of the saying of grace was raised for us to reflect. Some say ‘bless the food’, some went on to pray a lot of other things, but the main thing regarding saying grace is the thanks giving for the food that God has provided, and if we expand on that, to thank God for all that He has given us which can include health, finance, time, talent, the people that God has bless us with like our parents, family, friends, brothers and sisters in church, colleagues, etc. Essentially, it is about thanking God and not just about making prayers of request, not even about blessing the food for blessing of food has the association to Chinese tradition or even religious practice of ‘offering’ the food to gods before they can be eaten, or that when the food is blessed, the partakers will also be blessed. Indeed, a thanks giving heart should and must be very much part of a believer’s heart for we are people who have been greatly blessed! We have been blessed with the salvation by the grace of God through our Lord Jesus Christ!

Pastoral Epistles is my last module for my MTS programme. It was great to see many familiar faces and two new faces, Alvin and Angelina. Many of the classmates are people whom I had taken modules with and some even worked with in group projects. Some have become closer friends, people whom I interact with even after the modules ended. It was great to know these fellow serving brothers and sisters in Christ, especially when I hear about God’s miraculous works, provision, deliverance in their lives and the people around them! In deed it has been a blessed journey studying in AGBC. I pray that the friendships started and built during this period would continue on to be a channel of encouragement and godly fellowship that would spur one another in finishing the race of following Jesus and fulfilling His call in our lives! Keep in touch my brothers and sisters in Christ! God bless you much!

 

Thoughts from Corinthians Adventures

I was looking forward to attend this module even as I was doing the pre-course work. While reading through 1 Corinthians and doing the reading-reflection log, I begin to appreciate the importance for understanding the historical background and literary context when studying the Bible. There were a few challenging passages in 1 Corinthians that I need to refer to resources in order to make some sense from them. One of them includes the passage 1 Corinthians 11:2-16 on head covering in worship. After much searching for the context, there doesn’t seemed to be a definitive understanding of whether the covering refers to hair or an external head covering. The initial feeling was of a bit of frustration, however, after some reflection, some principles seem to emerge from the readings:

Traditions practiced in Church which does not violate God’s Word and holds good sensible values in the cultural context of the community is not necessarily wrong. However, it should not go against God’s creation order and should make sense and relevance to the church. However, such traditions should not be held as authoritative practice as those clearly taught from the Bible.

While we discuss the application of the passage in class, some of us raised the issues such as the use of drums in worship service, the use of technology such as lighting, sound and video system in service, etc. These seem to be issues that fall into this category of practice. However, if the focus of the service becomes issues related to these areas, e.g. whether the drummer played well enough, made mistakes, or the lighting/sound/video is too dark/soft/entertaining enough, etc., it may become the ‘idol’ and wrong focus instead on God presence and the worship of His people to Him.

Doing group work during the 2 weeks can be both a challenging as well as a rewarding experience. Some project work were not so nice and some were pretty fun and fruitful. The group assignment in the Corinthian class has been pretty fun and fruitful.  Teammates were helpful to add to one another actively and willing to work late nights to complete the work. I also get to know the team mates better as we worked and shared more about our lives. Sarah, one of the students who was doing audit, even volunteered to be involved in our team presentation and she did a such a great job that people believed in her sharing although she was playing the role of a missionary! I have been so blessed by the team! Thank God for all of you!

The lesson on 1 Corinthians chapter 14 regarding speaking in tongues by brother Casey has shed some light regarding my view of the subject. Paul did not forbid the speaking in tongues in the Corinthian church but was addressing how it has been used. He was encouraging the Corinthian church to ask for the interpretation of the tongues when it is a message from God for the church spoken in tongues. When brother Casey spoke of the balance between allowing the using of tongues and the need for orderliness in the usage, he shared that some people who may swing to one end of being rigid and instil so much restrictions and rules in practising this gift that people becomes so fearful to use so much so that they restrain and stop speaking. People may be so fearful that faith is dampened to exercise that gift.  However, the freedom to use the gift should not swing to the other end where praying in tongues is done throughout the prayer time alone by everyone on top of their voices, creating a confusing and chaotic time. However, each person’s tolerance could be quite subjective and this needs to be seen in light of the practice of the church. However, all gifts should be practiced on the basis of love.

One of the reminder I got from watching the presentations by the various groups of people in class is the impact of creativity in communication, especially in the use of visual, audio and kinaesthetic elements. Team A’s creativity in using the well-edited video with all the people acting in different roles and even trying to imitate the accent of an African, and tying the African traditional head dress, etc. really open the hearts of the audience before the message of the Uganda project fund raising was shared. Team C’s effort in incorporating the ‘game show’ concept and ‘live reports’, involving the crowd to participate reveals the thoughts put in to make the presentation more engaging. These little details show the deliberateness of the teams to want to communicate the message well through the presentation and I believe they did achieve its purpose in helping the people to receive the message of giving more impactful. As I learn God’s Word, I pray that I will also learn to be creative in communicating His Word to make the learning fun and impactful.