Don't Call Me A Methodist. Call Me a BenGener!

Sunday, 30th November 2008

A fellow Methodist (let's call him Marco) recently wrote the following article and sent it to the NTI/U Alumni Christian Fellowship ("NTIUaCF") Yahoo! Group:

Our Methodist Heritage

To those faithful Methodists in Singapore,

1. Remembering our Heritage : On 7 Feb 1885 the Grace of God touches our land with the Methodist Movement. God has swept this land with grace, health, wealth and prosperity. It's now for more than 123 years. God still remain faithful. These are God's Grace and Love to our children, to us, our forefather and to our nation.

2. According to the General Conference, we have 35,221 members and with 44 local Churches. We have the largest Christian membership in Singapore. In term of wealth, God has blessed us more than 100 fold, it's far greater than any monument yet to be built.

3. According to the Methodist websites at http://www.methodist.org.sg/index.php?option=com_frontpage&Itemid=1 There are so many ministries that touches the life of so many people, young, the marginalised, the elderly and the death. These agencies are:

a. Garden of Rememberance( for those that asleep - my mum was there),
b. Methodist Co-Operative Society - to help the poor.
c. Methodist Missions Society - for missionary work all over the world ( I have went to mission trip in Nepal under MMS).
d. Methodist Schools - 3 private and 12 Government aided ( my 3 children are products of the Methodist Schools in Singapore).
e. Methodist School Foundation - to raise support to our Methodist Schools.
f. Methodist Welfare Services - youth, elderly, families and specialised help
g. Women's Society of Christian Service

4. Through the years, do you know how many faithful government ministers, leaders, the Methodist movement has produced?

The above is to remind ourselves, how faithful God's to us for more than 123 years. The Methodists in Singapore have enjoyed so much Grace, Wealth, Prosperity in so many areas of our nation's life.

Let's be wise and not to be fool into believing some new movement that have yet to stand the test of times. Let's remember to worship a "God who is" and not a "God who we want" . Let's remember what our suffering Apostle Paul taught us : "that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, become like him in his death." Phi 3:10

This is our roots!
Blessings,
Marco

When I read his article, I felt that I was in a good position to respond to him (like how Paul felt he was in a good position to respond to those who insisted on keeping the Law, when he called himself a "Hebrew of Hebrews" in Phil 3:5, so it was interesting that Marco had quoted Phil 3:10)

Dear Marco

I have been a Methodist all my life, and a 4th-generation one at that (in fact, my great-granddad was a Methodist pastor).

I used to take pride in calling myself a Methodist (like how I used to take pride in calling myself an ACSian). However, I now identify myself more as a "BenGener".

Frankly speaking, to be able to reach 35,000 in 123 years is really nothing to boast about. Compare that to reaching 22,000 in 15 years.

I believe it's about time we Methodists stopped patting ourselves on the back and resting on our laurels. We are like a sleeping giant that should be rising up to the potential that God has in store for us. Let's start emphasising the person of Jesus and the perfection of His finished work like what NewCre does, and see how God will likewise also cause us to multiply tenfold in 15 years.

Blessings

Well, yesterday he wrote me an email in response to my blog entry entitled "Scandalous and Moronic"

Dear Malcolm,

Good analysis on the teaching of the finished work of Christ for the past, present and future. It's admirable that you have search the scripture yourself - the blood of your forefather as Pastor is in you.

However, the truth on the present is not as straight forward as what you shared? Our security in the heavenly places(future) is confirmed based on the finished work of Christ(past, present and future). But to extend it into the present state of earthly claim:

"I was not aware that I could claim for myself prosperity, health, piece of mind, restfulness and acceptance with Daddy God because Jesus took upon Himself poverty, sickness, anguish, toil and separation from His Father when part of His passion was to be stripped naked, whipped, agonising about the cup, having the crown of thorns pressed into His head and being abandoned on the cross respectively."

(Note: I am aware that is a popular teaching from Prince, this is one of his favourite theme as he shouted out all these so many times!)

My personal view:

1. The claim of prosperity and health in the finished work of Christ are not verified by so many servants of the Lord including the writer, Paul himself on 1 Cor 1:23. It's strange that Paul mentioned so much suffering for Christ's sake if he can claim all those you shared above. The trust on the text and context of 1 Cor 1:18- 2:5 is at verse 25: "For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men."

2. The Church in the time of Acts grew out of persecution and suffering not on health and prosperity of the believers. Similarly, the Church in China grew not because of the health and prosperity the foreign missionaries bring to them. In Acts and China the Churches grew out of pain, prison,..stripped naked, whipped, agonising..others suffered mocking and scourging, and even chains and imprisonment. They were stoned, they were sawn in two, they were killed with the sword, they went about in skins of sheep and goats, destitute, afflicted, ill-treated - of whom the world was not worthy -wandering over deserts and mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth.

This is the true meaning of the finished work of Christ!

3. Bro, I am not here to oppose the blessings of God but to ignore the complete teaching of Christ is inbalance. I like to enjoy health and prosperity - have the health to enjoy life and wealth to share with others and support the work of the Lord. But foolishness of God is wiser than men when he allowed pain and suffering to inflict on his chosen people, his Church, in his servant. *Honestly, I do not want all these suffering, I prefer to join you in that claim of abundant life -health and prosperity*but that's not the whole counsel of Christ.

The greatest test of a man's life or a Church is not when he/she is healthy and prosperous but when he/she is bearing the cross of Christ- like Job! The finished work of Christ is pain, suffering and shame for the past and the present but NOT THE FUTURE in our heavenly home!

Marco

This was my humble response to him

Thanks bro for sharing your thoughts with me. As much as I empathise with what the apostles and believers in China had to go through, there is a difference between us and them. They were not part of the end-time generation; we are :-D

The end-time generation (or what Ps Prince calls the "Benjamin Generation") is the generation which is to experience God's unmerited favour in greater and greater abundance. If you were to read the story of Joseph and his brothers, you will come across portions of scripture where Joseph showed favouritism to Benjamin by arranging via his unnamed helper to give him five times more food and drink (Gen 43:34) and five times more clothing, not to mention 300 shekels of silver (Gen 45:22).

And hence, likewise, in these last days, our Heavenly Joseph will arrange for the Holy Spirit to show great unmerited favour to us "BenGeners" and provide us exceedingly abundantly over and above all that we ask or imagine!

Since you have heard Ps Prince before, I am sure you know that the number five represents grace. What did Benjamin do to receive it? Nothing. He received it because he shared the same father and mother. The other ten brothers did not because they shared the same father but not the same mother. I don't know about you, but I now share the same mother Rachel (which is a picture of grace) and not Leah, Zilpah or Bilhah (which is a picture of the law).

I can lend you the "Benjamin Generation" DVD to watch. It is truly inspirational, especially the part of how God blessed Ps Prince with a BMW 7-series at the price of a 5-series.

Speaking of BMWs, I will be blogging about this sometime early next year, so do stay tuned :-D

Blessings
Malcolm
BenGener

Indeed, fellow brothers and sisters. Let us not identify as being a Methodist, or a NewCreationist, or a CityHarvester. Rather, let us identify with being a BenGener -- a member of the Benjamin Generation, and believe God for five times more! Amen?

Scandalous and Moronic

Saturday, 29th November 2008

Today, we are going to learn 2 Greek words: skandalon and moros.

If you find these words somewhat familiar, it is because the English words "scandal" and "moron" are derived from them.

The Oxford dictionary defines "scandal" and "moron" as follows:

scandal (noun)
1 an action or event regarded as morally or legally wrong and causing general public outrage.
2 outrage, rumour, or gossip arising from this.
— ORIGIN Latin scandalum ‘cause of offence’, from Greek skandalon ‘snare, stumbling block’.

moron (noun)
informal a stupid person.
— DERIVATIVES moronic (adjective).
— ORIGIN from Greek moros ‘foolish’.

Words that should not be in a "decent and proper" Christian's vocabulary, don't you think?

What if I were to tell you that these words are found in the Bible?

What if I were to further tell you that these words were used by the apostle Paul when he spoke about the finished work of Jesus on the cross?

In 1 Cor 1:23, Paul tells the Corinthian church,
but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles

The words "stumbling block" and "foolishness" in the original Greek were the words "skandalon" and "moria" (which is the feminine noun for moros).

The cross was both scandalous and moronic.

To the Jew, the cross was considered scandalous because it represented a once and for all sacrifice for all time. The heritage, tradition that their forefathers had passed down from the time of Moses (and hence what made sense to them) was that there should a continuous offering of the blood of bulls and goats to atone for their sin. The concept of a "finished work" was a stumbling block because it went against their core values.

To the Greek, the cross was considered moronic because it represented a divine exchange where man's sin was imputed to the sinless, and the sinless' right standing before God was imputed to the sinner. The Greeks prided themselves with being thinkers and philosophers. In their mythology, it was crazy to imagine one of their gods condescend to become a mere mortal and then to die for fellow mortals so as to appease the wrath of a higher god.

Before we who call ourselves Christians start chuckling and patting ourselves on the back for not being like the Jew or Greek in rejecting the gospel (after all, we don't consider the cross to be scandalous or moronic), maybe we should take a step back and ask ourselves whether we still do, to some extent...

Take myself for an example. Although I've been a Christian for 30 years, as recent as 3 years ago, there was a part of me who thought like the Jew and the Greek as described by Paul.

Like the Jew, I did not embrace that Jesus' work on the cross was a perfect and completed one. So while I believed that I was going to heaven, I did not live the abundant life here on earth because it did not occur to me that Jesus died for all my sin, past present and future. Whenever something bad happened, I would have a sense of condemnation because there was a sin that was not confessed and remained unforgiven.

Like the Greek, I did not embrace that Jesus' work on the cross was a divine exchange. So while I knew that Jesus took my sin, I was not aware that I took on His righteousness. I was not aware that I could claim for myself prosperity, health, piece of mind, restfulness and acceptance with Daddy God because Jesus took upon Himself poverty, sickness, anguish, toil and separation from His Father when part of His passion was to be stripped naked, whipped, agonising about the cup, having the crown of thorns pressed into His head and being abandoned on the cross respectively.
Thank you Lord for your progressive revelation!

P.S.
Ps Peter Youngren of Celebration Ministries preached a sermon on 1 Cor 1:23 entitled "The Cross: Scandalous Grace", which is available at the Rock Gifts and Book Store.

P.P.S.
Those who accuse me of idolising Joseph Prince, please note that I haven been "promoting" Peter Youngren and Steve McVey as well. I don't idolise any of them. Rather, I idolise the One that they preach so strongly and unashamedly about -- Jesus the Christ.

Manga Metamorphosis

Sunday, 23rd November 2008

Back in May of this year, I blogged about a Japanese comic version of the gospel story that was a novel way of sharing the good news. The title of that inaugural release is called Manga Messiah as the central theme of that book is Yeshua the Messiah.

Well, guess what? A 2nd book has just been released, and it is aptly entitled Manga Metamorphosis. This is because it follows the story of the apostles who were metamorphosised after receiving the Holy Spirit's power.

The best example of a one who underwent such an extreme and radical transformation was the person previously known as Saul of Tarsus. He was a Pharisee of Pharisees who believed he was standing up for God when he went about persecuting those that he felt was going against the Laws of Moses.

Hmm... why does that phrase "he believed he was standing up for God when he went around persecuting those that he felt was going against the Laws of Moses" sound so familiar? Oh, is it because this is still happening in the church of today? ;-)

Jesus Himself intervened by meeting him on the road to Damascus, after which he became known as the apostle Paul, the great messenger of the gospel of grace who wrote two-thirds of what we now call the New Testament.

Maybe we should pray for those who are so fervent for the Law and persecuting Grace to have a similar Damascus Experience...

As a teaser, I have taken a picture of pages 80 and page 84 of the book.

On page 80, we see Saul going into the synagogue to get "letters of recommendation" from Annas, the High Priest which authorised him to enter other synagogues throughout the land to arrest Christians, and to throw them into prison for breaking Moses' Law.

Page 84 shows him on the road to Damascus to carry out that very evil plot, and then Jesus appearing to him in a vision to ask him why he was persecuted Him.

Highly recommended reading. I got my copy from the Trumpet Praise in Novena Square, which incidentally also stocks Ps Prince's Live in Israel Volumes 1 and 2 :-D

The Grace Gospel Divides

Saturday, 22nd November 2008

Yes it does, and the reason why it does is because the devil is working overtime to veil the eyes of the church from seeing the truth that will set her free.

And the truth is that Jesus has done it all. It is *all* Him and none of us.

The trouble is that many of us want to take some form of credit, however little, upon ourselves, rather than giving all credit, glory and honour to Jesus. When someone gives his life to Jesus, for example, we want to say it was because we prayed hard, or we fasted, etc etc.

So instead of "worthy is the Lamb", we are implying "worthy is the Lamb and me".

By doing so, many compromise by having trying to strike a balance between the works of the law and operating under grace. By doing so, we think we can come to a common understanding and have unity within the Body of Christ.

We may call it balance, but God calls that "mixture". And that mixture produces lukewarmness. Guess what Jesus does to those that are lukewarm? Yup, he vomits them out of His mouth (Rev 3:16).

So, the sooner we realise that the grace gospel divides (yes even amongst those who call themselves believers), the sooner we accept that unity will never be achieved this side of heaven, because Satan is the one behind that disunity.

Here is a typical example of how the evil one has stirred up a brother who is supposed to be a believer to rise up against the grace gospel. He uploaded a video entitled "Joseph Prince False Teacher" :



It is interesting to note that he has disabled comments on the video, so that a point-by-point rebuttal cannot be made against him. But this is typical of people whose eyes have been veiled from the truth of what Jesus has already accomplished for us by His finished work on the cross :-D

He quotes the case of God not answering Jesus' prayer for the cup of suffering to be taken away from Him when He was agonising in the Garden of Gethsamane as an example of God not answering our prayers for healing!

But that was the very reason why God did not take away Jesus' suffering. Because God is holy and just, sin had to be punished. Jesus had to take *our* place of condemnation and sufferings, so that we can in turn take *His* place of justification and blessings before the Father. Duh?

Which brings me back to the title of today's post. Knowing that the grace gospel divides, what should our response be then? To pretend to get along? To allow law and grace to co-exist side by side?

Certainly not!

Read what Paul had to say in Gal 4:30. He said that we are to "cast out the bondwoman and her son" and not allow them to remain under the same roof as the freewoman and her son. It is very clear that he typifies Hagar (and Ishmael) to Mt Sinai (from which came the Mosaic Law) and Sarah (and Isaac) to Mt Zion (from which came the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of grace).

Why didn't Paul admonish Abraham for not keeping all 4 (Sarah, Isaac, Hagar and Ishmael) under the same roof, so as to maintain family peace and harmony? Nope. No can do. What this goes to show is that while unity is important, it should not be at the expense of compromising the grace gospel. Amen?

My Virginal Experience

Sunday, 16th November 2008

Today's cheeky title must have caught your attention...

.. but I won't be talking about the birds and the bees lah. After all, this is supposed to be a "Christian" blog, right?

Then again, what am I saying? The Holy Scriptures makes reference to it many times. Just the other day, I was reading the passage about how Jacob had sexual relations with his newly-wedded bride, only to realise the morning after that it was not Rachel, but Leah that he did it with...

Gen 29:21-25 (The Message)
21-24 Then Jacob said to Laban, "Give me my wife; I've completed what we agreed I'd do. I'm ready to consummate my marriage." Laban invited everyone around and threw a big feast. At evening, though, he got his daughter Leah and brought her to the marriage bed, and Jacob slept with her. (Laban gave his maid Zilpah to his daughter Leah as her maid.)
25 Morning came: There was Leah in the marriage bed!

It must have been quite a virginal experience for Jacob ;-)

But I am digressing here. Let's talk about my virginal experience.

Sometime in September of last year, my wife and I had dinner with Joshua Lye and his wife Florence. (Joshua is the author of Walking on Water and maintains a blog called Daily Rhema).

At that time, I had just been asked to step down from church leadership (as a cell leader as well as Honorary Treasurer) and was sharing my journey with Joshua. I told him that although the senior pastor of my church and I disagreed about the grace gospel and the completeness of Christ's finished work, we at least agreed on one area -- that PLMC should be a "cell church" and not merely a "church with cells".

Well, Joshua then told me that there is a difference between a "law-based cell" and a "grace-based cell", and went on to elaborate on this. Back then, I could not see the difference, but with the benefit of hindsight, I do now.

Law-based cells operate by a set of "rules and regulations" such as having to multiply within 18 months, or having to have at least one open cell per quarter, or having to attend WIN once a month, etc. Members feel a sense of obligation to meet up because attendance is recorded and the CG leader has to submit a report. After some time, cell leaders feel burnt out and cell members just give up attending altogether.

How about grace-based cells then? Read on...

Last Sunday, we were at Eng Wah cinema and given a handout of the activities taking place in the months of November and December 2008. I was looking at the handout and noticed that the nearest Care Group met at Wolskel Road, just about 5 minutes' drive from our home.

So, my wife and I decided to attend it on Tuesday night. We started with a time of worship, and this was then followed by the partaking of the Lord's Supper. According to the CG leader, Chong Sun, this is practiced in all Care Groups.

We then had a round of introduction (I suppose this was for the sake of my wife and me, since the others already knew one another). The hostess has been a NewCre member since 1991, while the others have been in NewCre from between 2 years and 15 years.

What was comforting was that every single one of them shared a similar journey -- they were all from some other traditional church before -- Catholic, AG, Anglican, Methodist -- and were being taught legalism in one form of another. God revealed to them the grace gospel along the way, and they have now settled in NewCre.

When it came to our turn to share, we told them that we only started attending NewCre regularly since August 2008, but have been listening to Ps Prince's sermons since August 2005, thanks to an ex-colleague who left his sermons in the office for others to borrow.

We did not reveal which exact Methodist church we are from (but Chong Sun guessed correctly later when I spoke with him during the makan fellowship, since Wolskel Road is also about 5 minutes' drive from PLMC).

We also shared with them our current dilemma about having to drop off our kids at PLMC's Sunday School and then going to NewCre after doing so, to which one fellow sister who also used to be from a traditional church encouraged us by saying that while it is ideal for the entire family to worship in the same church, it should be in God's perfect timing and not ours.

In summary, we really felt at home even though everyone around us were total strangers to us. We also could sense that people came not out of a sense of duty, but more because they really wanted to meet up to encourage one another. The time of sharing and testimony was also not awkward in any way: even challenging situations that a person was going through were shared in the light of Christ's finished work, with the faith and assurance that God will see them through, so everyone else actually felt edified and uplifted by it!

As my wife and I left the meeting at about 10:30pm, I reflected upon what Joshua had told me last year about the difference between a "law-based" CG and a "grace-based" CG, and I must say that he is absolutely right.

Just like how Madonna had sung that she felt "like a virgin" (even though she was not one), I also felt like a virgin last Tuesday, being touched by God for the very first time, even though I have been attending cell meetings for more than 4 years already.

Needless to say, I had a great virginal grace-based CG experience and you can be sure my wife and I will be going back for more. Hallelujah and Praise the LORD indeed!

How Dare We? How Dare We Not!

Saturday, 15th November 2008

Sometime last month, I was checking out the blog of a fellow "Best Christian Blog of the Week" awardee, Angie Teo.

She had blogged about an sms conversation she had with her uncle regarding whether it was respectful to refer to God as "Daddy".

Well last week, my wife and I had the privilege of sitting in Eng Wah Cinema during the 1st service. After the service, I went to the Rock Gift & Bookstore to pick up the latest DVD release by Ps Joseph Prince entitled "The Benjamin Generation".

This DVD contains 2 discs, the 2nd of which is a sermon entitled "The Spirit of Sonship in the Benjamin Generation" which duly addresses Angie's uncle's concerns :-)

This sermon caused me to sob uncontrollably because the contents resonated so deeply with my spirit man.

Here is a 6-minute excerpt which I had uploaded onto YouTube, which was the part that really made me cry like a baby :-D



The verse in question is Rom 8:15
For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of sonship. And by him we cry, "Abba, Father."

We who are New Covenant believers and of the Benjamin Generation should no longer have that spirit of bondage again to fear, like how it was for those under the Old Covenant. Rather, we now have the spirit of sonship which enables us to address God as our heavenly daddy, which denotes great intimacy.

So the next time someone asks us how dare we refer to God as "daddy", our appropriate response should be "How dare we not!" Amen?

Up Close and Personal

Wednesday, 12th November 2008

I have not been on YouTube of late (because I've been more on Facebook). The last video I uploaded was the one taken of my department to celebrate National Day.

Well, I logged in over the weekend to upload a video that I took at the East Coast Park of my kids and their cousins flying kites, as part of the picnic to celebrate my brother-in-law Marcus' 41st birthday.

Thanks Diana for organising it -- we had a most enjoyable time, and happy belated birthday Marcus. So much has happened in the past one year, no? We are very much looking forward to your family's baptism!

By the way, here is that video for those who care to watch :-)




Anyways, when I logged into YouTube, I discovered to my most pleasant surprise that the number of subscribers to my videos have reached 200!

I do not know why they have subscribed in the first place, but I believe God has a purpose in leading them to do so.

Just last Sunday, I bought the latest Ps Prince DVD entitled "The Benjamin Generation" and will be uploading excerpts of it this weekend because it specifically addresses the concern about whether addressing God as "daddy" is irreverent.

Speaking of last Sunday, my wife and I had the privilege of sitting in Eng Wah cinema, and I must say that it really beats sitting in the overflow rooms because of the large screen.

In fact, I even daresay it even beats sitting in the Rock Auditorium because even the moles (and pimples) of the worship leaders / choir members were visible. Okay lah, the tabernacle's furniture were visible :-D

Till the weekend then...

333: Another Milestone

Sunday, 9th November 2008

2 weeks ago, I was lamenting, inter alia, about how a number of churchmates have either removed me as a Facebook friend, or refused to accept my Facebook friend request.

I really do not blame them, because they are typical Methodists who prefer to avoid the current controversy that is surrounding the grace gospel and Jesus' finished work on the cross.

In fact, as recent as 3 years ago, I would have done the same thing to a fellow church member if he had started to "become weird", going off on a tangent to "traditional" Methodist beliefs and labelled him a "heretic" or worse yet, an "apostate" :-D

Anyway, in spite of the above, God has continued to increase the circle of influence He has placed around me. In the last 2 weeks alone, He has given me another staggering 48 Facebook friends, bringing the total to three hundred and thirty-three!

I thank the LORD for yet another milestone reached, and this number 333 brings to mind another of His precious promises in the Scriptures, namely Jer 33:3
'Call to me and I will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know.'

Hallelujah!

What Better Time to Make Lemonade?

Saturday, 8th November 2008

Amidst the doom and gloom that is currently going on, there is actually something positive that works to our advantage as Singaporeans. Read on...

I went to Munich on a business trip in March last year, and took the opportunity to visit Villa Park in Birmigham a couple of days before that. Back then, the Sterling pound was at about £1 = S$3. Well, I checked out the exchange rate recently and noted that it had dropped to about £1 = S$2.30.

Sports shops here in Singapore would only bring in the Aston Villa home jersey (because of the extremely small fan base here), so I went to the Aston Villa official website two weeks ago to purchase the away jersey for £45.25 (including shipping costs of £6.95). This worked out to be about S$108, when it would have cost S$135 previously. And so I effectively saved about 20%.

The shirt arrived in the mail several days back and that's me on the right wearing it :-D

I also noticed that the Aussie dollar, which used to be as high as A$1 = S$1.30 as recent as a year ago, is now about parity. And so it's also a good time to buy stuff from Australia. When I was in England last year, I bought PS2 games known as Sing Star, one of which comes with 2 microphones. The object of the game is to sing along to the songs (karaoke style) and points are accumulated based on rhythm, tone, etc. My youngest sis and I enjoyed singing along to Sing Star 1980s, which features the popular retro songs of our era such as Careless Whisper by Wham and We Built This City by Starship.

Anyways, my kids did a search on Google and discovered the latest release called Sing Star Hottest Hits, which contains songs of their era by the likes of Sean Kingston and MCR, and they persuaded me to buy it for them. The local stores do not carry Sing Star, so I decided to order it from an Australian online website that I came across called dvdorchard. It costs A$60.86 (including shipping and insurance of A$20) which translates to only about S$60. I bought those Sing Star discs from England last year for about £25 each, (or S$75) so again that means savings of some 20% again.

I remember my church's Senior Pastor saying before that when he throws us lemons, we should make lemonade, and so I thank God for these 2 glasses of lemonade, so to speak, because what better time to make them. Amen?

An Open Letter to the President

Friday, 7th November 2008

To: Rev Dr Wee Boon Hup, TRAC President

Hi Rev Dr Wee

Greetings in the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ!

With the TRAC sessions just around the corner, I thought you may want to get an update about what is happening in your home church since you moved on to assume the Presidency.

You may want to verify these facts independently with members of the PPRSC or LCEC.

(1) Dwindling pledges
Pledges are at an all-time low, at just about 45% of membership.

(2) Low participation in prayer wave
The number of people who have signed up have been on the decrease. The latest wave has less than 20 participants.

(3) Blessing campaign
A target of 10,000 was set. We are now into the month of Nov 08, and have not even reached the 3,000 mark.

(4) Falling WIN attendance
While there were close to 200 before, now it is hovering at about 60 persons.

(5) Service Burnout
While the first Serfest attracted more than 380 sign-ups, this number has dropped to about 250 last year and only about 150 or so this year.

(6) Cell attendance
Cell attendance have fallen alarmingly, and cell leaders themselves are attending other churches because of the lack of spiritual food.

No condemnation here, but law-based initiatives are never sustainable, and the facts speak for themselves.

I know you love PLMC very much (and so do I), and so it saddens me to see her not being able to reach her full potential because of poor spiritual leadership.

Now contrast these to grace-based initiatives, which God blesses and multiplies, viz:

(1) Record collections
A staggering $55.4m for the year ended 31 Mar 08

(2) Hunger for God’s Word
Hundreds upon hundreds queue up patiently as early as 2 hours before the service starts.

(3) Faith to embark on a $500m project
While the world is experiencing an economic downturn, God has given the leadership the vision to build a church to the glory of His name at a cost S$½ billion

(4) Increasing church attendance
Attendances have been increasing and is consistently above 20,000 now

(5) Ministry reaching out to millions worldwide
Invitations to speak at major conferences, and messages are broadcasted worldwide – USA, Middle East, Africa and Australia

I am sure you will take the above into consideration when you make the pastoral appointments for 2009 :-)

God’s richest blessings be upon you and your family.

Shalom
Malcolm

P.S. It is no coincidence that there were 6 pointers for the former and 5 for the latter, because 6 is the number for man, while 5 is the number for grace.

Our True Identity

Sunday, 2nd November 2008

Yesterday, I blogged about the reunion gathering that the Sec 4, 1983 cohort of ACS had after 25 long years.

While about 100 of us turned up, there were another 400 or so who could not make it, either because they were oversees or had other commitments.

And of course, those of us who were present would talk about those who were absent (by the way, guys don't gossip about others, we get "updates").

Anyway, while getting "updates" about some of the more prominent individuals in our cohort, we discovered that one of them had now moved on to the next life. Another who was quite effeminate then, is now very well-built and visits the gym regularly.

But what troubled me was to hear about a couple of schoolmates who used to be very active in the Christian Fellowship but who had since renounced the faith.

I remember one of them to be extremely fervent for the LORD back then. He was in the class next to mine, and would come over occasionally to discourage me and others from listening to secular music because he said it was the devil's music. He was a member of Faith Methodist Church. It was thus really sad to hear that he no longer wants to have anything to do with Christianity, and has now migrated to the USA.

The other one was a worship leader in the CF and quite a good-looking guy. I heard that he was very popular with the CF girls from the MGS schools, which would have combined meetings with ACS every once in a while. It seems that he went to Australia to further his studies and got a girl pregnant.

But rather than dismissing these two persons as hypocrites, I was reminded that the Law condemns even the best of us, but Grace qualifies even the worst of us.

I am sure both of them truly and honestly wanted to live a holy and godly life as teenagers. But trying to keep the Law by self-effort eventually causes people to just give up totally, because God's standards are just way too high. If they are not told what the grace gospel is all about, they can never live the victorious life. My prayer is that the message of grace from the likes of Joseph Prince, Steve McVey and Peter Youngren will reach out to them and bring him back into the fold.

Having said all that, let's come back to the topic in today's blog entry.

I realise that no matter how bald or fat some of us have become, there is a certain air of confidence that ACS boys have about them (others would call it arrogance). Even from a tender age of 7 at Primary 1, we were taught the school anthem ("ACS Forever") and our motto ("The Best is Yet to Be"), and that is deeply ingrained in every single ACSian, so much so that this ACS-identity sticks with us through the rest of our lives.

This is very evident to others, and that is why I know of many guys who, even though from other schools, have chosen to put their sons in ACS. I have yet to come across an ACSian who chooses to put his son in a school other than ACS.

But a deeper spiritual parallel can be drawn from this. There should be a blessed assurance that we as New Covenant believers should have (which others with a Old Covenant mentality would probably consider to be arrogance as well).

When we are being taught week-in week-out by the Pastor about who we are in Christ and what His finished work has already accomplished for us, then this Christ-identity should likewise stick with us through the rest of our lives, and nothing that the devil throws against us should be able to have any effect on us. Amen?

The Prodigal Boy

Saturday, 1st November 2008

On the night of 31 October, while others were celebrating Halloween, I was at Sentosa Island with about 100 others, who were all schoolmates from the Sec 4, 1983 cohort of ACS. We were having our 25th anniversary reunion gathering at SubUrbia.

Needless to say, many of us look very different from the way we did back then, having now had either hairlines that have receded, or waistlines that are twice the size they were before, or both :-D

Back in school, I was one of the more "notorious" ones, so it warmed my heart when one of my Sec 2 classmates commented that I had changed for the better, after we got re-connected via Facebook, where he then checked out what was happening to me through my blog.

All praise and thanks be to God, because it was He who called back this prodigal boy. It is surely a testimony to His abundant and unfailing grace.

You see, I had accepted the Lord at the age of 11 at the Billy Graham Crusade, but backslid during my Secondary school and JC days.

In fact, I was even given the nickname "Christian gangster" because while I had taken Bible Knowledge at "O" levels and even got an A1 for it, and was also religiously attending church each Sunday, the rest of the week I was behaving like a real "pai kia". I picked up smoking when I was in Sec 3, and even had my hair bleached and wore tinted spectacles when I was in ACJC.

I remember the ACJC Asst Discipline Master Mr Yap calling me up one day and asking me why my hair was so brown, and why I was wearing tinted specs. I lied to him that I swam a lot, to which he then asked me why I did not join the college swim team.

My reply was that I swam a lot but did not swim competitively. As for my specs, I told him I had sensitive eyes and UV-rays were bad for them.

The strange thing was that he actually let me off, probably caught by surprise by my cheeky answers.

Here is a photo taken in 1985 of my college classmates after a soccer game at the nearby basketball court in Dover Road. No prizes for guessing who was the one with the brownest hair and darkest specs. I was also very skinny then, a mere 50kg compared to my current 74kg :-D

But I am digressing...

At the reunion gathering, a couple of them also commented that I *still* had brown hair. This time around, it was not because I had bleached it, but because I had gotten it dyed. Here's a photo taken with Ivan, Yew Seng and Raymond (the one who organised the reunion). No prizes again for guessing who is the one with the brown(est) hair and the darkest specs :-D

It was a wonderful time catching up with one another, sharing about the good ol' days and exchanging name cards.

In fact, I was even given the privilege of providing the music for that night, because they knew that I had a large MP3 collection of 1980s music ranging from A-Ha to Yazoo. I don't own an iPod, so my Kohjinsha UMPC came in handy. The bar crew had no problems connecting it up to the amplifier.

If you happen to be on Facebook, do check out the photos taken that night...

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=42432&id=751059341