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| STEP 2014 Graduation Dinner at National Museum. |
The three weeks we spent together have finally lead to your graduation from STEP. In my Welcoming Message on the first day, I described STEP like taking the Transformers Ride at Sentosa’s Universal Studio. The ride begins with the Entrance, then the Briefing, then the Sending.
The whole experience of taking the ride is very elaborate. It is the gateway for us to step into the world of the Transformers.
Likewise in the first week of STEP, all of us began a journey into the Presbyterian world. We launched STEP at the first Presbyterian church in Singapore. The Synod Moderator Right Reverend Leow Khee Fatt set the mood for us with Matthew 6:33-34, which challenges us not to worry about our own vague future but seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and God will provide whatever we need. God is faithful to his people.
As history is testifying, the Presbyterian movement in Singapore began 171 years ago and is still going on. God has been faithful to our forefathers, and he will continue to be faithful to us. On our part, we shall seek him first. This mood paved our entrance into the world of Presbyterian history, theological education, and ministry.
The second week of STEP was when we learnt about 'Word and Sacrament'. The week began with the visitation to a Ministry's Heritage Center. According to the officers, we are the first church group with young leaders that visited the center. The trip established us in the local context. It helps us to grasp the characteristic of Singapore’s society and the challenges that we face.
The reason behind this visitation is to ground our theological thinking with the real sentiment and issues in the society. It helps us to think about God’s Word and Sacrament with the sensitivity to our surrounding. So that we don’t do and think theology in abstract and irrelevant manner---we do church ministry appropriated for the real world. As church leaders, it is our task to constantly connect the society to the reality of God.
The third week was to send you all out as developers of God’s kingdom in the broken world. It is for us to immerse into Missio Dei, the mission of God. “The whole church to bring the whole gospel to the whole world.” (John R. W. Stott)
For this reason, we are challenged to open our eyes to see and our ears to hear. At the farm, we see and hear the need of ex-convicts and pregnant teenagers. At Geylang, we see and hear the face and cry of the vulnerable and disadvantaged. At closed door seminar, we see and hear about the public sphere and political life of the society.
Here, I have to say that the Transformers Ride analogy stops. The ride gives us an experience. But what STEP gives to each of you is not merely experience but a vision: the vision of God’s coming kingdom into the present world.
This vision is meant “to disturb the comfortable, and comfort the disturbed.” (To appropriate a phrase learnt from Bishop Emeritus Robert Solomon.)
Those who are too comfortable (with everything sorted out in their life) be disturbed by God who will require us to account for what we have done with our gift and talents. While those who are too disturbed (for feeling lost as they search for their own future) will be comforted by the same God who is sovereign over what lies ahead us.
If you have captured this vision of God, then you are set on a path of changes. What begins in STEP changes the church and the world.
Each of you are gifted differently. And all of you come together in STEP to build a future for the Presbyterian community in Singapore and beyond. All of you are trained by top thinkers, entrepreneurs, artists, social activists, and national leaders. When Pr. Willy and I were designing STEP, we were very conscious to give only the best to you all. As the saying goes, “If you want to be a lion, you must train with lions.”
We believe in each of you. And we see so much talent and passion God has given you.
I have seen churches in the west being turned into pubs or places of worship of other religion. Demographic report has shown that Christian population has shrunk in the Middle East to only 5% now. My Australian friend told me she was surprised to see Presbyterian community thriving in Singapore because the Presbyterian churches in her country are rapidly declining.
Don’t shortchange your own contribution to the advancement of God’s kingdom. Don’t waste it away. We are not merely talking about Presbyterian future here, but the future of the gospel of Christ.
We began the first day symbolically at Prinsep Street Presbyterian Church. That’s where it all started for us in Singapore. This evening, the last day of STEP 2014, we are at the National Museum. The reason we chose this place is to bring your attention to the role you can play in deciding whether will Presbyterian churches continue to thrive, or will we become museum?
Do you want to see Presbyterian community as a movement or a monument?
We know that our whole community is in need of pastoral leadership. The enrollment into full-time theological study among Presbyterian is very low.
Case in point, I enrolled into TTC in 2009. The last two students from ORPC (where I was from) enrolled in the late 1990s. One of them was Rev. Lam Kuo Yung. This means that the gap of leadership development between Rev. Lam and I was ten years apart.
In my class, there were about 30 students. And out of these 30, only 4 were from Presbyterian churches. I graduated in 2012. In the same year, there were hundreds of lawyers, engineers, designers, scientists, marketers, social workers, and etc. who graduated from other institutions. But there were only 4 theological students graduated to serve the Presbyterian community, comprised of more than 30 churches.
If this can be a hint to the trend of Presbyterian churches, then we understand why right now there are so many congregations struggling.
Therefore I want to challenge each of you to prayerfully consider God’s calling you to serve as pastors. I know the title “pastor” is not palatable to many. I was once in that position. Yet when the Lord calls through the cries of our churches, we as disciples have to respond in faith.
Likewise in the first week of STEP, all of us began a journey into the Presbyterian world. We launched STEP at the first Presbyterian church in Singapore. The Synod Moderator Right Reverend Leow Khee Fatt set the mood for us with Matthew 6:33-34, which challenges us not to worry about our own vague future but seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and God will provide whatever we need. God is faithful to his people.
As history is testifying, the Presbyterian movement in Singapore began 171 years ago and is still going on. God has been faithful to our forefathers, and he will continue to be faithful to us. On our part, we shall seek him first. This mood paved our entrance into the world of Presbyterian history, theological education, and ministry.
The second week of STEP was when we learnt about 'Word and Sacrament'. The week began with the visitation to a Ministry's Heritage Center. According to the officers, we are the first church group with young leaders that visited the center. The trip established us in the local context. It helps us to grasp the characteristic of Singapore’s society and the challenges that we face.
The reason behind this visitation is to ground our theological thinking with the real sentiment and issues in the society. It helps us to think about God’s Word and Sacrament with the sensitivity to our surrounding. So that we don’t do and think theology in abstract and irrelevant manner---we do church ministry appropriated for the real world. As church leaders, it is our task to constantly connect the society to the reality of God.
The third week was to send you all out as developers of God’s kingdom in the broken world. It is for us to immerse into Missio Dei, the mission of God. “The whole church to bring the whole gospel to the whole world.” (John R. W. Stott)
For this reason, we are challenged to open our eyes to see and our ears to hear. At the farm, we see and hear the need of ex-convicts and pregnant teenagers. At Geylang, we see and hear the face and cry of the vulnerable and disadvantaged. At closed door seminar, we see and hear about the public sphere and political life of the society.
Here, I have to say that the Transformers Ride analogy stops. The ride gives us an experience. But what STEP gives to each of you is not merely experience but a vision: the vision of God’s coming kingdom into the present world.
This vision is meant “to disturb the comfortable, and comfort the disturbed.” (To appropriate a phrase learnt from Bishop Emeritus Robert Solomon.)
Those who are too comfortable (with everything sorted out in their life) be disturbed by God who will require us to account for what we have done with our gift and talents. While those who are too disturbed (for feeling lost as they search for their own future) will be comforted by the same God who is sovereign over what lies ahead us.
If you have captured this vision of God, then you are set on a path of changes. What begins in STEP changes the church and the world.
Each of you are gifted differently. And all of you come together in STEP to build a future for the Presbyterian community in Singapore and beyond. All of you are trained by top thinkers, entrepreneurs, artists, social activists, and national leaders. When Pr. Willy and I were designing STEP, we were very conscious to give only the best to you all. As the saying goes, “If you want to be a lion, you must train with lions.”
We believe in each of you. And we see so much talent and passion God has given you.
I have seen churches in the west being turned into pubs or places of worship of other religion. Demographic report has shown that Christian population has shrunk in the Middle East to only 5% now. My Australian friend told me she was surprised to see Presbyterian community thriving in Singapore because the Presbyterian churches in her country are rapidly declining.
Don’t shortchange your own contribution to the advancement of God’s kingdom. Don’t waste it away. We are not merely talking about Presbyterian future here, but the future of the gospel of Christ.
We began the first day symbolically at Prinsep Street Presbyterian Church. That’s where it all started for us in Singapore. This evening, the last day of STEP 2014, we are at the National Museum. The reason we chose this place is to bring your attention to the role you can play in deciding whether will Presbyterian churches continue to thrive, or will we become museum?
Do you want to see Presbyterian community as a movement or a monument?
We know that our whole community is in need of pastoral leadership. The enrollment into full-time theological study among Presbyterian is very low.
Case in point, I enrolled into TTC in 2009. The last two students from ORPC (where I was from) enrolled in the late 1990s. One of them was Rev. Lam Kuo Yung. This means that the gap of leadership development between Rev. Lam and I was ten years apart.
In my class, there were about 30 students. And out of these 30, only 4 were from Presbyterian churches. I graduated in 2012. In the same year, there were hundreds of lawyers, engineers, designers, scientists, marketers, social workers, and etc. who graduated from other institutions. But there were only 4 theological students graduated to serve the Presbyterian community, comprised of more than 30 churches.
If this can be a hint to the trend of Presbyterian churches, then we understand why right now there are so many congregations struggling.
Therefore I want to challenge each of you to prayerfully consider God’s calling you to serve as pastors. I know the title “pastor” is not palatable to many. I was once in that position. Yet when the Lord calls through the cries of our churches, we as disciples have to respond in faith.
Pr. Joshua Woo
Chairman of STEP 2014
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