Closing Speech for STEP 2014 - Joshua Woo

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.

Pr.  Joshua Woo

Chairman of STEP 2014

Leading the Discourse on Relationship between Christianity and Science - Joshua Woo

The relationship between Christianity and science is one of the most confusing issues to many Christians, not least church leaders. Over the years, there has been much polemic being exchanged in the public. Just last year, during a commemoration event organized by Nanyang Technological University's Institute of Advanced Studies and Singapore's Science Centre, Lawrence Krauss (one of the speakers) repetitively criticized religion in his talk. He kept emphasizing that religion is false and science is true.

Some years ago a microbiologist friend asked me how can I believe in God when scientists say that the belief in God is untenable. My friend is not a Christian, and she is not the only one who holds that view. I have met people from various backgrounds who are as curious as Christians when it comes to the relationship between faith and science. Therefore I decided to have one session on this topic for STEP's interns.

It seems to me that the best approach to understand the relationship between Christianity and science is to ask what do we mean by 'science'? The enterprise that we call science today is relatively vague. For example, is neuroscience a form of science? To many, it is very obvious that the discipline is science. After all, it is neuro-science, right?

Yet, neuroscience runs on faith. Much of the assumption in neuroscience is built on unproven beliefs. As the Director of the University of California's Social Cognitive Neuroscience laboratory, Matthew Lieberman writes,

I am a neuroscientist and so 99% of the time I behave like a materialist, acknowledging that the mind is real but fully dependent on the brain. But we don’t actually know this. We really don’t. We assume our sense of will is a causal result of the neurochemical processes in our brain, but this is a leap of faith. (Emphasis added) 

If much of a scientific discipline such as neuroscience is based on faith, then is science really that different from Christianity? This is not to deny that they are different, yet are they so far apart from each other with science as the discipline which is based only on facts while Christianity only on faith? I doubt so.

Besides Lieberman's pointing the faith dimension of science, the debate in the 20th century among philosophers of science (Karl Popper, Thomas Kuhn, Imre Lakatos, and Paul Feyerabend) has shown that we still lack a definite criteria for scientific progress and knowledge. As Geoffrey Gorham notes, "[T]here may be no single criterion for demarcating science from non-science or capturing the proper scientific attitude." (Philosophy of Science: A Beginner's Guide [UK: Oneworld, 2009], 40.)

As STEP's interns emerge as church lay or pastoral leaders, they will encounter question from their church members or challenging situation they face in university or workplace. I hope the session on science and Christianity will inspire and facilitate them to think through this issue so that they can lead the church in an informed manner.

Pr. Joshua Woo

Chairman of  STEP 2014

First Week's Reflection - Joshua Woo

The inaugural Synod Training & Exposure Programme (STEP) has completed its first week (19-22 May). Along with the week's theme, 'The Entrance', we had the opening ceremony held at Singapore's first Presbyterian church, the 171-year-old Prinsep Street Presbyterian Church. 

This is symbolically very significant as STEP is the first internship programme intentionally designed to inspire and equip emerging leaders of local Presbyterian churches! It is not only an entrance for our 30 participants (from 11 different churches) into STEP but marks the new phase of leadership revitalization that Singapore's Presbyterian community is entering through this programme. Our Presbyterian congregations have been struggling for too long due to the shortage of both lay and clerical leaders. It is my prayer that STEP will address this situation.

On the first day, we had the Synod Moderator and Vice President of the National Council of Churches of Singapore, Rt. Rev. Philip Leow Khee Fatt to grace us with the opening message. Then followed by a series of orientation programme before we end with team building games. 

As one of the emphases of STEP is to expose the interns to Presbyterian heritage, we have crafted out a list of topics pertinent to our denominational identity. Yours truly gave a brief introduction on Presbyterian history and distinctive, Willy Lau (Synod's Youth Executive and my co-architect for STEP) talked about the organizational structure of the local Presbyterian Synod, and Dr. Lee Soo Ann (Senior Fellow of National University of Singapore) spoke on the history of the Presbyterian movement during the colonial time. These took place at the Synod House at Mt. Sophia. 

On the third and fourth day, the interns visited Trinity Theological College (TTC) and Singapore Bible College (SBC) respectively. The two colleges have graciously hosted us, showed us around their campuses, and deployed their esteemed lecturers to talk to us. We are very grateful to TTC's Dr. Ngoei, Dr. Simon Chan, Dr. Maggie Low, Eld. Eunice Low, Dr. Leow Theng Huat, Judy and Yicong, and to SBC's Dr. Clive Chin, Dr. Violet James, Dr. Calvin Chong, Ting Ting, Billy Chiang, and Veronica.

For the last session of the first week, we had Pr. Gideon Teo from Providence Presbyterian Church to guide the interns on how to develop their own ministry project in their own local church. As part of the objectives of STEP, we want our interns to either be involved in an existing ministry or initiate new ministry. This would provide them with practical experience which at the same time benefits their home church.

I hope that the first week's programme has served as a good entry point for the interns to gain a glimpse of what a wholesome Presbyterian ministry is or can be; which is historically rooted, theologically robust, and socially relevant. 

Pr. Joshua Woo

Chairman of STEP 2014