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Pastoral reflection on mentoring.

"Am I a good mentor?"
Someone asked this question during his visit to my place over the CNY. He was asking himself if he had been a good mentor to his boys.

What prompted him, to ask this question, was his dissatisfaction over some of the responses of his disciples.

My reflection over this question is as follow;
Expectation!
What has been the expected expectation from those he mentored?
Has this expectation been clearly defined and communicated?
Has a suitable culture and process been established to bring the expectation into reality? Or was it just an incidental approach to achieve an intentional goal?

Edmund Chan talked a lot about the certain kind of disciples. G12 spoke about G12 leaders; people who could multiple themselves 12x. Nav taught about 2 Tim 2:2.
Every one of the above did not stop at stating their end expectation. They developed a process and culture that would enhance their expectation to become a reality.
They commit EVERY resources within their disposal to ensure that the process and culture are properly established and refined over time.

Back to the question;
If there is no clear expectation, anything can also be considered as acceptable or otherwise.
If there is lack of commitment to the processes, than anything would be a bonus.

Some would raise the question about the lack of appropriate response from the disciples.
This could be resolved when we looked at Jesus and His experience. He had 4 categories of students ie core 3, group of 12, company of 72 and multitudes. And He had a Judas who betrayed Him, a Peter who denied Him, a Thomas who doubted Him, a team of 10 who left Him. By any count, Jesus would have been a failure in discipleship. But He was not. He came back to them, restored them and commissioned them afresh. Love never fails.

What does this mean for us today?
Identify who you have
Don’t expect the 72 to be as close as the 3.
Identify your present group where they are with you ie r they the core 3 or just
plain multitude?
Don’t be afraid to accept the fact that they are not your 3 nor 12.
Do give your best to raise the 3 and 12.
Challenge them to pursue their God given goals.
They must know God and God's dream in their lives
They must own their dream and pursue them.
Only when they own the dream, it will only be your doing in their lives.
The place of prayer and word life are very vital to their spirtual wellbeing; THERE IS NO SHORT CUT.
Accept their progress as your gift of worship to God.
Don’t lord over them.
Accept their progress, no matter how small, as your gift for God and not inflate ego.

My thoughts on Leadership

i enjoyed reading a lot on leadership lately because of the course material i am doing. So i have attached a chapter for myself as well as all of you who wish to learn something new about leadership.

Leadership Paradox by Denny Gunderson
1 Servant – Diakonos; through the sand- The background to this word revolves the story of servant standing in the way of the sand storm to protect the master.
2 Whoever wants to be great among you must be your servant” (Matt20:26)
3 The test of our spiritual life is the power to descend…. – Oswald Chambers
4 The human obsession for control and the sincere desire of a true leader to serve are mutually exclusive.
5 The test of fading influence
- how did John the Baptist cope with his decreasing influence with the advent of the Messiah?
- is leadership a position or a role?
Formal leadership overly emphasised followership
Matt 20:25-26; ….not so with you
Jesus clearly and unequivocally denounces as worldly any talk or practice that establishes hierarchical orders?
(i understand the drift of the author on the hierarchical orders but i am not sure if i can fully endorse this position....still thinking...Jethro's advice to Moses was definitely a hierarchical structure. it was meant to make things more manageable for Moses. i tend to see that the verses in Matt 20 refers to the abuse of structure rather than attacking the structure.)
Jim Peterson …..
”Thus, in doing this, our church Fathers neatly and permanently divided

God’s people into two castes; laity and clergy. We have lived with this
caste system ever since, even though the bible teaches otherwise.”

Who do we spend the most time with? People in influence or People in need? Who would Jesus spend the most time with?

Charles Colson
“The pastor or Christian leader who is constantly the object of adoring

crowds soon cant live without it and often unconsciously, begins to shape
his message to assure continual adulation.”

When ministry (noun) takes priority over minister (verb), servanthood is squeezed out.
Ministry of God does not mean my ministry; I cannot lay claims to its effectiveness or lack of….It belongs to God ultimately..
My identity should not be wrapped around my position as a leader.
Embracing one’s own failure and expendability is a major step of liberation away from the bondage of self-interest.

M Scott Peck
“The need for control – to ensure the desired outcome – is at least

partially rooted in the fear of control.”

- A true servant leader
… relinquishment of a prized position, leaving the security of a solid financial “power base”, or
voluntarily minimising one’s own importance so that someone else can have an opportunity
to rise to a place of prominence.
With nothing to prove and no vested interest, take joy in seeing others grow beyond himself.
Henri Nouwen
– The beginning and the end of Christian leadership is to give your life for
other.
Jesus Christ
“The Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve and to give His life as a ransom for many” (Matt 20:28)
The goal of a leader is to work himself out of a job.
A commitment to planned obsolescence may produce inferior automobiles, but it makes for
great servant leaders.

- Questions to think
Are we willing to embrace God’s will even when His will appear to hold a deterioration of our personal place of importance as a leader?
Is our identity so wrapped up in our leadership position that the loss of position causes us deep emotional trauma?
Can we make John the Baptist’s choice to decrease?

A new beginning .... A new call

Summary of past weeks learning.
I have been busy with planning for a camp, studying for my course and taking care of jo and children.
Jo has been unwell due to the wisdom tooth extraction. It is painful seeing her bearing the pain throughout the day. It has been more than 1 week and she is still nursing the pain. Sigh!
Study has been good in that my past 10 submissions for the reading assignment received distinctions. I have been very encouraged that I am moving in the right direction.
God blesses me with a pair of free tickets to London because of the frequent flyer card draw. Another person just sms me that God has spoken to her to bless us financially. Wow! More than the amount, the fact that God spoke to someone about us makes me feel very blessed indeed. God will always take care of His saints….

Lately, I have been reminded about the need to seek His perfect will for my life. John Bereve reminded us that God will hold us accountable to His will. And when we failed, He will raise someone else to fulfil it. In the 90’s, I was told that God called a church to move to Woodland. There was several intention and actions but nothing significant was done. Today, CEFE, Lighthouse and VFC are there. Has that church missed something in the process? I don’t know and I cannot judge ….. but it surely reminded me that I must raise up to do God’s call for Senglee. Otherwise, God will raise someone else to do my part.

This led me to pray and seek God for the past week.

Interestingly, God spoke to me last Sunday through Jn21.
He had called me to love Him by Feeding His Lambs, Taking care of His sheep, Feeding His sheep.
I was very touched cos this passage had been a constant reminder from God at different junctions of my life as a believer.
He has not changed His call in my life and that I have to leave my “boat” and follow Him as an expression of my love.

Yes, the leaving from my “spiritual family” had dealt a great blow in my life. Far deeper than I care to admit and know. I remembered how deeply I cried in one of the night whereby God ministered to me in my dream. In that dream, God drew me out to release my pain to Him. And I cried till I was awaken by the pain I felt. Yes I had been hurt and it was not easy to state that…

But now, I have released the pain to Him by His grace. I have been led to bless sincerely from my heart in another dream. Yes I am an old man now..hahah…”old man dreams dream, young man see vision…” In this other dream, I was led to see the pain in those who hurt me. I was shocked and saddened by what I saw. And I woke up blessing them sincerely from my heart.

After speaking to me through these Dreams, God then spoke to me through the scripture. He knew that as a ex-Navigator, I needed scripture to justify my action plan. In fact, I told God that it would be nice if He could give me another scripture to confirm His will for me. And HE DID through Jn21.

That settles it for me!

I will be a pastor for Him!

2009 - A New Beginning

2009 and what it means for me

God reminded me of His call in my life to desire revival more than respectability. Revival is about bringing in His presence while respectability is about cruising on His past works.

It was very easy for me to “flow” with the system and be comfortable with what was around me. But God wanted otherwise for me. He wants me to continue to pursue the revival that He has placed in my heart.

Thus the stepping out in faith…..like Abraham, not knowing where to go, I am moving on by faith that He will show.

Uncle’s death over the New Year’s Eve
, helps me to see the strength or lack of in the many relational ties I though I have. I felt I had not taught the people well on relationship and love. But more importantly, I felt his death signals a new beginning for me. His health deteriorated during the times when I was seriously weighing the call from God. And I felt his “graduation into eternality” is a sign from God to me to move on to the new chapter.

Thus, as a deliberate act to move on, I will no longer be blogging on this site as the original intention of this blog was to disciple online readers from FCBC.

This will be my last post!

Meanwhile, I felt the need to clarify that I am not in City Harvest Church.

I have said to many that I am giving myself time to visit churches in Singapore to see the bigger work of God in this city. I have since visited City Harvest Church, Church of Our Savior, Riverlife, Christlite Methodist, Dawn, Lighthouse Woodlands. I will like to visit a couple more before putting all the learning together. I know that as a visitor we do not see the “true” picture of the church. But it helps to see the distinctiveness in every church ie how they are different from one another, etc. I celebrate the diversity of giftings that I have discovered in the Body of Christ so far.

Particularly, I have visited City Harvest more because this church is amazing. Many are drawn to the worship climate of the service and the preaching of Ps Kong. He is very down to earth and yet very engaging and faith stirring.

Personally, I had visited CHC in the past too during the initial period of starting the youth service. I don’t see anything wrong in visiting churches if you have cleared with your leadership and you are clear in your purpose of doing so.

Meanwhile, I am availing myself to schools and organisation to teach because there is a need to bring “bread to the table”. I have no intention to compete with the friendly organisation which I have “grown” up with. Just to meet practical needs for the family.

But guess every action of mine could be interpreted negatively if people choose to be negative. For that, there is nothing much I could do.

I should never live life to please man but God.

Farewell…..