Worship Sunday 2016

Worship, even at its most subliminal, is at the core of Christian discipleship and the purpose of the church. It must be because worship is about giving God utmost priority. Tozer once said: Worship of the loving God is man’s whole reason for existence. That is why we are born and that is why we […]

Converge 2015

About this time fours years ago, I had the honour of participating in Converge, a whole week of worship and prayer which was planned by the Commonwealth Prayer Initiative to coincide with the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting taking place in our city. At the time, I was in-between churches, and not heavily involved in a […]

Week 5 Chronicles: The Worship Leaders’ Living Room

In our church, we try an experimental worship format once every quarter, during a month when there are 5 Sundays. The reason for this is that we used to roster four bands on worship, i.e. a different band each week and took the opportunity to try something different when there was a fifth Sunday. We’ve stopped […]

Carefully Curating Your Congregation’s Song Catalogue

I love the word “curate”. It used to conjure up images of stuffy old men in tweed jackets with leather elbow patches carefully displaying artefacts in a museum. These days, the hipsters have taken hold of the term, and you can curate almost anything you like – magazine articles, photographs, ideas, images, conversations, recipes. […]

Time for Breakthroughs

I love what God has been doing in our church lately. The only way I can put it is that God is bringing us into a season of breakthroughs. Glass ceilings are being broken through. Things which we thought could not be done are being done – and so naturally as well, without strain or […]

Music in Its Rightful Place: The Importance of Capacity and Context

In our last worship leader’s mentoring session, we talked about the role of music in worship. In the modern worship landscape, music and worship are almost synonymous. Of course, the more informed amongst us are keenly aware of the separation, but often struggle to articulate the difference or to hold the tension. I posited seemingly […]

The Power of Narrative

I was at the Perth Writer’s Festival this morning watching an interview with Mele-Ane Havea, the General Manager of Dumbo Feather, a quarterly journal which profiles extraordinary people in the hope that readers will find a sense of purpose and potential in their own lives and bring positive transformation to their communities. Their slogan is “Passion, […]

Dirty Worshippers, Holy Worship – Part 2

In my previous post, I talked about how a holy God still uses, indeed privileges, messed-up people to serve Him. In this second and last part of the series, I explore the theological foundations of such a paradox. So, why do I say that in the context of worship ministry, our qualifications for those who […]

Dirty Worshippers, Holy Worship – Part 1

In this two-part series, I explore the wonderfully reassuring paradox that imperfect, messed-up people get to use their gifts to serve a holy God; yes, even to serve on something as hallowed as the worship team. In this Part 1, I reflect on the question: who is qualified to serve? In the forthcoming Part 2, I will […]

Some Darn Good Questions for Young Marketplace Ministers

I have noticed that Singapore Christianity is pretty cutting-edge in terms of harnessing community transformation principles. Years ago, Singapore was used as a prototype for a massive city-taking campaign. The argument went that if you could see the city transformed, then the nation too would be saved given that, in Singapore’s case, the city is […]