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 […]

We Wait for You (Shekinah Glory)

I’m learning the song “We Wait For You” (by IHOP) as part of the preparations for the Sar Shalom Conference coming up in a week’s time. I’m so honoured to be part of a worship team with musicians and singers from Kingdom Light Church, Nations Church, FCC and New Life Church Fremantle and of course, […]

How Worship Leaders Should Respond to Compliments

In Faith Community Church, Pastor Benny has initiated our mentoring phase as part of our 2-year DNA campaign. Quite amazingly, there is a strong mentoring buzz now in our church with heaps of people getting connected into mentoring relationships. Yesterday, I had the honour of launching our worship leadership mentoring group with worship leaders from […]

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, […]

A Renewed Unity: Our Worship Leadership Retreat 2015

We had the honour of having our first Worship Leadership Team (WLT) Retreat this last Australia Day long weekend. So, on the evening of Friday, 23 January 2015, FCC’s WLT and our spouses/significant others drove down to a beautiful house backing onto Melros Beach for a weekend of chilling, eating, planning, eating, relaxing, strategising, crabbing, […]

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 […]

Taxi Rank Tribulations and the God Who Restores Time

In my post The Year of His Restoration, I said that this year, God will restore time that we have lost. And when God restores, He does so in quantity, quality or both. This afternoon, Ling and I ended up in the Singapore CBD to buy dinner for her parents. Getting stuck in the CBD […]

A Relaunch

As a new season has begun and this is the Year of His Restoration, I have decided to give my blog a new look. I began writing this blog on 4 December 2011. Click here to read my first post. At the time, I had been in a transition phase, having left a church in […]