Pastoral Messages (Page 70)

By Not Known Leadership renewal seems to be a hot topic recently, not only in political circles but in church circles. The last edition of the Presbyterian Express, the magazine of the English-speaking Presbyterian churches in Singapore, was almost entirely devoted to articles on leadership. When I returned from Singapore to England in 1998, I was offered a refresher…

By Not Known What actually is the church? The word conjures up many images and associations. We can have a picture of a building in a particular place. We call this church ‘Orchard Road Presbyterian Church’ although apparently that is only one of nine names we are known by outside the church. We can have a picture of a community with people, ministers, elders…

By Not Known In helping people find direction in life, we often ask these three revealing questions: 1. Who are the three most important persons in my life?  2. If I were to die today, what would these three persons have to say about me?  3. If I do not like what they say, how would I live differently from now to change their perspectives? Usually, as the…

By Not Known The Cross as a method of execution is mercifully no longer with us. Nor are the public executions of Jesus’ day. It was a particularly brutal and tortuous form of death. In one way as an event it is something we can only look back to in history, but in another way it is something we have to live with every day, because Jesus told us to take up our cross…

By Not Known April has an important day on the British calendar this year. It is not the 22 April Good Friday, but the 29 April Royal Wedding of Prince William and Catherine Middleton. “Look how the whole world has gone after them!” someone enviously exclaimed. Indeed, quick- thinking businessmen have already cashed in on them with the sale of “William…

By Not Known This week’s title is my contribution to the acronyms of Singapore (reducing everything to initials!). For some reason Singaporeans love acronyms. They seem to be used not just for convenience and brevity like shortening Orchard Road Presbyterian Church to ORPC, but for effect, conveying a message or image or identity. This passion for catchy acronyms…

By Not Known I was still an impressionable schoolboy when John Lennon uttered these words at a Royal Variety Show performance in London in 1963: “For the people in the cheaper seats, clap your hands… and the rest of you, if you’ll just rattle your jewellery.”  I had…

By Not Known Since returning to Singapore, several people have commented, possibly a little out of politeness, that I still look as young as when I left 13 years ago. To which my standard reply has become “I must have looked very old then!” Youth Sunday made me reflect on my own youth, and our attitudes to young people. I realised that as older people we still…

By Not Known What if God had created human beings without tongues? Our world would be void of great speeches that have otherwise shaped our history – the call to peace, the rousing to war, the shout of protest, the arbitration of conflict, and the consolation of suffering. There would be no poets, philosophers, singers and orators. Collective memories of human…