Church News (Page 73)

By Not Known Routine can be nerve-numbing. After some repetitions, mechanisation sets in. One can just go on doing it without much thinking and reflection. It becomes just a job to be done. No wonder, many are employed in jobs but few are finding meaning in what they do. This can happen to religious practices too. Rituals, they call it. When…

By Not Known In 2002, Fritz Ridenour wrote a book entitled, “How to be a Christian without Being Religious.” It was a book that questioned religiosity. He asks: Do you sometimes feel you have been trapped into playing a game called “Church”?  The book goes on to show why religion has failed and points readers to the way of being Christians…

By Not Known The Bible in several places reads, I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me. (Ex 20:5; 34:7; Nu 14:18; Deut 5:9) So the mention of “generational curses” strikes fear in many but also fury in others. Am I being punished for the sins of my…

By Not Known It is most encouraging thing to know that God not only works all things according to his big and good plans in Jesus (Eph 1:11) but he also works them for the individual good of his beloved people (Rom 8:28). This gives consolation that the worst of times are also the best of times. When life seems overwhelming and the valley of despair just gets deeper and…

By Not Known Have you tracked your family tree? It can be interesting to see where our ancestors came from and to have a sense of where we fit it. Many in our congregation are of immigrant stock – with ancestors who came from the southern Chinese provinces or via a time as Straits Chinese. My ancestors are also immigrants: from Celtic stock in Ireland and Cornwall.…

By Not Known Many find that people bring us our greatest pain and pleasure. Both pain and pleasure increase as the distance between people diminishes in our families. Why is this so? The answer is simple. God made us for relationships (Gen 2:18). This is no surprise, since the ‘us’ of the triune God is essentially relational (Gen 1:26). It is his gift to place…

By Not Known There”s something about a prize that makes us want it. Whether it”s the door prize at a social function, an academic award or a sporting trophy – we want to win. Our desire for the prize can push us to amazing acts of focus, self-discipline and self-sacrifice. But what of we can”t see the prize? What if all we can see are the…

By Not Known When life seems tough it is easy to go into a downward spiral. We may look at our problems (and only our problems), complain that no one has it as tough as us and whine that we are all alone. All these take an added dimension when our complaint is about the toughness of following Jesus. It is no wonder that others abandon us when we wallow in such…

By Not Known Faith works! That’s a simple statement to make after walking through the ‘portrait gallery’ of faithful men and women in the era before Jesus (Heb 11). Christians have long discussed the relationship between faith and works. Technically, it’s a discussion about justification and sanctification. The modern discussion has been running…

By Not Known Someone has identified loneliness and social fragmentation as a feature of our times. We busily pursue our own agendas and make only passing connections with others – and many of these are electronic and fragmentary anyway. This can also happen in church. Let’s face it, church gatherings are sometimes dull and church people sometimes…