FRUITS OF THE FIXED TEAMS AND ASSISTANT WORSHIP LEADERS PROGRAM

4 HEAVENLY KINGS

Back in the early 90's, the 4 heavenly kings were in reference to Andy Lau, Jacky Cheung, Leon Lai and Aaron Kwok.  These were Hong Kong's singing superstars.   For PCC, since moving to Wisma Praise City, our 4 heavenly kings or main service worship leaders were brother Kok Yen, Joshua Lim and Timothy.  The 4th the king was rotated among Pastor Julian (2004), Bernard Lee (2008) and Pastor Ben, see pictures below.  Over the 7 or so years (2002 - 2009) we had 4 permanent main worship leaders.  Of course I never considered myself as a worship leader because of poor singing skills but that is a story for another day. 

NEW KIDS ON THE BLOCK

Today, through Team L, we have churned out Jim Abigo, Tony Ng, Judy Chua, Debby Ayeni, Jennifer Ifeoma and Obi Hamilton.  That's 2010 - 2012, a total of 3 years! Other teams also raised up new batch of worship leaders.  From Team A Pastor Ben trained Justina Abigo.  From Team B Tim.L raised Joseph Olayemi.  From Team C, Kok Yen raised Gan Teng. That's 9 new worship leaders in 3 years!  I have to give thanks to God for the inflow of talents into the church.  I also praise God for the 'old horses' who dedicated themselves to raising the new kids on the block (pictures below). I was especially blessed by Jennifer's worship leading session in the 2nd service last sunday, hence this article :)

SORRY, SAY WHAT?!

At the beginning of 2010, the then Central Working Committee, abolished the musicians and singers schedule in favour of a fixed team. The CWC also abolished the traditional idea of a worship leader and backup singers.  The role of the backup singers was upgraded to that of a team of psalmists.  The mindset was changed to a collective group of worship singers who would share and bear responsibility to the sunday worship.  We are now reaping the fruits of that policy change.

WELL DONE EVERYONE!

Thank you everyone, big or small, who contributed to a more cohesive unit of worship singers.  Thank you new ones who DARE to step out and lead.  Thanks to God for helping us.  I would like to remind the current batch of worship leaders in Team Peace, Joy and Love that you are to nurture, train and raise up 2 assistant worship leaders by year end. Click here to be reminded! Continue this good and productive process going.  

Gloria In Excelsis Deo!

Tim.L

Servant of All

   

God Heals

Last friday, I made an appointment with Mother of All Servant, brother Lud for an early dinner. We had a practice for the prayer meeting after that. In the afternoon at 3pm I came down with a headache and thought an afternoon nap would relief it. Unfortunately it was only slightly better and I was contemplating to skip practice and the prayer meeting altogether. However it would be difficult to find a last minute replacement and not to mention, a bad example. So I reluctantly got up at 7pm and headed for practice. I had to endure the headache through the practice and prayer meeting. However an instanteneous healing took place as I left the church. Under normal circumstances it would take me another day before relief came. Praise be to God. He is faithful to those who are faithful to Him. Bless His Holy Name!

Testimony of a Former Spy and Eldest Son of Hamas founder

Tim.L note: Something interesting I came across while browsing the web

Mosab Yousef, a former terrorist and the son of a Hamas founder appeared on The 700 Club to share about his experiences about becoming a Christian. He studied many religions prior to his choice. He also talks about how Christianity helps him love his enemies: to deal with bad memories, to win over enemies through love, and not to dictate over them. "This is how Christ defeated the world, when he loved in the most difficult and painful position on the Cross." http://downloads.cbn.com/cbnnewsplayer/cbnplayer.swf?aid=14417

Mosab is the first-born son of one of the founders of Hamas, Sheik Hassan Yousef. Mosab left Islam and secretly worked with Israeli intelligence to capture terrorists on the condition that they be imprisoned and not killed. He prevented suicide bombings and other attacks, and has recently been granted political asylum in the US in June 2010.

For full article click here

Power of Music Ministry

Just another reminder fro all of us....

5 Got Saved on 31st January Service

Praise God! On Casual Sunday, an altar call was given after Mei Peng and my testimony about how we got saved. 5 gave their lived fo Jesus. Coincidentally both of us were from the Creative Ministry Department.

The Creative Ministry members are the face of the church during service. We take up about a third of the time of the service. We are influencial throughb our lyrics, songs, dances, performances and multimedia presentation. We, being creative people, can take the gospel further and faster if we so choose to. With mass media and the internet, the world is our mission! George rap for Pastor Aris soon to be released album. If that album sells 10,000 copies, it would mean that at least that amount of people would have heard the message of the rap. When we go to shopping complexes and declare His name through songs or musicals, multitudes get to hear the good news.

I encourage all who are reading this blog to live a life worthy of the Lord Jesus and to let our light shine, whether we are on stage or not.

Jan 17th Worship Leading Message

On the sunday of Jan 17th, I gave a word on little Christs or Christians. I said that Christians are powerful but we behave like the Lord Jesus, who being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death— even death on a cross! Phillipians 2:5-8. I went on to say that as Christians we should commit our lives to God and we sung the chorus of 'Above All' with the intention of God using us to be Christ to the nations.

Well, that was the spirit of that word. There were a whole lot of impressions and emotions that I could not have expressed well in that live setting. So I have decided to put it here. During the time of worship I remebered and felt the incidents below:

In 2007, Korean aid workers to Afghanistan were kidnapped by the Taliban.
These were Christian doctors, nurses and volunteers. As for the rest of the news you can find them here.

2 hostages were martyred, though I am not sure if it was from the same group or incident. Click here.

Here's a comment posted on Youtube,

"i was just trying to say that these idiots shouldnt have gone into a war zone to do whatever the hell they went for.....all we can do is feel bad for them now.....but its ultimately their fault"

If you look at it from a human perspective, that comment is fair. Let's rationalise this: Why would anyone leave the safety of their home country for a warzone? These are doctors and nurses with a comfortable life. They went on this mission on their own accord. They had to bear the expenses. Probably took a leave of absence from their employment, thus losing even more money. I really cannot imagine going over to a place like Afghanistan. The people you are doing relief work to cannot pay you back. They are of a different culture, religion and social status. Heck, maybe, their entire's year pay may only buy a week's grocery in Korea. There is no reward when it comes to appreciation and satisfaction. At the end, look what the militants did to them. So why did they do what they did?

BECAUSE THEY ARE CHRISTIANS OR LITTLE CHRIST
What I see are not Koreans doing just relief work. I see Christ going to the Afghans. After all, is not Jesus the Lord of Christians? Are not Christians little Christ? Or Christ Ambassador? Is it not Biblical that a Christian's aim is to be Christ-like? If you substitute the Afghans with the human race, doesn't it look like a familiar pattern? Read Phillipians 2:5-8 again. Yes it is the Agape love for the human race that Jesus was nailed on the cross. It is the same Agape love for the human race that drove the 23 Koreans to the mission field. And yes no one in their right mind would do it....unless the same consuming agape fire that was in Christ in in them! Yes it is madness to those who do not know Christ. I mean, which Taliban will go to Australia and help put out the bush fire at his own expense with no rewards or religious/political mileage whatsoever?

So the Taliban is not mad but Christians are? You tell me who is mad. Let me bring this one step higher. Who do the everyday Afghans think is mad? The 'enemy' or Koreans who travelled half way around the globe to bring love and medical care OR their own, the Talibans, who murdered the enemy? Note that their own did nothing to elevate their pain or provide medical care. We, humans, lost in our sins were so undeserving, and yet Christ came for us! Read Phillipians 2:5-8 again.

Now what are you feeling? Maybe that was what I felt when we sung the song Above All. That we should rise up, take up our cross, act like little Christ and be the sacrifice that is much needed to cover the whole earth with God's love.

Summary
1. Worship leading can sometimes de-tour from your songlist. In a live situation, God can and many times will impress things on our hearts. We should allow freedom to our structure should we sense the Holy Spirit speaking. All this is possible if we spend much time in God' presence in worship and the study of His word.

2. If God decides to speak through the worship, do we break away from our structure of 35 minutes of songs and no preachy stuff from the worship team, or not? Obviously the answer is to follow God. But, the implementation of it can be so tricky.

3. We are called to revolutionize the world, but it is not an armed revolution. It is a revolution of Agape love. To love all men unconditionally, that through this love that we have for one another as well as others, the world may know that we are Christ disciples. It is easy to destroy a building. With enough explosives, you could do it in a matter of hours. Try building that same building, It will take months. The Agape love of God is the ultimate transforming power. With the death of Christ, and not through armed revolution, Christianity the religion has at least 30% 'market share' on the population of the earth!

God's Fatihfulness in 2009: A testimony by Timothy

Merry Christmas & Victorious New Year to to all! Even though commercial celebrations have toned down yet things seem to look better. I said seem....who knows if they are any better :) Around this time last year, (december 2008) there was much gloom and doom in our country. Everywhere I turned the conversations were focused on financial meltdowns. Subprime and the domino effect on world economy was on everyone's lips. Factories were laying off workers. Big American plants were relocating. Prices of petrol, and thereafter everthing else, went up. It was not a pleasant season this time round last year.

My Emotional Turnaround
One of my new year resolution last December was to commit more to the creative department. I gathered a few people and launched the vision of Team L. I knew it required tremendous amount of time, effort and push to shape an exemplery team. It would require me to take time of business and family to achieve it's goals. In retrospect, it actualy cost more than I anticipated. It was not a logical decision that I made. The commitment was made out of love for God and obedience to His direction. While most people were bracing themselves for the doom and gloom of 2009, I went the opposite by putting aside more time for music ministry. That decision gave me an emotional turnaround. From that point onwards, I no longer was weighed down by the surronding gloom but was looking forward to see what God can do, both in my business situation and my PCC ministry in Team L.
(P/S I spent a total of 7-8 hours per week, January to June, to prepare and rehearse with Team L. This is in addition to all the church meetings and activities.)

God Be Praised
Truly God is to be praised! He is faithful and glorious! Let me rewind to mid 2008. My business actually slowed down then. By the end of 2008 it was quite bad and would be 'stupid' of me to take time of business and devote it to Team L for ministry. However, I knew in my heart that it was the will of God to start a spark through Team L for 2009. After a season in prayer, going against human understanding, Team L was birthed.

Trust not in your own understanding
When business is down, the natural thing to do is advertise more, pick up the phones and call, market, market, market....... Only the lazy fellows will sit down and snooze. I had full assurance about the will of God. And true enough, He had already planned out 2009 for me. God is in control! All I had to do was rest in His peace, worked hard, followed His guidance and 2009 turned out to be a fruitful year for business and ministry. It became the year of great satisfaction (and pain). Pain because of all those late nights and practices :)

Yep, God's hand was upon us all the way. After all He did say, "I will be with you ...". Up till October 09, we were down 25% in terms of turnover. By December, though I haven't counted yet, but I believe we did better than the previous year.

Lessons learnt
1. God is always in control regardless of how we feel or perceive things. Yes we live in this world with all it's up's and down's but we are not of this world. We belong to God's Kingdom.

2. His ways are higher and we must live by His every word. We listen to what our master says.

3. Since our lives are built on the Rock, we need to balance our activities with time for minstry. Not just being a part of ministry, but putting energy, effort and excelling in all we do to the glory of God in the highest!

4. Being immersed in ministry actually puts a lot of things in perspective. We are not so focused on the doom and gloom. Ministry helped us focus on God and being our best for Him.

5. That God rewards those who diligently seek Him. Of course you'd have to believe that He exists in the first place :)

Take heart, regardless of your experience in 2009, or what may happen in 2010, let us declare with one voice: as for me and my household we will serve the Lord! I encourage all Creative members to put in extra in 2010. Who knows? We may attempt a musical this time round! Let us be faithful to God as He is faithful to us!

BLESSED NEW YEAR!