January to June 2010 Report

This is what the Creative Ministry Central Working Committee (CWC) been up to.

January
- Launch of Yahoogroup e-mail list for enhanced communication, downloading of music sheets, schedule, forms, phonebook and calender

-Launch of Music Director's blog to explain policies and provide latest happenings

- 1st Quarter Meeting to introduce CWC, organization chart, listen to grouses of various ones. Launching of quarterly meetings.

-re-structuring the back up singers to worship singer/psalmists and worship leaders in training. Every worship leader was suppose to train 2 others by 2010

-purchased new piano for Royal hall and gave the older Korg SG Pro X piano to the chinese hall

- purchased dual VGA monitor for projectionist department

February
- Benny has started to compile and upload music sheets to Yahoogroup

-massive campaign to sign up as many to the Yahoogroup. Laptops were brought in on sundays.

-Worship leaders dinner at chinese restaurant

-Compulsory Sound Engineering Level 1 certification course with 4 students lectured by Tim.L

-Basic sound system operation training for non sound system personnel

- Introduction of Talent Scouting Programme by Lud Lee

March
- Tim.L attending every practice and implementing fixed teams and buddy system.

- Apprenticeship training for students from Sound Engineering Level 1

- Introduction of Evaluation Report form

April
- Gimras and George Good Friday presentation. CWC bought a minus one from US

- Launch of Team P, a training ground for aspiring worship leaders/musicians team for the prayer meeting

- Introduction of project to sending PCC members to Hillsongs Conference

-2nd Quarter Meeting

-Dissemination of PCC Handbook

May
-Worship 101 compulsory certification course offered and taught by Lim Kok Yen

-preparation of budget by CWC

June
- giving of certificate of completion to Sound Engineering Level 1 4 students

-giving of certificate of completion to Worship 101 Bible Explorer class

- Music Director making a commitment to be available after service for Q&A, suggestions, counselling, fellowship, etc,etc. Currently his "complaints booth" is near the stage area after service till 12.40pm


The CWC has introduced so many firsts. Budget, certified trainings, evaluation and fixed teams, buddy system, PCC handbook, etc. We pray the members will use these tools for the furtherance of the Creative Ministry, which is part of God's Kingdom.

However, we are a bit behind schedule to introduce guitar, choosing songlist, worship leading, part singing, band abd bass workshops. We will do so in the second half together with the bi annual audition and recruitment drive.

Tim.L
Servant of All

World Cup: May The Best Team Wins

Quote from Malaysian Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak The Star Online

“For a football team to succeed, all players in the team, irrespective of their position, need to work together and play as a team. However great the footballers are as individual players, victory can only be achieved as a team".

Praise City Church worship teams comprise of projectionists, sound personnel, singers, worship leader, keyboardists, bassists, drummers as well as support people like key holders and data entry clerk for the Yahoogroup calender. Are we working as a team? Do we uphold or let dowqn our teammembers? Answer the questions below and we'll see if you are a team player!

1. Do I know everyone's name in my team?
2. Do I remember who my two buddies are?
3. Have I called them within the last 2 weeks?
4. Have I prayer for my team and worship leader in the last 2 weeks?
   
5. Do I come for the practice with the songlist memorised?
6. Do I come on time?
   

A "no" answer is room for improvement. More than 3 "no" is baaAADD!

I'm not getting into my ol' grumpy self this time. Gotta go take a nap to be ready for the opening match.

ARMY AND WARFARE

Last weeks's sermon by Pastor Aris had an emphasis on army of the Lord. Interesting reversal of scriptures in Joel. Instead of the locust army devouring, the army of the Lord heals and restores. As per my usual self I'll leave the smart saints to debate about that passage.

I just brought this up to CATCH YOUR ATTENTION! Now that I have, let me state that being the army of the Lord has never been my fancy. By nature, I am a diplomatic kind of guy. I dislike confrontations. When I do get confronted, I have no pride and will usually disagree by agreeing. Go figure that!

However since we are talking about the "army", and some of you guys/gals are the "army type", DID YOU KNOW I ACTUALLY HAVE AN ARMY ARTICLE ADAPTED FROM SUN TZU ART OF WAR? It is a gem that strategists will savour.

So here it is. You are supposed to click on the blue underline to view the article!

My "order" as general of the Creative Ministry of Praise City Church is to use this fantastic system of information dissemination and intelligence gathering. Look at Team A when they don't use it! Only 2 worship soldiers errr.. I mean..... singers on stage last week!

Anyway, what to do? We are all not army trained mah..... Some of you guys/gals are like me..... lovers of tau fu fa (BEANCURD). The moral of the story is the tools and systems are set. Please use them. Armies who DON'T usually get massacred..... now thats the TRUTH! And that's why I am not the army type.... I dislike blood, battles, etc

article written by General Bean brother of Mr. Bean, cousin to Tau Fu Fa aka Beancurd

CHIA YEW/ADD PETROL!

The caption below is taken from The Star Online:

ACCORDING to sociologist Robert Bellah, “we should not underestimate the significance of the small group of people who have a new vision of a just and gentle world. The quality of a culture may be changed when 2% of its people have a new vision.”

The article is about fighting corruption. However the same can be said of any revival. It only takes a spark.... to get the fire going (source: SU scripture in song).

To those who have made it a point to be counted, to be early and prepared for practices/services, to have prayed for the ministry of music, I salute you. For those who made an effort to support the work of the Central Working Committee, I salute you. It may just be a handful, but to Jesus that's not a problem. After all Jesus took only 12(13) apostles to spread Christianity throughout the then known world.

I encourage you to Chia Yew, and again I say to you Chia Yew!
note: Chia Yew is translated as add gas/petrol to the fire

Brownout, Burnout, or Blackout?

This caption is from Pastor Ronnie Chin's sermon last sunday. Well, if you look at the dates of my blog, you will notice a decrease in entries. So is the blog browning out? Burning out? Or worse still experiencing a blackout? NEITHER OF THOSE! It's just that we have gone to 2nd gear!

In the first quarter we put in place the buddy system, fixed teams and evaluation report. We trained the sound personnels and they will be getting the certificate of completion this June. We fed you guys KFC. We have in hardcopy the PCC hanky panky book. Ooops .... I meant the HANDBOOK. In the month of May, I have been to every single practice to pray, exhort and spur the teams to a DEEPER spiritual encounter for sunday. Kok Yen has started the Worship 101 in the Bible Explorer. In June, the guitar training will start. So are we experiencing a brownout, burnout or blackout?

I think not. The reason articles are sparse is because I have been busy on the ground. Like you, I have only 24 hours a day. I am also waiting for the department to start reading. Once we have the handbook fully circulated and the entire department briefed and re-briefed, the REDOUT begins. Those who are counter productive to the ministry will find themselves issued the RED card by the referee.


Where are we heading?

So where are we heading? We are shifting to 2nd gear and it's at the threshold of the REDOUT season. We at the CWC are working triple hard to ensure that the music department will indeed grow from strength to strength! It can only be done if the members themselves grow from strength to strength. So come early. Be there before 5pm. Step into the spiritual dimension of worship leading after being musically/physically prepared. Expect to see the supernatural when God's people lift Him up! After all he did say "I will draw all men".

Shalom.

Going Up To The Next Level

by Pastor Aris

When someone complains that a program or presentation is 'boring', what do they actually mean?
They probably mean one or two things listed below...
1. There is nothing new about it.
2. They have seen/heard that before.
3. Nothing has changed or improved over the years. Its the same old thing. The worship structure is set in cement.
4. It is predictable. They can tell the end from the beginning of the program.
5. There are no 'wow' moments.
6. It is sub standard to what they are exposed to.
7. It lacks creativity
8. Mediocrisy is tolerated.

A worship service can easily melt down to a mere maintainance mode where worshippers just drift in and out every weekend without having an encounter with God. When this happens, who should take responsibility? When a TV series drops in its ratings, does the management blame the viewers that they dont know the value of the program. On the contrary, the management, the producers of the program takes a hard look at why they are not drawing the crowds and make the necessary changes to make the program exciting.

For the full article clikc here.

My Boo Boo

I want to apologize for a stupid action I took that has caused hurt and humiliation to brother Joe Lye. After service last sunday, he admonished me and I apologized. Though the apology was accepted, I feel I need to offer the apology here in the blog. Joe, I am sorry for the silly mistake I made. I am praying the hurt will only be for a short while.

What Happened?
Just before the service started, Joe walked up on stage with his instrument. I did not want the music arrangements to be disturbed since he did not come for practice and soundcheck. So instead of using PCC handbook guideline 4.4, which states "worship leader has the right to ask members to step down for that sunday if they are deemed counter productive to the worship service or to the team" , I made a wrong call by instructing the soundman to mute his microphone. Yeah, I know, stupid of me!

How Could You Make Such A Silly Decision?
I took the easy way out at a moment of weakness. Instead of exercising my authority, I thought I could please everybody by muting the mic. That way, Joe gets to play and not disturb the entire team. Well it backfired! I am not offering any excuses. It's just a dumb move - period.

Now why didn't I exercise my authority? Because we were about to go up and like I have said before, this is not sunday karaoke. I didn't want to get distracted or embroiled in negative emotions. Worship leading is not about singing some songs to Jesus. It is an utmost holy endeavour to lead God's people into His presence. Moving in prophecies, gifts of the Holy Spirit, healings and things of the Spirit (for me) requires concentration, prayer and spending much time seeking the face of God. So I did not want to be distracted and as a result, I made a big boo boo. In other words, I did not have the strength/will at that moment to say no to Joe. If I had, he would be okay and so will I.

So Will Anything Good Come Out of This?
For one, a new article on this blog.
Two, now you know that we have a PCC handbook and implementation has started.
Three, I need to buck up.
Four, you need to buck up as we are now heading to a more spiritual emphasis of moving in power ministry, prophecy, gifts of the Holy Spirit, etc.
Lastly, pray for me and Joe. I am optimistic that this will be a start of more good things to come after the hurt has healed.