Small Group

The one thing I remember very clearly about small group ministry class was when our teacher Bro Casey during the first lesson talked about how many people today go to church together but go home alone. How often do the people in my church and small group feel alone in their worries and struggles? When people do not feel that the church cares, then they will turn to other sources of help. It reminded me then that a small group must be a place where authentic Christianity is lived out, where people can be part of a true Christian community that cares. While the small group community strives to reach communities beyond itself, it must at the same time look to form a true community within where each person prioritizes the group above themselves – a community that feels like and acts like a real family. Only then, can we be attractive as a community to the outside world.

Very often, when we think of the small group where life transformation occurs, we think of the small group’s role to disciple those within through serious discussions or teachings. While that is true, caring for one another in the small group is also an essential ingredient for life transformation. In a community that cares, people can get encouragement to be faithful to their calling and to resist sin.

And no doubt, the idea of a true community where one can find support sounds attractive. But it takes a lot of effort from everyone, the willingness to take the risk of giving without receiving, of being vulnerable to share one’s life. But if the Holy Spirit is the one who binds us in unity, then it is possible through His transformative work in all our Christian communities.

Another thing that I learnt through my readings and lessons was that a leader has to take on different roles during different stages of the group, the four stages being forming, storming, performing and termination. During the forming stage, the leader should give clear directions for the group, to allow people to have a sense in security in the leader and the group. However, in the storming stage, where people may have conflicts with one another or with the leader, it is unwise for the leader to exert his authority forcefully on the group to resolve the conflicts. Instead the conflicts need to be resolved amiably. In general, the leader should explain clearly why he feels a certain decision is preferable. In the performing stage, where the group is doing well, it is all the more important for the leader to not be the sole person making decisions, but rather empower the group members to make decisions for the group as well, allowing them to take ownership of the group. Though I have learnt about the four stages of a group before, I only learnt it from the perspective of how the group will behave in each season, but not how the leader should lead accordingly. As such, when my group went into the storming stage, I was taken aback that I felt forced to take on a different style of leadership to facilitate people through the conflicts, rather than just merely providing directions for the group.

A third thing that I learnt during class was the facilitation techniques that can be used during small group sharing and bible studies. The ACTS model is a rule of thumb that is easy to remember and is very useful for small group sharing. The acronym stands for Acknowledge everyone who speaks, clarify what is said and felt, turning it back to the group to generate discussions and summarize what has been said. At the first stage of acknowledging people who speak, it is important to encourage people to speak by starting the discussions with questions that are easy to answer. This allows people to feel involved as they are able to easily contribute ideas. It is also important to know the composition of your group as introverts may prefer to pen down their thoughts before sharing them. When people are sharing, they should do so one at a time and ask everyone to pay attention if necessary, so that everyone feels valued at the discussion. At the second stage, it is important to clarify what has been said so that there no misunderstandings among the group. This can be done either by paraphrasing what has been said or by expanding on what has been said. Subsequently, the third step is where the facilitation leader can either redirect the group back on topic by asking limiting questions or to lead the group into deeper areas of concern by asking leading questions. Finally, the leader should summarize the discussion at the end to encapsulate what has been shared and what the group can take away from it.

Apart from the above, I have been blessed by the small group discussions that we had within class, where people were very willing to share openly about their lives and always ready to encourage each other. It has been a great 10 weeks!

Extracting the Power of the Word

It's my second time taking Biblical Interpretation class under the same teacher haha.. Don't think many people have had that experience! Nevertheless, I felt that I have learnt so much during these 33 hours of class squashed into one and a half weeks.. (few more hours more to go!)

The first thing that I caught was the danger of reading the word with the tinted lenses of our presuppositions. (Billings, J. Todd, The Word of God for the People of God) It is dangerous because we will unwittingly inject our own preconceived notions into the text, and derive meanings that neither can be found from the text nor what the author or God intended it to be. For the majority of Christians, however, this practice is not nearly as fatal, since most of us derive our theological understandings not from the bible, due to how little we read it.. sadly. Instead, we come to understand who God is from basically living life, like how our parents talked about God when we were young, how we interpret our own life experiences and those around us, how the pastor in our church portrays God to be. And thus, if we are surrounded by a community of believers who are strong in their bible, we'll be able to derive a theological understanding that is accurate too? Unfortunately, the community who is strong in their word does not come from nowhere. Since the majority of believers are not strong in their word, there is not only a need to change how the community views the word of God, but also a need to educate Christians on how they can study the word so that they can extract its life transforming power, and it starts with us. Before that happens, the church will be in danger of being a community that guides each other with our subjective ideas of who God is.
A corollary of Christians deriving their theological understandings from experience and the community rather than the word of God directly is the foundation of their faith becomes easily shaken. When we do not know where in scripture we can find the promises of God that we cling on to, letting go of them becomes easy when we begin to doubt if God ever said them. Falsely interpreting passages as promises of God has an even heftier repercussion, as we live life we a false sense of who God is, and we question if God is as faithful as He claims to be as we do not see the fulfilment of promises He never gave.  

Reading the word with our preconceived notions is also dangerous because we inevitably limit its meaning and it disallows us from experiencing the fullness of its message. This, I feel could be a reason why people do not see the need the need to read the scripture. It either agrees with their pre-conceived notions, thus does not adding much value to them, or the meaning seems so obscure that they decide to skip over it altogether, since something so mysterious or abstract probably would not have much real life applications. Consequently reading the word becomes a religious duty for Christians and the word loses its power to transform lives.

The skills of interpretation are definitely not natural. In my natural state, I tend not to rely on commentaries, partly because I believe that I should be able to figure out everything that God wants to speak from the text alone, partly because I like the process of figuring out stuff for myself, and partly also because I’ve never believed that commentaries are necessarily right. Naturally, I would want to know the context of where a text came from, for the surrounding passages would definitely change the way we understand the text in question. However, often I forget that there is a historical context that may or may not be found in the text, e.g. who the author is, who he is writing to, the reason for writing the letter, the specific happenings at the time of writing, and any relevant geographical, historical, political, customs, ideological information that would change the way we understand the culture of the original intended audience. Often, I get to impatient in wanting to know what the text says, that I forget that I do not have enough information to do so and jump straight into the text.

But at the same time, I have also realized that the stated purpose of why a book was written in a commentary may not always be correct. Our understanding of the details in the book may sometimes shape the way we understand the overall message of the book. And of course, our understanding of the overall message will affect our understanding of the details in the text. This is something called the hermeneutical spiral! It’s the process of slowly coming closer to the intended meaning of the text. (Tate, W. Randolph, Biblical Interpretation: An Integrated Approach, page 36) Glad there is name for the phenomenon I’ve been experiencing all along.

One aspect of biblical interpretation, which is probably the most fundamental, is that we need to be aware of our own pre-understandings, to not see the text with our tinted lenses of theology, but rather let the text speak for itself. Easier said than done, but I have experienced how fulfilling reading the bible can be, especially narratives, when I do so. Try reading the Noah’s Ark flood without assuming that God is good, but instead see how the story itself shows that God is gracious through the flood; or not assuming that Abraham is a righteous person, and see how the text shows that God is again the one who is faithful in the life of Abraham. At first it may seem as though you are taking one step back in knowing God, but in letting the text speak for itself, we see that God is who He says he is. Reading Robert Altar's famous book titled The Art of Biblical Narrative, I am reminded that the author is telling us a message through the narrative, and not merely giving a recount of historical events. If we merely focus on the details, we may miss the message the author is trying to convey. But yet the details in the text, such as the art of repetition, and the art of using dialogue, cannot be missed either as they add to the overall message of the book.

The most important aspect of biblical interpretation is of course the application of the eternal principles that we gather from reading the text. For this, it seems that there is no technique to derive deep and meaningful application points other than spending time reflecting deeply and widely about the issues of life. Perhaps this is where the Holy Spirit comes in as our counsellor to guide us into all truth, and the wisdom from God comes to help us apply His truth into our lives. But we too have a part to play. How much of our lives are we willing to let the word of God question?

But prove 
     yourselves doers of the word, 
     and 
     not merely hearers 
          who delude themselves.  
For 
          if anyone is a hearer of the word 
          and 
          not a doer, 
     he is like a man 
          who looks at his natural face in a mirror;
for  
     once he has looked at himself 
     and 
     gone away,
     he has immediately forgotten
          what kind of person he was.  
But 
one who looks intently at the perfect law, 
     the law of liberty
and 
abides by it, 
     not having become a forgetful hearer 
     but
     an effectual doer, 
this man will be blessed in what he does.

(James 1:22-25, NASB)

Loving the stranger

I am now taking an intensive two-week module on hospitality in bible college. Through this module I have learnt that hospitality is a duty of every Christian and must be done for strangers within the body of Christ - to make the stranger feel at home with us.

It is natural for us to love those who are close to us, natural for us to give when we have plenty. For these we need no command to love, and indeed we would be no different from the world if we merely loved those that are close to our hearts with the plenty that we have. But our Christian identity forces us to look beyond our shared experiences, culture, personality or preferences or lack thereof. If we acknowledge Jesus to be our saviour and God to be our Father, then we univocally also acknowledge all fellow believers as our brothers and sisters at the same time. The things that I do naturally for people I care for, are the things that I need to do for the stranger and requires me to constantly make sure my heart has room for more people.

One lesson that really impacted me was the application of hospitality in teaching. We should never be teaching people so that they can just learn new information. But it is always to empower them so that they can live their Christian lives more effectively after the teaching. Every idea taught then, must be scrutinized to ensure that they are not just new information for the listener, but will somehow cause him to question his beliefs and the way he lives his life. This requires the me to be not only be familiar with the content I want to teach, but also the state of the heart, mind and lives of those I teach. With God's grace, may I be able empower people to live victorious Christian lives through my teachings.

One invigorating experience was the hospitality that was experienced within the class itself. Food was willingly prepared in abundance by various classmates without being asked for the 27 people in the class. So much effort for people they barely knew. The teacher showed us hospitality by becoming one of us when we broke up discussions, and also by giving us ample breaks! This really challenged me to think how I can be more hospitable to the people around me in my office, in my lifegroup, in my family.

During this class, I definitely struggled with the intense classroom hours. It is not easy for me to stay focused during class for hours on end even with the breaks in between. And at the same time I have to juggle between leading my lifegroup, preparing to serve as the guitarist during the retreat next week and prepare for my biblical interpretation and small group ministry classes that both require readings and assignments to be completed before the start of class. Serving God is never easy.. but I am glad that I am surrounded by many who are making the same if not much more sacrifice than me and it encourages me to persevere as I am reminded that it is always worth it.

Nostalgic reflections from my first module at bible college

Taking my first module at ACTS bible college - and an intensive one at that. The module, "Research in Ethics", combines ethics with the research methodology and must say that I have gained much from this course..

--the research methodology can be more systematic--

While listening to the Han Hui (a co-teacher for the module) teach about the research methodology, it felt somewhat similar to what I have I learnt during my writing modules in USP and the lesson felt.. really nostalgic. Reminded about the numerous sleepless nights I took just to define a research problem that made sense for each paper I wrote. Well, for this module, the problem definition for our research papers was more or less given to us and are more or less along the lines or "is abortion/LGBT/caring for the environment ethical"? 

However, what I learned and greatly needed to know, was how to conduct my research in a more systematic manner. If there was one lesson that I stuck with me very deeply from USP writing modules, it is that writing is not merely an expression of your thinking. what our writing and thinking share is a two-way relationship where the thought results in the writing but the writing also sharpens one's thinking. As a result, a dynamic relationship is at work every time you write where you are constantly refining your thoughts and writing through the writing-thinking process and results in a piece of work that goes way beyond what your mind is capable of without the writing process. However, because the writing is so dynamic, the process has often felt very disorganized and unpredictable. Entire paragraphs can be shifted around, divided, and/or even deleted -- just to be rewritten later again. I have scraped entire theses in the midst of writing as well. That's why when Han Hui said that a detailed outline should be done before the main paper, it made so much sense to me haha. This effectively separates the messiness, which occurs in the writing of the detailed outline, from the actual writing making the whole processed a lot more systematic!

Maybe you are wondering why something so obvious has never occurred to me. I am not sure either. Perhaps I was just impatient to start writing the paper? I am wondering, as I am writing this blog, whether it would have been helpful to write a outline for the complex papers I wrote back in USP. And hmm.. I think it would, but definitely would not eliminate the thinking done during the actual writing. I think a simple detailed outline is most helpful when your paper has a certain breadth to it, where you are considering the same topic from various angles and perspectives. In those cases, perhaps most of the thinking can be done while writing the outline itself because the material to the research problem lies mainly not in your thinking, but in the literary sources found on the topic, and your main contribution is to access the sources and to come to your own position. However, writing a simple detailed outline may not be able to account for the amount of thinking needed to derive a new perspective on a topic. When more writing occurs in the outline, then more thinking can occur there. Nevertheless, I do think writing an outline is a good practice to help me think more systematically.

--not about what you can't do, but what you should--

On reflection, I think my view of the world has been quite simplistic and it never really occurred to me that real ethical dilemmas can occur. Perhaps it was because I always felt that no matter how difficult the decision seems, God will know what is the correct decision, so all we need to do is to figure what God wants us to do. Seems simple, but sometimes it isn't that easy to figure out sometimes, especially when your emotions are in the way. Would you tell a lie to save your friends from being murdered? Steal an antidote to save? Would it be a necessary lesser evil or a good you are committing? Complex issues. (I think the greatest moral dilemma I face is "should I break this promise I made to fulfill this other promise I made?") The conflict is there because we think in terms of moral laws/principles. You shall not lie, steal, murder etc. However, what we need to realize is that at each and every decision, there is something that you should do, that God wants you to do, and all other options are that of disobedience. To know what that is, I need to study his word intently, and ask the Holy Spirit for His counsel.

--moral laws/principles are not carved in stone-- even though God carved the ten commandments into stone

The laws in the Old Testament were not given to restrict the Jewish people, but to protect their community from their human tendency to sin, and to protect other nations from the same. In the same way, moral laws and principles are there not to limit what we do with our lives, but to prevent us from destroying our own life and the lives of others. They work in most cases. However, when a moral dilemma occurs, one of the moral principles may not be applicable in that situation as obeying that principle may not yield in the intended purpose of that law, that is, to prevent us from hurting ourselves and others. But at the same time, we need to try to fulfill all moral principles as best as we can, since a conflict may not be there all the time.

So we should also not be too quick to judge the decisions of others as well if we do not know the full facts of the matter. 

--knowledge is useless without power and understanding of grace--

Knowing what to do is completely useless if we don't end up doing it. Christians need to constantly remember that we have the power to do what we know to be right, and to forgive those who do not. Knowing of this power is important because the power of the Holy Spirit comes not when we are faced with the decision, but only after we have decided, which results in many Christians giving up without trying.

At the same time, being grateful for what we have received, be it from God or others, is critical to help us make difficult decisions. In those times, we may be feeling like we are losing out by making that choice. So we need to remember that we have already been blessed with many things that go beyond what we have worked for, and that motivates us to do good. For the Christian this all lines up: the eternal death we have received through Christ, in light of the death we deserve, compels us to obey Christ in every situation.

--how does God define what is good?--

I have had this question for the loooongest time. Is he a consequentialist? So that he determines whether an action is good by knowing the full consequences it results in? And by his perfect knowledge he decrees absolute obedience to his commands?

Or is he a absolutist? So that he creates laws as he deems fit, that seem beautiful if followed and surpassed. And he designs and guides the universe to obey those laws, such that obedience to those laws will result in good consequences?

I guess somehow I have determined that God must be both a consequentialist and absolutist haha.