And I am grieved, so grieved.
What happened was that I was in my pastor’s office with my pastor and another brother-in-Christ. I don’t remember how the conversation went that way, but they suddenly mentioned that the pastor I knew turned away from Christ and decided to embrace Judaism. For a moment I couldn’t accept it. There must be other pastors in Singapore with the same name, right? It must have been one of the others, right? It can’t be the same pastor I knew so long ago, right?
Wrong.
One of the memories of that pastor I remember vividly even to this day came from a church meeting more than 16 years ago. The altar call for that meeting was for people suffering from migraine. I did not really believe I would be healed if I went up for prayer, but I was desperate enough to try anything (Yeah, that happens). When I went up for prayer it was that pastor who anointed me with oil, prayed for me simply and authoritatively in the name of Jesus. And the migraine went away and stayed away for more than ten YEARS.
Now I find that he left the Lord and decided to go for Judaism instead. How could this have happened?
This is how it started. Years back the One New Man movement started in Singapore. Based on Ephesians 2:14-18, it had the noblest of intentions – to make the Christians in Singapore aware of the Jewish roots of our faith and to work towards reuniting Jewish and Gentile (non-Jew) believers in Jesus.
Very soon, I started seeing disturbing attitudes within that movement. It was one thing for them to teach on the significance of the Jewish feasts (great!), it was quite another to have people condemning and mocking churches that ignored the Jewish feasts while paying attention to evangelism. It was enlightening for me to see the Passover supper re-enacted the way Jesus did it on the night he was betrayed. It was worrying to see people denouncing their home churches as being deceived and corrupted by pagan influences because their home churches didn’t do it exactly that way.
I don’t know enough of the people in the movement to decide if the movement was of God or not. But I did see some people given a lot of new knowledge and they got heady with it. Suddenly they felt as if they were the only ones who knew the TRUTH ™ and were therefore superior to the rest of the body of Christ who did not agree with them. In the midst of all the new information they received, they forgot that knowledge puffs up but love builds up (1 Cor 8:1). The new knowledge became the source of significance for some of those involved with the movement, and so it was reasonable for them to continue pursuing more and more of it.
And as a result they were eventually led astray from a pure and sincere devotion to Christ (2 Cor 11:3). Whether it ends with massive theological errors or with gross moral failings, there will NEVER be good fruit coming from pursuing knowledge out of a desire for a sense of significance or superiority.
And why am I sharing with you about this?
Because I don’t want to be responsible for this myself. I am working to bring about a reformation in the way people see and practice worship ministry. Like the One New Man movement, what I am teaching is based on the Scriptures; on top of that it works a lot better, gives better results and with less effort, than the conventional teachings from Praise and Worship Inc.
When people start seeing how well my paradigm fits together and how effective in worship ministry they suddenly become, it’s too easy for them to get all puffed up with the knowledge I impart. Hey, I have to keep a constant guard against that myself!
Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into him who is the Head, that is, Christ. From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work. (Eph 4:15-16, NIV)
I’ve said this before in my book and I’ll say it again. In order for the entire body of Christ to be built up, every part HAS to do its work. Every part has to have unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God in order that we may be built up together. And that not only means that MY part is important (you just can’t make it without me) but YOUR part is important also.
In other words, I just can’t make it without YOU.
Once you take that attitude towards people who disagree with you, humility comes very easily. For me I have a long list of parts of the Body of Christ who irritate me no end. And usually what they have in common is a smug sense of superiority over the rest of us, because they think have some secret insider knowledge that we don’t have, and we are all backsliden, paganized, deceived by the devil or whatever, because we don’t agree with them.
I have to look at those people and tell myself “I need them. I can’t make it without them! That’s what the Bible says!” It’s not difficult, just impossible. That’s why I need God to help me do it. That really helps to keep me humble!
Who is weak, and I do not feel weak? Who is led into sin, and I do not inwardly burn? (2 Cor 11:29, NIV)
That verse pretty much sums up my heart right now as I think about that pastor. Before I head off to continue praying through the matter (until I am back at peace again) I’d like to share with you one parting thought.
When the One New Man movement started in Singapore, the people who first embraced it were mainly from the worship ministry. I guess it is the nature of our ministry to constantly desire to know more and more about the God we worship. And what the movement offered, a deeper insight into the Old Testament, was exactly what many worship ministry people want (and need).
But some of those involved found themselves caught up with the trappings of Jewish-style worship (minor chord progressions, shofars and singing songs that were partially in Hebrew) and they were distracted from worshiping in Spirit and in Truth (John 4:23-24). They started assuming that their worship is more pleasing to God because they were singing in Hebrew, rather than depending on Jesus, our Great High Priest, to make their sacrifices of praise acceptable (Heb 13:15).
And when those trappings were not easily accepted by the average Singaporean congregation, it is easy for the worship ministry people to think that those people are not ‘true’ worshippers because they do not worship God the ‘right’ way. Continuing to do things the ‘right’ way became more important than ministering to the congregation, to serving the people God bought with his own blood.
The fault DOES NOT lie with the One New Man movement. It wasn’t studying Old Testament worship that caused all these problems, it was because of certain attitudes hidden within the hearts of SOME of the people involved, and those attitudes eventually bore bad fruit. And this can happen with ANY worship movement.
So always guard your heart. Remember that worship ministry is to serve God’s people. We rise to our highest when we humble ourselves to be a blessing to the children of God (Mark 10:43-45).
That’s about it for now. Do keep me in prayer, that God will help me and comfort me in my grief. Be blessed!
What happened was that I was in my pastor’s office with my pastor and another brother-in-Christ. I don’t remember how the conversation went that way, but they suddenly mentioned that the pastor I knew turned away from Christ and decided to embrace Judaism. For a moment I couldn’t accept it. There must be other pastors in Singapore with the same name, right? It must have been one of the others, right? It can’t be the same pastor I knew so long ago, right?
Wrong.
One of the memories of that pastor I remember vividly even to this day came from a church meeting more than 16 years ago. The altar call for that meeting was for people suffering from migraine. I did not really believe I would be healed if I went up for prayer, but I was desperate enough to try anything (Yeah, that happens). When I went up for prayer it was that pastor who anointed me with oil, prayed for me simply and authoritatively in the name of Jesus. And the migraine went away and stayed away for more than ten YEARS.
Now I find that he left the Lord and decided to go for Judaism instead. How could this have happened?
This is how it started. Years back the One New Man movement started in Singapore. Based on Ephesians 2:14-18, it had the noblest of intentions – to make the Christians in Singapore aware of the Jewish roots of our faith and to work towards reuniting Jewish and Gentile (non-Jew) believers in Jesus.
Very soon, I started seeing disturbing attitudes within that movement. It was one thing for them to teach on the significance of the Jewish feasts (great!), it was quite another to have people condemning and mocking churches that ignored the Jewish feasts while paying attention to evangelism. It was enlightening for me to see the Passover supper re-enacted the way Jesus did it on the night he was betrayed. It was worrying to see people denouncing their home churches as being deceived and corrupted by pagan influences because their home churches didn’t do it exactly that way.
I don’t know enough of the people in the movement to decide if the movement was of God or not. But I did see some people given a lot of new knowledge and they got heady with it. Suddenly they felt as if they were the only ones who knew the TRUTH ™ and were therefore superior to the rest of the body of Christ who did not agree with them. In the midst of all the new information they received, they forgot that knowledge puffs up but love builds up (1 Cor 8:1). The new knowledge became the source of significance for some of those involved with the movement, and so it was reasonable for them to continue pursuing more and more of it.
And as a result they were eventually led astray from a pure and sincere devotion to Christ (2 Cor 11:3). Whether it ends with massive theological errors or with gross moral failings, there will NEVER be good fruit coming from pursuing knowledge out of a desire for a sense of significance or superiority.
And why am I sharing with you about this?
Because I don’t want to be responsible for this myself. I am working to bring about a reformation in the way people see and practice worship ministry. Like the One New Man movement, what I am teaching is based on the Scriptures; on top of that it works a lot better, gives better results and with less effort, than the conventional teachings from Praise and Worship Inc.
When people start seeing how well my paradigm fits together and how effective in worship ministry they suddenly become, it’s too easy for them to get all puffed up with the knowledge I impart. Hey, I have to keep a constant guard against that myself!
Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into him who is the Head, that is, Christ. From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work. (Eph 4:15-16, NIV)
I’ve said this before in my book and I’ll say it again. In order for the entire body of Christ to be built up, every part HAS to do its work. Every part has to have unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God in order that we may be built up together. And that not only means that MY part is important (you just can’t make it without me) but YOUR part is important also.
In other words, I just can’t make it without YOU.
Once you take that attitude towards people who disagree with you, humility comes very easily. For me I have a long list of parts of the Body of Christ who irritate me no end. And usually what they have in common is a smug sense of superiority over the rest of us, because they think have some secret insider knowledge that we don’t have, and we are all backsliden, paganized, deceived by the devil or whatever, because we don’t agree with them.
I have to look at those people and tell myself “I need them. I can’t make it without them! That’s what the Bible says!” It’s not difficult, just impossible. That’s why I need God to help me do it. That really helps to keep me humble!
Who is weak, and I do not feel weak? Who is led into sin, and I do not inwardly burn? (2 Cor 11:29, NIV)
That verse pretty much sums up my heart right now as I think about that pastor. Before I head off to continue praying through the matter (until I am back at peace again) I’d like to share with you one parting thought.
When the One New Man movement started in Singapore, the people who first embraced it were mainly from the worship ministry. I guess it is the nature of our ministry to constantly desire to know more and more about the God we worship. And what the movement offered, a deeper insight into the Old Testament, was exactly what many worship ministry people want (and need).
But some of those involved found themselves caught up with the trappings of Jewish-style worship (minor chord progressions, shofars and singing songs that were partially in Hebrew) and they were distracted from worshiping in Spirit and in Truth (John 4:23-24). They started assuming that their worship is more pleasing to God because they were singing in Hebrew, rather than depending on Jesus, our Great High Priest, to make their sacrifices of praise acceptable (Heb 13:15).
And when those trappings were not easily accepted by the average Singaporean congregation, it is easy for the worship ministry people to think that those people are not ‘true’ worshippers because they do not worship God the ‘right’ way. Continuing to do things the ‘right’ way became more important than ministering to the congregation, to serving the people God bought with his own blood.
The fault DOES NOT lie with the One New Man movement. It wasn’t studying Old Testament worship that caused all these problems, it was because of certain attitudes hidden within the hearts of SOME of the people involved, and those attitudes eventually bore bad fruit. And this can happen with ANY worship movement.
So always guard your heart. Remember that worship ministry is to serve God’s people. We rise to our highest when we humble ourselves to be a blessing to the children of God (Mark 10:43-45).
That’s about it for now. Do keep me in prayer, that God will help me and comfort me in my grief. Be blessed!
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