Missionary Richard Babcock recounts his extraordinary experiences on a trip to Bangka, off Sumatra, and Christians who made it an island of faith and hope. ‘… THE purpose of our visit to Bangka was to search out a group of Chinese workers at a mining settlement on the isolated west coast not accessible to sailing […]
IN MY office hangs a poster of the painting Dalit Madonna by Jyoti Sahi, an artist and practical theologian from South India. The Eastern orthodox tradition calls Mary Theotokos, or “Godbearer”, because she quite literally bore God’s presence into the world. A friend of mine tells me that God specialises in calling upon unlikely suspects […]
HOW do you measure a minister? Who is a good minister? And what is the shape of success in ministry? According to Paul, a minister has to watch closely his life and doctrine, and his teaching and ministry. Notice the importance of taking care to ensure faithfulness in one’s inner life and outer ministry. Watch […]
A FEW years ago, my family and I visited Ground Zero in New York City. There was a long line of visitors. While gazing at the rocks and concrete where the World Trade Center once stood, something caught my attention. I saw, at a corner, the remains of a steel structure. It was in the […]
Should Christians subscribe to the theory of evolution? MUCH depends on what one means by evolution. In his Origin of Species (1859), Charles Darwin hypothesised that all organisms are related to a “common ancestry” and arose through a process of mutation and “natural selection”. The latter refers to the process by which organisms arose and persist by the random processes of nature. The […]
In this series we shall focus on a category of (generally) nameless and overlooked characters in the Old Testament – the servants. In the social and economic structures of the day, households were large establishments, comprising the family, together with the extended family of siblings, relatives, concubines, children and a host of servants. Throughout the […]
THIS year marks 150 years of Methodism in India and 25 years of autonomy of The Methodist Church in India, and celebrations were held all over the country. The main celebrations, however, were held in Lucknow from Oct 20 to 22. Methodist connectionalism across the seas was evident when it was disclosed that Barker […]
Asian Christianity exemplified “MY PRAYER is that missionaries will one day be sent from this country, and maybe even back to the United States and Europe.” These words of Bishop Dr Robert Solomon met with a resounding Amen from the congregation at the Ordination Service of the 3rd Annual Meeting of the Methodist Mission […]
ON A cool Friday evening, Aug 11, 2006, about 1,300 staff members from all the Methodist schools in Singapore gathered for the annual Methodist Schools Staff Get-Together. We were privileged to have Bishop Dr Robert Solomon as our Guest-of-Honour, who was also the speaker at the worship service. With the theme, “One Heart, One Voice”, […]
Transforming ‘A Bright New World’ from book to musical IT WAS a musical with a difference boasting an original script and music, and an exciting collaboration between Fairfield Methodist Secondary School and Fairfield Methodist Primary School. More importantly, it traced the rich history of Fairfield’s 118 years, spanning traumatic global and local instabilities while reflecting […]
