Worship

Without checking your calendar, take a moment to guess what day it is. If you have no idea, you are not alone. In recent years, this question seems to have become more difficult to answer!

Worship for a Sunday church service usually begins with joyful praise. But how do those who come with sheer brokenness, anxiety, doubt, fear, anger or shame fully participate?

A brief look at the top ten worship songs on Christian Copyright Licensing International’s list reveals what many of us sing in church today—heartfelt songs to God about how he saved each of us, and how we each resolve to live for him. While there is nothing wrong with such songs, they tend to dwell on our individual salvation experiences and responses. If these are the only songs we sing, we will be missing out on a vital part of God’s redemptive plan—that God has called us to be "a holy nation, people of his own possession" (1 Pet 2:9).

I have sometimes found patriotism and my Christian faith incompatible. Songs, both new and old, about eschatological hope provide rich imagery of our destiny when we are finally with the Lord, but also, sometimes inadvertently, promote dissatisfaction with our current state of affairs.1 Indeed, no earthly government will surpass the majesty and perfection of the […]

The bedrock of Christian faith is our belief in the triune God—the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, as revealed in Scripture and in the Incarnation. This is the God we worship, the One God in Three Persons, whose actions lead to our redemption and hope for eternal life. Our Trinitarian faith is enshrined […]

Victory is a sought-after but elusive commodity. People are quick to claim it, only to realise that it is still out of their reach. In recent times, countries were quick to claim victory in the battle against Covid-19, only to discover that yet another variant was about to hit them. In the past century, catastrophic […]

When attending an online church service at home in front of your laptop, TV or tablet on a Sunday morning, have you been “sitting around in your singlet, with one leg up and coffee in hand”? Dr Mark Chan may have painted an extreme picture but his joke encapsulated the purpose of Conversations Episode 2: […]

HOSANNA, LOUD HOSANNA (UMH 278) Hosanna, loud hosanna the little children sang; through pillared court and temple the lovely anthem rang. To Jesus, who had blessed them, close folded to his breast, the children sang their praises, the simplest and the best. From Olivet they followed mid an exultant crowd, the victory palm branch waving, […]

By the time this is published, Lunar New Year celebrations would be over, and some of us who do participate in it will be in “recovery mode”, fresh from the hectic festivities of shuttling to and from our extended families’ homes. Some families are very strict about their traditions: the order in which you greet […]

Take a look around your neighbourhood’s hawker centres, and you will realise something—more stalls are operating for shorter hours and for fewer days each week than compared to pre-pandemic times. At one level, this may seem unsurprising given the extent to which COVID-19 has affected businesses as a whole. But at a deeper level, this […]

It has been almost two years since COVID-19 disrupted our lives. It has been a long wait for this virus to leave and let us be! The act of waiting is not an easy task, and may cause anxiety and restlessness. However, waiting is part of life, and can foster patience—to think through what is […]

I once had an opportunity to serve as a musician on a mission trip worship team during the Christmas period. We were invited to lead a rally at the host church, and our worship leader planned a setlist of songs matching the message. After all, that’s the hallmark of a good program: a seamless, integrated […]