Tag Christian

Strong Marriages for Strong Families

andrewong2024 3 Comments

No one can deny and undermine the significant role of marriages in building a strong society.

Strong marriages provide children with a safe and secure environment where they can find support and develop uprightly. And studies have shown that children from broken homes or dysfunctional families are more likely to become young offenders.

When families breakdown, society pays a heavy price. This is clear to see with the recent occurence of gang-related fights that erupted in Downtown East and Bukit Panjang.

However, the opposite end is also true- strong families lead to a strong society.

Marriage versus ministry

Sadly, I think the health and longevity of marriages in the Christian community have often been overlooked among churches in general, with ‘ministry’ often taking more priority.

This narrow-minded and erroneous thinking is stemmed in a belief that God and His ministry (which often refers to church-related work) are closely intertwined and their priority should never be compromised.

Hence, it is not uncommon for couples to feel as if marriage is in conflict with ministry. The attitude seems to be: “Marriage is important, but my ministry is for God, and He deserves 100 percent.”

Perhaps the bluntness of the above statement is something that we would never say in a blatant manner.

Normally, this type of thinking creeps in subtly, especially among church leaders and members that are considered committed to a church’s vision and mission.

Because of ‘ministry’, very often our marriages are left at the back burner. And our spouse and children are the unfortunate casualties due to our negligence.

Marriage is ministry

Early this year, a Barna survey revealed that Christians suffered the highest rates of divorce when compared with other groups of religion. That is both alarming and disturbing.

“Now the overseer is to be above reproach, faithful to his wife, temperate, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, not given to drunkenness, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money.

He must manage his own family well and see that his children obey him, and he must do so in a manner worthy of full respect. (If anyone does not know how to manage his own family, how can he take care of God’s church?)”

1 Timothy 3:1-7 (NIV)

In the light of scripture and understanding God’s heart, I’m against that old thinking and order of priority. If not, how different are we from non-Christians who pursue careers at the expense of their marriages?

As the above scripture suggests, the biblical order of priority ought to be our relationship with God first, followed by our marriage and then ministry (which can refer to our church or secular work).

Personally, I believe that marriage is a ministry like no other; a God-given platform to impact lives within our families and the best opportunity to leave a lasting legacy for generations.

When our marriages are thriving, we can truly be “salt and light” in our society by building a strong social foundation through our families to make a lasting change with the next generation.

Be AWARE: Where is the Church?

andrewong2024 8 Comments

The recent Association of Women for Action and Research (AWARE) debacle had created quite a furore on a national level.

In the end, the now defunct new guard led by then newly elected President, Ms Josie Lau was overthrown by the old guard with a resounding no vote of confidence against them by AWARE members.

Even as the dust has settled after that extraordinary general meeting (EGM), there are still plenty of opinions and views of this AWARE saga being debated in cyberspace.

However, it is not my provocative to take sides.

Out-of-touch of issues

In my personal opinion, this AWARE debacle offers many takeaways and one that has largely exposed the gap between the Church and the world.

From my observation of the new guard’s actions, the reports from the media and the general reaction of Christians, it clearly revealed how out-of-touch and out-of-depth we are with our world.

Firstly, the new guard had cited that the reason for their sudden takeover of AWARE’s leadership was due to the old guard’s agenda in promoting lesbianism and homosexuality as an alternative lifestyle through sex education in certain schools.

Apparently, that discovery caused a knee-jerk reaction to their dubious takeover with the new guard seizing nine of the 12 positions on AWARE’s executive committee. It was subsequently revealed that 80 of the 102 the election attendees turned out to be newbies who had joined AWARE in recent months.

More unhappiness and tension escalated when Dr Thio Su Mien, the self-styled “Feminist Mentor” revealed that she was the person responsible for the takeover. Later, it was also found that she and several of the new elected leaders were members of a same church.

Out-of-depth in relating

Secondly, many members were left disappointed in how Ms Lau and her team was not able to answer many of the questions asked at the EGM.

It was reported that even though members kept asking to “please give me the right of reply”, the new guard stuck mainly to statements that had been already released to the media.

For instance, when queried on their stand on homosexuality, Ms Lau sidestepped the issue and maintained that AWARE would remain a secular society that would provide support to homosexual women.

One well-known blogger, Yawning Bread who was observing at the EGM made an interesting comment describing like-minded Christians supporters of Ms Lau at the EGM displaying “an over-earnest politeness in speech and demeanour, punctuated by frequent invocations of blessings and goodwill”.

He further commented that this behavioural pattern was the result of ‘brain-washing’. He wrote that “they were likely people who were uncomfortable with conflict and ambiguity, whose personality is such that they prefer order and hierarchy”.

I think with such encounters with Christians, it is not surprising that the world perceives us as being sheltered, anti-homosexual or judgemental.

Reasons for the gap

I believe that this gap between the Church and the world is caused because for too long we as Christians have loved people with a conditional love.

It is sad that we, Christians are known more for whom we hate rather than whom we love.

Too often, we have been too quick to judge and only choose to love readily those that are similar to us or who share closely to our beliefs and lifestyle.

Another reason might be us being too pre-occupied with church-related activities or ministries that have unknowingly drawn us away from the lost or unchurch.

Ironically, these activities or ministries have lost their original intent but have become self-serving and losing its relevance and effectiveness in reaching out to the lost and unchurch.

Whether intentionally or not, this has caused the Church to be out of touch with the world; losing our ability to identify and relate  compassionately towards the lost and unchurch.

Time to love radically and be the Church

We should not merely confine our love within the Christian community. Like Jesus, we must engage the culture we live in and start radically loving and serving people beyond the “four walls of the church”.

When we are IN the world serving others and not in isolation away from others, we’ll be in a better position to respond and address any moral or social issue in their early stage. This avoids any unnecessary knee-jerk reaction from us.

More importantly, we will be able to earn the credibility to lead in addressing such issues and avoid the same awkward situation that the new guard found themselves in when questioned during the EGM.

“Where were you when women were abused and battered in the home, and the girls raped?

“Where were you when children and husbands of Singapore women were denied citizenship?”

“Where were you? You were not there.”

WHERE IS THE CHURCH?