Queen's Road Cell

Some pics from our Christmas party. Thanks to the carollers!

2  Now when John heard in prison about the deeds of the Christ, he sent word by his disciples 3  and said to him, “Are you the one who is to come, or shall we look for another?” 4  And Jesus answered them, “Go and tell John what you hear and see: 5  the blind receive their sight and the lame walk, lepers [ a ] are cleansed and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up, and the poor have good news preached to them. 6  And blessed is the one who is not offended by me.” 7  As they went away, Jesus began to speak to the crowds concerning John: “What did you go out into the wilderness to see? A reed shaken by the wind? 8  What then did you go out to see? A man [ b ] dressed in soft clothing? Behold, those who wear soft clothing are in kings' houses. 9  What then did you go out to see? A prophet? [ c ] Yes, I tell you, and more than a prophet. 10  This is he of whom it is written, “‘Behold, I send my messenger before your face,  ...

Today we addressed the idea of whether one can receive Jesus as Saviour, but not as Lord - or put another way, whether we can be saved without at the same time showing evidence of submission to Jesus' authority in our lives. This used to be called "the Lordship controversy" and the underlying ideas are carried on by the "Free Grace movement". So, the teaching goes that one can be saved, and yet show no outward evidence of salvation for a time, with the possibility that one's works are only known to God. The ideas behind this are represented by some churches in Singapore that teach that, once saved by grace, there is no need for continued repentance, and that our salvation is assured. This is an important pastoral issue, because it is true that modern evangelistic methods downplay the need for repentance and surrender. This leads to people inside churches who think they are saved but have never known true salvation and the experience and reality of the indw...

Edmund Chan says here that "leadership is a process, not an event". Failure to understand due process is a reason for ineffective leadership - leadership without traction (= pulling ability). He gives 7 processes in visionary leadership: 1. Leadership by rhetoric - communicating the vision. 2. Leadership by equipping - telling followers not only what to do, but why and how it can be done. 3. Leadership by example - followers need to see vision being modeled by their leaders. The latter must lead by example, not by exhortation. 4. Leadership by mobilization. We must lead people to change - refusing to settle for agreement, but moving on to involvement and resonance. 5. Leadership by infrastructuring. This is the difficult task of decentralizing authority into smaller groups and assigning responsibility to their leaders to get everyone involved. 6. Leadership by encouragement. We point people to God, who is great, and who acts on our behalf. 7. Leadership by empo...

I would like to thank the pastors for this opportunity to preach the Word today. If we believe what Hebrews 4:12 tells us, that the Word of God is living and active, and is like a sword that is able to cut through our defences and pretensions and convict us deeply, then let us pray together for both Word and Spirit to bring illumination, instruction and invigoration into our lives today. Pray Recap: a string of judgements, and a bleak outlook, yet at the end of chapter 10 there is promise of relief for God’s remnant people, and this theme is then continued in chapter 11. In our scripture passage today you will see a lot of contrasts, a lot of opposites, and I want us to pay careful attention to these words because if we dig deep enough we will begin to uncover meaning that would have escaped us with only a casual glance, meaning that the Holy Spirit would reveal to us in order to make us better disciples as doers of the Word. Chapter 11 begins with some...