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| Monday, September 01, 2008
In Deep Worship : Barnabas Chong Barnabas Chong is pastor of Cairnhill Methodist Church, founder of In-Deep Worship, Worship.sg (a local worship blog, currently under worshipsg.wordpress.com) and catalyst for worship leaders to write songs and go deep into God's presence! Pastor Barnabas ChongBC : It all started because I was leaving Paya Lebar Methodist Church (PLMC) to serve in Cairnhill Methodist Church in August 2007. Having spent a significant amount of time encouraging songwriting and seeing some result, I wanted to use the blog as a means to keep in touch with the songwriters at PLMC. The space was originally known as the entheosmusic blog; however, a significant meeting in Jan 2008 with several songwriters (Pauline Phoon, Jon Wee, Eeleen Lin and Yu Khing) from various churches, I decided to move the entire entheosmusic blog to a more encompassing blog with the name "worshipsg". Entheosmusic was my effort, but worshipsg was intended to reflect our collective effort as songwriters in Singapore. Dawn : You said Worship.sg simply needs acceptance from local leaders. What kind of support have you received so far? What else can the local church do to help grow this platform? BC : Yes, we need acceptance, encouragement and commitment from local leaders. Thus far, the Lord has connected me with several people who are totally like-minded, namely Pastor Rupert Lim from Cornerstone, Andy Skarda and Daryl Wong from Integrity Music, Clement Chow from Wesley, Pastor Fabian Ghui from Covenant EF, Earl Tan from Christ Methodist Church and Pastor David Yem from City Harvest Church, just to name a few. To grow this platform, we need local churches to commit to singing each other's songs even though our local songs may not have the same level of quality as the well-loved US, UK, Australian and NZ songs but we have to start somewhere. All the great songwriters from these countries were first accepted, encouraged and given opportunities locally, their songs were first sung repeatedly locally before they were heard of globally. That's what needs to happen in Singapore too and it takes humility and unconditional love to embrace each other's songs. When we do this, it is an expression of the unity spoken of in Ps.133 and I believe God is going to bless us like never before! In-Deep Worship Sharing 1A Dawn : Being a pastor has its advantages. You are in a position to connect with church leaders who are more ready to converse. At the same time, you also mentioned that your own leaders at Carinhill Methodist support the Worship.sg and In-Deep Worship projects. Could you comment on the significance of local leadership in terms of growing local worship culture? BC : Worship leaders, directors and pastors do not live in a vacuum, we are part of a larger body. Worship (narrowly defined here to refer to only congregational worship in music and song) cannot stand on its own because it is intricately and intimately linked to prayer and the ministry of the Word. Thus, the strong support of the local church leadership is absolutely vital for locally written songs to be a blessing to our congregations. Almost all the key leaders in my church were there at the inaugural In-Deep Worship event on 20 Jun 08 and that is so encouraging and important to me. And they weren't there to merely observe and scrutinize, they were totally engaged in worship! Dawn : What principles do you hold dear when it comes to worship? How do you relate that to peers and people you work with? BC : After having served in the worship ministry since 1986, the Lord took me on a journey that started in 2005 to discover what I never knew about worship - the place of deeper worship. It is the place where we can no longer lift our hands, no longer sing with great enthuse, no longer speak in tongues, no longer play that cool guitar riff or that mesmerizing keyboard works. It goes beyond thanking God for His love, telling Him how much we love Him, how we want to surrender our lives to Him - it goes deeper than all that. It is the place where the manifest Presence of God is unmistakably real, where the only place to head for is the floor, where the only thing left to do is to shut up and listen; and in this place, the Lord reveals, it is the place of revelation, revelation that demands a response. It is not a principle that I hold dear, it is an encounter, an experience, an exchange - a divine exchange. I share this with those whom I serve with and I tell them I don't know enough about it and I invite them to join me in going deeper. In-Deep Worship Sharing 1B Dawn : What common misunderstandings do you come across when you share on worship, and how do you overcome that? After all, worship is not synonymous with music.BC : More recently, some whom I have talked with do not fully appreciate what I share with them about deeper worship. Many people, unfortunately some worship leaders too, think that as long as the whole church is singing loudly, jumping and dancing enthusiastically, clapping and lifting hands passionately, then the worship has been led well and we should all be very glad. I used to think that too. But since the Lord brought me to the place of deeper worship, I can never be content with a time of worship that merely scratches the surface; my desire has been to enter into that place again and again. It is the divine exchange that happens in that place of deeper worship that is totally life-changing, not louder, better, more creative sounds though they may be, and probably should be part of the whole worship experience. Dawn : Where, in your opinion, are we headed towards in the next 3-4 years in terms of local worship? BC : I believe the Lord wants more tears in worship, that's what entering the place of deeper worship is about too. When God speaks, and when the mirror of His Word shows us exactly what we are like, our natural response is often one of repentance, like Isaiah who exclaimed "I'm a man of unclean lips!". So this is also the place of tears. God will not despise a broken spirit and a contrite heart, in fact, God restores and renews it! I pray, in the next few years, we will head towards a rediscovery of the holy Presence of God in worship. Who can leave unchanged after having spent some time in the Presence of the Holy One? You can email Pastor Barnabas at worshipsg@gmail.com
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