Before my ordination as pastor in CERC

I remember those days – I basically gave whatever I was taught. Whether it was teaching kids, youth or university…. It was because of the Word taught to me week in week out, Sundays, TGGs, SoCMs and Membership class. Word in, word out, word in, word out, week in, week out.  

I remember always being quite thankful for my own salvation but I remember my focus being redirected towards THE GOD of this salvation and how big he was because of the many sermon series and TGGs at CERC. Isaiah series really sealed the deal for me together with the CERC Camp on Wisdom.  

I think everything in CERC helped me be more keen on God Himself: The leaders of CERC and their lives, the people, the weekly holding-nothing-back teaching, the membership course, the most awesome conversations ever about ministry, church and the gospel, the culture, the apprenticeship program, everyone’s enthusiasm for ministry, the seriousness, the keenness to get the gospel shared to everyone, the intensity. 

 The culture of CERC in striving to get more of God and getting Him right from the Scriptures and caring about doing ministry during TGG, after TGG, during Sunday gathering, after Sunday gathering… I remember catching the attitude of wanting to get God right, admiring that attitude and aspiration.  

From auditing the CERC membership course, I slowly learnt the importance of ecclesiology and eschatology – also a big shift for me in understanding who I was as a human being in God’s universe.  

Grateful for CMA 

CMA Programme really taught me a lot – I would have been even more lost in seminary without the apprenticeship program.  

• CMA taught me about my fears and weaknesses 

• CMA taught me about my passion coming from knowing who God is  

• CMA taught me about God’s sovereignty and power for His church 

My hope as I get ordained  

That I will mature gracefully and be increasingly grateful to the God who saved me.  

That I quickly accept who I am and what God wants to use me for, better.  

That I will love and treasure His people the way God does.  

My strengths and what I bring to the ministry?  

I needed to be reminded of this lesson recently: I bring who I am, someone who loves the ministry and loves to do ministry, to the table.  

But I sometimes forget that this is what I bring.  

TLDR – Below is just a bonus on College and a word of thanks for the training I received there too.  

Finally, I end this short blog on why I am grateful for CERC sending me to Moore Theological College 

1. Precision learning e.g. The Spirit’s work is a distinct work, it can work apart from the Word but its primary means is the word. (Bavinck) Why is it important to keep it distinct? How do the Lutherans think? What is the real difference between “with the Word” and “through the word”? 

• This contributes to and is contributed by Depth, learning how to navigate the depth with categories / boxes in which things belong. The many layers in which one can and needs to consider things. e.g. Why is the Spirit related to Jesus? Why can’t they be separated? Approaching this question eschatologically… ontologically, Trinitarian relations, You can answer this question at a very “beginner” level, I am sure I felt confident answering this in apprenticeship FOUR years ago but I am sure my answer then would be less than satisfactory to myself. Or I would appreciate / interpret it differently. To tell you a bit of a “joke”: Back then in apprenticeship, my thinking was probably as simplistic as you can get like Phil 2:12 “oh looks like Arminianism is right…” then I get to Phil 2:13 “oh it looks like Calvinism.” Haha. Basically, evaluating one plane or one dimension of polarities at a time “active” versus “passive” or “sovereignty” versus/and “responsiblity” without any theological context, clarity, consideration for other details that reflects a MAP… just a description of a fragmented, contextless fact. 

• Tools of the trade. Learning how to appreciate the importance of technical concepts, learn how to have more nuanced thinking, how I might be able to push barriers of theological thinking and imagination. Concepts and phrases such as ‘continuous, discontinuous’, ‘correspondence, escalation’, ‘distinct but inseparable’  I’m ashamed to say I certainly yawned large at and knew of such technical concepts before albeit more inflexibly, simplistically and conceived of them as “content” or “stuff” but now they likely take on a different shade of color because I have more categories and can locate them in new or more fully developed maps in my mind. 

• Self-awareness which is related to growing myself up. MORE and different kind of learning about myself than CMA. So many people have asked me which is harder, apprenticeship or seminary or being a Pastor-In-Training? Both are painful hahaha. Seminary is a different kind of pain because I’m older now and should know better (ahhh this is the same for the two and half years of being a Pastor-in-Training as well), and in fact, I DO know more now – with more knowledge, there is more sight, and with more sight there is more pain. With all the study of theology and history and philosophy and experiencing more of ministry and life, I am more sensitive to what I need to care about, how I need to love, what I need to know and etc, and even, how I should be feeling. This can get depressing. I am still working on knowing what is productive versus unproductive thinking.  

The common thread between apprenticeship, seminary studies and being pastor-in-training has been a striving to get to know who I am as a person and the testing of the strength of my love for God & Christ’s church, also, getting better acquainted with the reality that “You always put yourself on the plate”, the food you cook sometimes represent who you are and who you are becoming (possibly even when you are pretending or trying to be someone you are not). Learning the level and reasons for confidence (9 out of 10 times, the lackof) in my exegetical, theological, ministry instincts and skills or the need for it etc etc. 

2. Non-precision learning. 

• Learning how to learn, Learning different modes of thinking when I see how other people asks questions, what questions they form, why I don’t ask those questions. 

• Culture & people. Discerning what drives people especially those in ministry, culture and other influences on people’s perceptions of ministry, personalities, character and life. Learning what a godly attitude of viewing and evaluating people is. 

• Just knowing stuff. Content. Just knowing names like Bultmann and roughly what Horton says about his eschatology. Just knowing that Calvin wrote a Bondage of the Will thing too. Just knowing the arrangement in the syllabus for Hermeneutics, what topics come before what. Relationship between revelation and redemption etc. Some history of Sydney evangelicalism. A growing appreciation/ orientation. Appreciation of different things, appreciation of books, of different kinds of books, NT theology books, eschatology books, theology-of-a-biblical-book book, philosophy book, history books, history of philosophy/ theology books, BT books, Journal articles on one verse, Dictionaries on different things, so much to explore, so much to learn and know. It can be uplifting and encouraging, refreshing if you look at it in a good way, on a good day. Appreciation of different viewpoints and arguments of my collegemates and contributing factors.  

3. A confident humility (or humble confidence) in what I know and do or can learn to know and do etc. 

• Level One again. Most times I feel like in “Level One” again, my account is “zerorrized”, “slate wiped – more like scrubbed – clean” feeling after having unlearned some things I probably am semi-conscious I’ve unlearned but I am sure I have but I will find out just how much along the way. That feeling that I have a “second” and “third” etc chance at understanding and learning afresh. Although I need to work on this confident humility in competence for the rest of my life, month on month, over and over. 

• Confidence is related to the work I put in, the feedback I get, the process that went on, rooted in clarity of thought, self-regulation of emotion, self-awareness, all the above about precision-depth… Just putting in the time to work out what is the right KIND of work, right AMOUNT of the right AND wrong kind of work, what is NOT actually learning, what is learning, what is working, what is not working. 

• Decisions. Decisions. On top of all I’ve mentioned, part of the humility comes from the never-ending decision-making exposing Just How Small I am. College involves so much decision-making daily that it takes up a lot of energy and brain space especially as an amateur and especially when it takes SO MUCH effort and time for someone like myself (a fun-loving human being who was “educated” in my beloved homeland since forever, for whom if it was up to Emotions to Drive the car, would almost always pick hobbies, interests, music, every other book but the books I should be reading to submerge myself in, you know what I’m saying?) to even BEGIN being intellectual stimulated by important things. Small sample of the daily/weekly decision-making: What to take notes on? How to take notes? How to use these notes? What book to read? What to leave out of this paragraph? What needs to be done next? Do I have that hard conversation with A? Am I spending too much time on this? Is this sequence of steps right? How is X even connected to Y because I feel that they are but I don’t know how to find out how? How much time should I spend on eschatology and then on the particular set text? What is considered a doctrinal explanation? How to avoid making the same mistake as I did last time in the last assignment? Am I being too simplistic here with this paragraph? Am I missing out on the genius of this crazy author? How do I figure out my blindness? (too many small but important decisions in a day if I’m doing the day right) 

My prayer on my good days at theological college was that my heart has the capacity to grow bigger because of God in Christ by His Spirit through his word as I seek to be a continual learner, continue growing deeper, to continue staying curious, excited about things that are excellent and worth being excited about, things I wasn’t so excited about before, being more mature in my tastes. To grow in love with the vastness and incomprehensible yet knowable depths of the worthshipful God, that I may continue honing my “cooking” skills, diligently developing a more sensitive and sophisticated palate, continue eating food I’ve cooked for myself while I feast on food cooked by others, learning how to enjoy and plumb the depths of others cooking, the capacity to change my mind, the capacity for previously learning and current apprehension affirmed and encouraged by the books, by feedback, by whatever I am learning, the work, that I do actually know some things here and there, oh I CAN learn things, oh some things are true and real after all, I wasn’t imagining things, oh I DO care, oh I do have some love for God – a relief! …This internal chaos for four years in theological college, may our powerful God use it all that I can continue to love God, to love others, to share the richness God allows me to taste with others. 

So thank you to our very wise God whom I am learning more of because He is good to His children, to my church CERC and to the dear financial supporters for the privilege that is theological training.