15: September 29 - Cathedral and St Faith's

My programme has been organised by Revd John Sim. I met him at Kuala Lumpur at the Missions Conference, then at George Tay’s inauguration as vicar of St Andrew’s City Church in downtown Singapore so when he welcomed me at Kuching airport it felt like a meeting with an old friend. As well as being Diocesan Secretary, John also anchors the Mission outreach work in Pontianak, Indonesia.

This outward looking missional activity is such an inspiring feature of the churches and individuals within the Province. Singapore has for some years now developed its missional ministry amongst it’s six deaneries of Indonesia, Nepal, Laos, Vietnam, Thailand and Cambodia. Additionally there is close work with Myanmar (Burma) of a supportive and encouraging nature. Vicars do this alongside their normal parish duties. Certain churches own the work and send out parties to assist with medical work for instance – a group of 70 went from the Cathedral recently for a few days.

These missional initiatives are seeking to extend the Anglican church. Interestingly there is a prominent poster at St Andrew’s Cathedral spelling out the distinctives of being an Anglican. Perhaps we could benefit by reflecting on the positive features of our Anglican identity in England instead of apologising for it and playing it down. Of course there are the dangers of an overbearing colonizing style approach but I see little evidence of this. The regulations mean that this work has to be low key and sensitively handled. The ground rules do not allow sheep stealing from say the Catholics. The church speaks out against Prosperity Gospel teaching and is willing to do the hard graft and slow work of building up these churches.

John Sim says that the congregation at Pontianak started from zero and for two years there was very little to show for it except stress and anxiety on his part. ‘Ask my wife’ he says. John is a Chinese Christian and was brought up speaking English. He says his spoken Bahasa is not very good. His children laugh at him when he tries to speak it. ‘How do they understand you at Pontianak? They must think you are speaking in tongues!’ John tells me of the a baptism service and confirmation and passes on a poerpoint telling the story of the congregation so far.

Canon Nelson Ugas, at St Faith's Church, underlines the importance of approaching these exchange visits with an open mind. ‘Go to learn something new. Dig deeper. If you are in a rural area with very few people and only older people then reflect on that. Try to understand the issues. Otherwise there is no point in going. Perhaps there could be a special place for refresher sabbaticals for clergy’. Subsequent conversation with Fred David underlines the importance of these being particularly directed towards resourcing emerging leaders.