Prayer meeting on May 31st 2009: In brief

The Reformed Resurgence, a group of like-minded Christians primarily in Singapore, organized a prayer meeting on the evening of May 31st 2009 which was held at my house. It was held to coincide with the Global Day of Prayer (GDOP) event so as to provide an alternative event for those of us who desire to pray and intercede for various issues related to the Church, yet who refuse to compromise the Truth in joining this event as per the commands of our Lord in 2 Cor. 6:14-18.

As the group is currently small and the other members are busy, I ended up preparing almost everything. But it was a good experience overall.

We met 6pm at the train station near my home (at least it was supposed to be 6pm but ended up about 6:30 - 6:45 pm I think), following which we proceeded nearby for dinner. Somehow, we finished dinner about 8pm and reached my place around 8:30 pm.

The entire sequence of events for this prayer meeting was (1) a time of praise and worship, followed by (2) a short sharing by me, and then (3) prayer. According to my plan, 15 minutes was allocated for praise and worship, 10-15 minutes for my sharing, and the next hour or so for prayer. Fortunately or unfortunately, I did not keep track of the amount of time spent on each item, but moved through them according to plan. I guess next time we could have someone to take note of the time for each, so that all of us can have a better gauge of the amount of time required for each item. We finished by 10:40+ pm, way behind schedule due to us starting late. The duration for the entire event was slightly longer than normal also, with an increase of about 15-30 minutes.

In line with the Reformed Resurgence's intent to have continuance with the Old yet open to the New, and noting praise and worship must be heartfelt and not experienced as elements of foreign cultures (e.g. Eurocentric music), I have adopted a fusion theme for worship, blending in hymns and CCM (Contemporary Christian Music), with the criteria that they must be God-centered and the lyrics biblical. The music style is to be able to connect with most Singapore evangelicals also, which though to a certain extent subjective most be taken into consideration. After all, we human beings are not robots and worship as a form to express not only our thoughts but also our emotions of praise and adoration to our Lord, thus it must of necessity connect with our hearts to some extent. For if mere words are sufficient, singing is not required and we may very well just recite prose instead. And yes, we evangelical Reformed folks do have emotions also, not just brains.

The order of worship that was created and finally used is as follows:

Indescribable - V1 C V2 C C

How Great is Our God - C B V1 C V2 C B C

How great Thou Art - C V1 C V2 C V3 C V4 C — revert to "How Great is Our God"-C

The wonderful cross - V1 V2 C V3 C

[Short sharing]

A Mighty Fortress is our God - All 4 verses in order

[Prayer]

[Conclude]

The Church’s One foundation - 4 verses

[V: Verse, C: Chorus, B: Bridge]

In the next two posts, I would post a write-out (not the actual words) of my sharing, plus the prayer pointers we use.

[to be continued]