Category: Leadership


So what’s this ‘digital strategies’ thingy??

Filed Under: Digital Strategies, Leadership, Ministry, Online Ministry by simon — Leave a comment
January 29, 2012

Some folks have wondered… what has Simon been up to lately ministry-wise?
I know he’s talked something about involved in ‘Digital Strategies’ and ‘Online Movements’ and all that jazz… but what’s that all about?

That’s a great question! To be frank, it’s not something that I can easily explain in 1 or 2 sentences. But if I’d to do it briefly, it’d be using this new document that we recently put together.

 


VLM Vision Map v1.2 December 2011

 

This provides an outline to some of the broad strokes stuff that I’ve been engaged with in one way or another.
The Global Coalition team that I’ve been part of help crafted this ‘Vision Map’, to express what VLM needs to be about.

These 4 priorities (Offer, Lead, Help, Collaborate) all drive towards the goals of ‘Connecting People‘, “Sharing Learning‘, ‘Increased Evangelism‘ and ‘Increased Discipleship‘.

Btw, ‘VLM’ = ‘Virtually-led Movements’.

It’s our ministry’s lingo to refer to various creative, digital (online/mobile) strategies to engage & connect with our changing generation, to essentially ‘win-build-send’ christ-centered multiplying followers of Christ to launch spiritual movements everywhere.

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The Great Adventure heads West…

Filed Under: Blogging, Great Adventure update, Leadership, Ministry by simon — Leave a comment
April 14, 2011

… or maybe East… depending on which direction you fly. ;-)

Yes, our Seow’s Great Adventure (the journey of following & serving Jesus) is going into the next lap.

God-willing, we’re headed as a family to our CCC World Headquarters in Orlando, Florida USA.

We’ll be involved in a 1-year program called the Lake Hart Stint, LHS  (There’s a big lake next to our HQ, called… u guessed it! Lake Hart!) :-)  It is a special leadership & personal development opportunity for senior staff of Campus Crusade, and we’re blessed to be accepted for this. We’ll more about LHS in a future blog post.

Meanwhile, please read more about our journey & the story God’s writing in our lives in our latest newsletter.

 

Dowload here: The Great Adventure – April ’11

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The Significance of Prayer to Service

Filed Under: Leadership, Ministry, Prayer by simon — Leave a comment
February 17, 2011

I was looking through some old notes, and came across this short excerpt from Ps Ed’s book on ‘Growing Deep in God’ that I feel is a very timely reminder for me.

“Without the power of God, the Church is as powerless as a man armed with a rubber band, in the face of a charging rhinoceros. They are many ways to work for God, but only one way to work with God; through humble and contrite prayer. God moves in answer to prayer. Oswald Chambers was right on target when he wrote, “Prayer does not equip us for greater works… prayer is the greater work.”

The highest calling of Christian leaders in the ministry is prayer. A spiritual leader who is not praying has abdicated his primary job description from God. Prayer cannot be divorced from spiritual leadership. In fact, concerning prayer and spiritual leadership, the godly J.Oswald Sanders goes further to say, “In nothing should the leader be ahead of his followers more than in the real of prayer.”

In this matter of spiritual leadership, the apostles of Christ understood their apostolic priorities. They said, “But we will devote ourselves to prayer, and to the ministry of the Word” (Acts 6:4). It is spiritually instructive that prayer precedes the ministry of the Word.

Being precedes doing. Prayer precedes preaching. There is an Old Testament example of this priority. The prophet Samuel said, “Moreover, as for me, far be it from me that I should sin against the Lord by ceasing to pray for you; but I will instruct you in the good and right way” (1 Sam 12:23). Intercession precedes instruction.”

An excerpt from ‘Growing Deep in God’  - Edmund Chan. p.44

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Going on LEAF

Filed Under: Leadership, Life, Ministry by simon — Leave a comment
June 21, 2010

LEAF leadership conference

Lillian and I would like to share with you an exciting ‘event’ that is coming up for us this week. Being in the senior leadership of Singapore Campus Crusade for Christ (SCCC), I have been invited (together with Lillian) to attend  Leadership Evaluation And Formation (LEAF) on 23-27th June.

Here’s an excerpt that explains what LEAF is?

Leadership Evaluation and Formation  is a specially designed senior staff development opportunity. We offer LEAF to senior leaders within the 4C Area of Affairs who have shown both commitment and excellence for a number of years. LEAF takes a concentrated look at who God has uniquely made you and gifted you to help you discern the pathway for your next 10-20 years of ministry. We feel this week could be one of the most significant weeks of your life; it certainly was for mine and many others.

LEAF is a essentially a week-long intensive work session for leadership development (conducted by some of our American staff that our divisional office is specially bringing in; it’s actually based on LEAD that is offered in Dallas Theological Seminary). There are only 3 couples invited to attend this program.

The LEAF program is designed to help us evaluate our growth as servant leaders. The goal of the program is to provide us with :

(1)        greater self-awareness,
(2)        greater clarity of our long-term goals and direction for us in work,
(3)        identification of core abilities and core hindrances, and
(4)        a game plan to outline the developmental steps we need to take to improve in long-term leadership effectiveness in our work.

Lil and I have already each put in about 20-30 hours of work to prepare for this coming program. Phew! We are really looking forward to what God will show us, and how He will grow us, thru this LEAF.

And we are truly thankful for this opportunity. Would you join in praying that God will meet us and bring about the ‘formation’ in us, first as His followers, then as leaders wherever God might place us. Thanks! =)

Do pray along with us also for his provision of USD$1,200 needed (per participant) for this leadership development program.

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Moved by the life of Goh Keng Swee…

Filed Under: Blogging, Leadership, Life by simon — Leave a comment
May 16, 2010

I was so moved by documentary on the life of the late Goh Keng Swee that was showing on Channelnewsasia last night.

What a fruitful life he lived! A man said to be ‘one of the most brilliant architects of our country‘.

Praise God for faithful men like him.. if not Singapore would not be where she is today!

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Great Adventure update…

Filed Under: Great Adventure update, Leadership, Ministry by simon — 1 Comment
October 22, 2009

Dear friends,

I’m writing with a very quick Great Adventure update…
MinistryNet-PPT-MainWe’re in Turkey right now. Yep, I did write ‘We’. Lillian has joined me on this trip to Antalya, Turkey where we’re part of an Campus Crusade Internet Conference, called MinistryNet Conference. I personally so glad Lil is here with me. I’ve had the privilege, over the past 1/2 year to be part of this global program team that put this conference together, and it’s been exciting the past few days to see all the pieces coming together! I’ve also been doing the MC-ing the past few days, and that’s been fun too. Tomorrow is our last day! =)

Lil has been glad to be part of this trip too. To participate in, and witness all that God is doing in and through the Internet Ministry across the globe. In total, 166 people from 37 countries are represented here.

This has been quite a ‘wild’ season for our ministry. Within the span of these past 1-2 weeks, we’ve had our short film/media team in Egypt training & equipping future film-makers, one of our music teams doing a recce trip in Kolkata, India (to prep for a December concert tour), several of our bands performing at schools, cafes, campus meetings etc. Meanwhile, our Internet Ministry team, CLiCK! is here in Turkey for this conference. I invite to visit our facebook group (and be a fan too!) to find out all that’s been happening.

I’ll hope to write more when I return, and share some exciting things God is doing through your prayers..
Meanwhile, may I request for your prayer support?

Two things are happening concurrently tomorrow evening at two very different venues…
One in Singapore, one in Turkey

1. Alternation (our worship band) leading worship at NUS-Arts LM tmr evening   Read more…

2. CLiCK! (particularly Victor and Simon) presenting a Seminar on “Organizing Local Ministry Around An Online Event…”     Read more…

Please keep our teams in prayer.
May the Lord use us for His glory, always!

Simon & Lillian
serving in Creative Communications, Singapore Campus Crusade for Christ.

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Now certified… =)

Filed Under: Leadership, Ministry by simon — Leave a comment
October 16, 2009

Birkman bannerJust completed a 3-day Birkman Consultants Certification Training. It was not as grueling as the 5-day training I did some 8 years ago, but still quite mentally challenging! We had Bruce E. Gordon, a wonderful man with lots of experience from Mentor Matrix was our trainer. He’s also a good friend of the ministry. He patiently walked us through quite how we can coach a person through the Birkman Method. Thankful I made it. For sure, it made more sense this time round. This tool has helped me many times to understand myself, and how to interact and work more effectively with others. So I’m glad to have a chance to gain a deeper insight into how it works, and how it can help others.

One of the key things I’m reminded again as we started off this training was the emphasis that “No one is made better than another person; all of us are made to be unique & different by God.” My good friend, Pat had commented on my Facebook saying ‘that’s very mildly put… author of Myers-Briggs said: “Not one is better than the other, there are jerks in all types.” Hahaha… But very true!!

Anyways, I looking forward to meet with the first person I’ll be officially coaching on 1st week of November. But first, tomorrow I’ll be getting some practice by coaching my wife through her Birkman profile. =)

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Learning and growing as a leader…

Filed Under: Leadership by simon — Leave a comment
July 9, 2009

Learning that as a leader… it’s often about wrestling with the tension of:

… being ‘critical’ without being negative
… being honest without being arrogant
… seeing realities, but also seeing potential
… seeing evidence of God’s grace, while mindful of weaknesses
… wanting quality, but also wanting quantity

Tension can be healthy, and even needed. =)

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