Creasmans World

Today, Kimberly and her team of 15 drama leaders from six churches led a half-day seminar for 60 participants from 20 churches.

Her team has had a wonderful time preparing over the past few weeks, and the response today was tremendous.

You can see a flyer for this seminar at www.crmsingapore.com/Seminars/Drama.pdf

The heart of our ministry is mentoring leaders. We come alongside leaders personally to support and empower them in their lives and ministries.

We use some teaching opportunities to develop relationships with leaders, and some training opportunities to equip leaders. But we focus on their personal application of what we teach and train, and follow up with them to provide support and encouragement.

Jim has developed a one day seminar on Mentoring which he taught today for 16 ministry leaders, who all practice mentoring in various ways. Actually, the material could have easily spread into two days, and he could see expanding it into a five-day training course, where participants practice the various mentoring styles and methods taught.

You can see a flyer for this seminar at www.crmsingapore.com/Seminars/Mentoring.pdf

Please pray for Jim and staff, that they would provide increasingly personal investment in leaders’ lives to grow their spiritual impact.

Praise the Lord, he is adding staff to CRM Singapore!

We moved to Singapore in 1999 and started offering training and help for church leaders. That led to mentoring relationships, and the founding of CRMS in 2003. In 2007, three pastors joined CRMS as staff members, and in 2008 four more joined: Joanna Foo, Ruth Tan, and Peter & Lyn Mackay (from Australia via Beijing).

Jim took three days with the new staff at a resort in Malaysia this week to teach and discuss CRM’s history, vision, values, and ministries. The result was a greater sense of teamwork and ownership, with vision for our corporate future and a greater idea of how we all work together.

Would you join us to pray that God will bring more godly and gifted people to join the CRMS staff in order to mentor spiritual leaders in Singapore and around Asia?

For three years in a row, our friends Bill & Pam Farrel from San Diego have come to speak in Singapore. It is always a great treat for us to visit with them!

They are prolific authors and great speakers. You can read more about their ministry at farrelcommunications.com.

Singapore has roughly three times the population density of Los Angeles, with virtually all of us living and working in high-rise buildings and riding public transport.

On the outskirts of the city, though, we can find undeveloped land (jungle) and sometimes open fields. We saw a field this afternoon, with a bunch of guys out flying remote controlled airplanes. We stopped to walk around and watch them, and that is when we noticed this sign.

Wouldn’t want too much frivolousness in this country, it might be bad for productivity : )

You can see one of the planes in the background above the sign…

Jim led a ten hour seminar for mostly pastors and a few church leaders today. He had two of his mentorees co-leading with him.

Together they covered:
-Personal Timeline
-Biblical Purpose
-Life and Ministry Values
-Personal Vision

Through some teaching, reflection, and interaction, the participants designed their Personal Calling Statements, which give them greater clarity about God’s working in their lives and His guidance for their future.

You can see a flier describing the event at: www.crmsingapore.com/Seminars/Focused Living.pdf

Walking in a new neighbourhood tonight to get dinner together, we spied these funny signs…

Kimberly’s birthday is on the 23rd, but she will be in Egypt teaching a drama conference then! Tonight we gathered with two other expatriate couples to stroll along the river and have a pleasant dinner out.

Father, thank you for the unique way you display your character through Kimberly. Thank you for her creativity, energy, love for people, love for you, and enthusiasm for life. Please bless her this year with good friends and significant contribution for your kingdom, and reward her with the chance to see ways that you use her to encourage and to grow other people. Give her great joy and awareness of your delight in her and your presence with her, in ways that thrill her heart, in Jesus’ name.

Both Tyler and Cameron loved participating in fall football at the Singapore American School (not the school they attend). Tyler especially enjoyed hanging out with other American teenagers, and decided to join the baseball league there.

He became a member of the Dodgers, and was coached by the Young Life leader in Singapore. Though he had not played baseball in years, he enjoyed the experience, becoming a decent outfielder and managing to get a few hits and score a few runs during the season.

The team concluded their season today with a loss in the Championship game. Below you can see Tyler sharing some words of thanks on behalf of the team to their coach.

Tonight Kimberly began a new venture that she has been longing for over the past several years - a regular gathering of actors to practice their craft.

She had about 20 actors from 6 churches who joined in this inaugural weekly gathering. One local church, that is probably more advanced than any others here in using drama in ministry, is hosting the event, with Kimberly leading it.

They had a lot of fun tonight, and she is happy to be with kindred spirits doing what they love to do, reading through scripts and working on communicating insightful lessons through drama.

Chinese New Year is the biggest holiday of the year here, sort of like Thanksgiving and Christmas rolled into one. It centers around the family gathering, with a “Reunion” dinner on the eve of New Year’s Day. Then the next two weeks are spent visiting relatives and hanging out together eating and socializing.

In Singapore, we have two days of public holiday, though many businesses stay closed longer. In China, there are two weeks of public holiday!

We spent the day at a friend’s apartment with extended family - mostly eating, the kids playing games, and watching the adults play mah-jong.

Children love Chinese New Year because they receive “red packets” from all the adults whenever they visit homes. So our boys received about $40 today in gifts, and will get more as we visit friends during the two weeks.

Tyler turned 16 on January 12th, and today we had a party for two dozen of his friends. They hung out at a friend’s pool, then moved inside for pizza and cake and watched “The Man Who Knew Too Little.”

Father, thank you for your love and your purpose for Tyler. Thank you for the unique person he is and for his love and obedience to you. Please bless him with good friends and role models, with a deisre to know you better and serve you with all his strength. Give him a love for learning and a love for people, and guide him to discover his gifts and abilities and make good decisions in his school and career and relational choices. We trust him to your care and ask that you would guard him and guide him and produce eternal fruit through him. May he see your hand of blessing working in his life all his days, in Jesus’ name.

I (Jim) was in Malaysia this week for the annual LoveSingapore Pastors’ Prayer Summit. 400 of us gather together for four days of prayer and teaching and fellowship.

I have been attending this since January 2000, and find it to be a wonderful time of building unity among churches, stimulating pastors to greater spiritual growth, and giving church leaders a bigger vision for community outreach through coordinated effort.

It is also the best time of the year for renewing old friendships and developing new acquaintances - many of these people I only see once a year, and the personal contact is worth a dozen emails!

I talked with
-a Lutheran pastor who wants help with training children’s workers,
-a businessman who wants to join my marketplace ministry leaders’ Bible study,
-an Assemblies of God pastor who wants to join a mentoring network,
and many, many more key personal interactions.

Great things happen when people of God get together and turn to him in reliance for growth and direction! We can do so much more together than we can separately, showing God’s character in our diversity and his values in our unity.

You have probably heard about Singapore being one of the cleanest cities in the world, not allowing chewing gum, caning people for graffiti, and threatening fines for not flushing toilets in public restrooms.

We are grateful for being in such an orderly and clean city, and it also gives us an occasional laugh when we see public encouragements to keep our city clean, like the sign below seen in an elevator in a friend’s apartment building…

We wish you and your family and friends a Christ-filled Christmas!

May you see God’s blessings in wonderful ways through the New Year, and see his light shining through you to reveal him to people all around.

With love from our home to yours…

Christmas Dinner 2008 in Singapore