Bishop Rennis Ponniah on the Anglican Centenary Celebrations

Wednesday, Nov. 26, 2008 Posted: 2:59:56PM HKT

(Photo: CPS)

The Anglican Diocese of Singapore will be commemorating its Centenary next year, dated from its formal establishment in 1909 with Rt Rev C J Ferguson-Davie as its first Bishop.

As one of the oldest mainline denominations in Singapore, the Diocese accounts for a significant part of local Church history and perhaps one might even say nation-building, serving the community through its evangelistic, educational, medical and social work, and the communities beyond through its active regional missions commitment.

And yet the Anglican Church, which has demonstrated its resilience and adaptability through the course of history, continues to change as it meets with the unprecedented challenges of the 21st Century.

In a day and age where individualism is prized above community, and materialism and instant self-gratification valued above authentic Christian discipleship and committed living, and subjectivity placed above objective morality, the denomination is hard-pressed to hold its own against these challenges.

In this exclusive interview, The Christian Post (Singapore) finds out more about the Diocesan Centenary Celebrations and the theme it will set for the future of the mainline denomination, its understanding of its history and its strategies for dealing with the challenges to the preaching of the Gospel facing today’s ministers.

CPS: The Diocesan Centenary theme is His Glory, His Name, His Honour: Serving the Lord and Blessing the Nations. Could you tell us more about the theme and why it was chosen for the Centenary?

Rt Rev Rennis Ponniah: It’s very clear to our Bishop, John Chew, that it should be a celebration that is centered on God; that it’s not just us sort of patting each other on the back and saying, “Wah, not bad, you have done all this”, but really to see God’s hand through the years and to keep God in the centre – hence His Glory, His Name, His Honour.

It’s rooted especially in Exodus and Deuteronomy as Moses brings the Israelites to the threshold of the Promised Land that they – and therefore God’s Church – are a people for God’s glory.

Then the subtitle, which is Serving the Lord and Blessing the Nations is mainly to make it clearer to non-Christians, because they would say, “What’s this, ‘His glory and His honour’”. It is to make it clear that we, the Church of Jesus Christ, are a servant community; the focus is the Lord, but we serve and bless the nations. This is the background.

CPS: Could you give a brief run-through of the events lined up for the celebrations and their objectives?

Ponniah: Yes. It follows from the theme.

So if God is at the centre, then the events must capture God’s heart. For this purpose, we will start off the centenary with prayer revival so that we are acknowledging that only God can build His church.

He’s done so over the last 100 years and we need Him to lead us into the future in life-changing ways, so we will be having a prayer revival. And we will be having it with our three main language groups: English-speaking, Chinese-speaking, and Tamil-speaking, altogether at the Cathedral.

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Edmond Chua
edmond@christianpost.com