This is the first in a series of weekly blogs chronicling the seven-month adventure of one student of the School Of Theology 2012 at City Harvest Church. If you’re a former student, you’ll be able identify with the moments both big and small; if you’re yet to be one, perhaps this will inspire you to embark on the same journey!
By Clinton Dixon
Students waiting to clock in on Day 1 of SOT. CN PHOTO: Yong Yung Shin.
Signs, wonders and miracles? Catching a 6:45 a.m. MRT ride definitely counts as one! As I inched my way across the humid landscape to City Harvest Church’s Jurong West premises, I realized the west wasn’t so wild after all. On my first day of SOT, smiling faces welcomed me, handshakes abounded, and high fives were in order. (Ok, maybe on Day 2).
When your worldview generally revolves around yourself, it’s great to get a Godly dose of reality. Day 1, however, gave me an overdose of reality—the body of Christ is made up of people who don’t look like me, sound like me, pray like me and eat like me (thankfully) at all. To begin with, my name is just as hard to pronounce for my new friends as theirs were for me to pronounce.
If God was serving up humble pie on day one I think I ended up eating seconds and thirds (bill please). Over the week my Christian mindset was challenged, realigned and set in place anew. We learned a lot about the baptism of the Holy Spirit and the speaking of tongues this first week; while I came from a tongue-speaking church back in Auckland, there were nevertheless a lot of other aspects to it that were new to me, so much so that my new spiritual language all this past week was muttering “new teaching, new teaching, new teaching” to myself.
Clinton is married to Grace, has two young boys and is fast approaching middle age (but don’t tell anyone else). He hails from the land of the long white cloud—New Zealand—and admits to having very little understanding of The Lord Of The Rings. Through his studies at SOT, he is seeking to find God’s true calling on his life.
