AND SO WE GATHERED (EP CWF, 6 Jan 2026)

AND SO WE GATHERED (First EP Co-Workers’ Fellowship, 6 Jan 2026 @ OHV)

What do you do when you gather with friends?  In Singapore, with a diverse and popular food culture, food is definitely one way to gather people! And that was what we did, this past month, when we gathered for the first time in 2026 for our English Presbytery Co-Workers Fellowship (EP CWF)!

Held at our God-providential office at One Holland Village, the first sensation that hit you upon entering the venue was the fragrance of food which infused you with hunger pangs, accompanied by the jubilant noise of chattering voices as friends welcomed one another. Truly, warmth was experienced in our tummies with the delicious choice of buffet servings, and warmth experienced in our hearts with the fellowship amongst co-labourers in the Lord, whom we have come to see as friends over all these years.

And so we gathered.

What do Christians do when they gather? We remember the Lord through worship and prayer! And that was what we did at the EP CWF, when after the sumptuous lunch fellowship, our brother Rev Stanley Soh led us in a time of praise and worship, and later on, we updated one another in small groups with what had been happening in our lives as we spent time in prayer for one another.

And so we gathered.

What do like-minded people do when they gather? They discuss common topics of interest, learning from one another and to be better equipped in the said area of discipline.

Our EP’s 2026 theme continues as “Strengthening Faith, Family and Missions in this Digital Age”, which is in tandem to the Synod’s theme. Our EP Equipping Committee, which organises these EP CWF gatherings, focuses on the “digital age” part of our theme and derives a series of topics for 2026 entitled, “Leadership in the Age of AI”. The Equipping Committee graciously provided each of us with a copy of the book, “Made in Our Image: God, Artificial Intelligence and You” by Stephen Driscoll. Incidentally, Pastor Driscoll will also be our esteemed invited speaker for our EP Retreat in September (Look out for that one!).

For this January’s fellowship session of “Leadership in the Age of AI”, we were blessed to have Mr Pang Tin Siong present to us, “Living Under Lordship: AI and Christ’s Sovereignty Over Ministry”. In his talk, Mr Pang broke down for us the hype, myth and truth about information technology and AI. He looked at them from a series of six letter “P”s –-

1.  Preserve the sovereignty of God in all our activities (placing God over AI)

2.  Prepare our church leaders and members (getting ready for change)

3.  Produce content faster and accurately with verification (tapping on AI for efficient results)

4.  Personalised content for a specific audience (using AI to customise activities for our church members)

5.  Prediction as the projection of the future based on historical events (using AI to tabulate possible outcomes from past records)

6.  Protect data by ensuring safety and accuracy, while being aware of potential risks and ethical concerns (watching out for dangers as we wisely use AI)

Mr Pang also invited us for an online survey on the application of AI and church ministry. Interestingly, the results showed that AI has been mostly used in church for sermon preparation by pastors!

After that, we discussed pertaining questions to the topic in groups and presented our findings to the fellowship. It might have been a talk with much technical details for further contemplation, but I believe everyone’s appetite had been whetted for more thoughts and learnings into the topic for the rest of the year.

Kudos to the people of EP Equipping Committee whom put all these together and inviting us for the fellowship!

And so we gathered!

Written by: Jackson Wan.