About Our Community
Coming alongside, Becoming ChristlikeOur Vision & Mission
To promote, nurture and embody spiritual formation perspectives that integrate theology, spirituality and practice as a lived community experience. We are teachers, learners and practitioners.
Creates space to center on God.
We see space not merely as functional but as particular places, whether physical, spiritual or relational, for communion with God, in the setting of an authentic community.
Reflects and records our spiritual journeys.
We encourage ongoing reflection of our lived experiences with God as well as the collation of these stories into written narratives.
Comes alongside one another.
We encourage ongoing reflection of our lived experiences with God as well as the collation of these stories into written narratives. We nurture and grow ongoing communities for Christians to journey alongside one another.
Strives towards a greater integrity of confession and lived experience.
We keep conversations about theology, spirituality & lived experience together; to embody what we learn and live with greater integrity as followers of Christ.
Draws from our Christian spiritual heritage and tradition.
We promote on-going learning and rediscovery about our rich spiritual heritage and traditions of the Christian faith. This is done through reading the works of different Christian writers in different eras. We read our past, to ground our present expressions of faith.
Visitors
At the external concentric are those who visit us at our physical space, participate in our courses and retreats. You come as individuals, into this community which will naturally feel temporal and transient. But however long or short a time you come to be with CSF, we hope that your visit with us will grow your understanding and experience of spiritual formation, which you will then bring back out to your own God-given communities.
Friends
Some will choose to stay with us for a longer time – scheduling regular personal days of quiet at CSF or our guided retreats, attending our courses (sometimes the same course more than once), and we love it that you have decided to interact more closely with CSF, for this season, for the longer term.
Spiritual Accompaniment Training (SAT) Groups. 10 Year Journey (10YJ) Companions.
This concentric comprises people who have journeyed with CSF for many years, attended our 1.5 year SAT programme, some of whom are also currently walking together intentionally as 10YJ Companions. These are the people who form the core of CSF’s ministry, who pray for the work, and who work prayerfully. Together with the CSF team, this group carries the vision of CSF.
CSF / Core Team
This comprises members who carry the work of CSF. The CSF team meets regularly to deliberate about CSF’s directions and plans, alternating between work discussions and times of prayer. The Core Team is responsible for the day-to-day running of CSF. There are currently four of us, all part-time staff, committed to do the work that God has placed on our hearts, even as we seek to learn and live out what it means to BE community.
Our Beliefs & Values
A spiritual formation resource & learning community of Christians in an ongoing lived experience of growth in becoming Christlike.
We take the life and relationship revealed by the triune God as the center and anchor to live out the Christian life.
The Trinity as our Life Centre
We take the life and inter-relationship of the Triune God as the inspiration and model to live and understand the Christian life, formation, vocation and witness.
The Word of God
We take the Bible, His Story as revealed in Scriptures as the meta-narrative to locate all our stories. Hence, God in our stories, Our stories in God’s Story.
The Value of a Person, in Community
God is a community of persons. Each person reflects this image of God as persons in relation. Hence, we value each person, as persons in community.
Grounding in our Christian spiritual heritage and traditions
CSF is a community that reads and rediscovers our past, to ground our present expressions of faith.
Greater integrity of confession and lived experience
We strive to embody what we learn, and live with greater integrity of word and deed, as followers of Christ.
“Spiritual formation is the process whereby the Holy Spirit transforms us into Christlike-ness to the glory of our Father.”
Robert Solomon,
“Growing the Soul in Postmodern Soil Spiritual Formation in the Twenty-first Century” in The Church in the 21st Century Singapore (Ed. Isaac Lim, National Council of Churches, 2000)
Who We Are
Our Team
The Core Team of CSF comprises a few of us who have gone through CSF’s Spiritual Accompaniment Training (SAT) Programme, and chose to step onboard to carry the ministry of CSF. Together, we manage the whole spectrum of work needed for the CSF Offerings: from hospitality of the BE space, to leading silent retreats, teaching spiritual formation courses, providing spiritual accompaniment, and also nurturing of the internal CSF community.
John Chong Ser Choon
Ser Choon came to know Christ in his late teens (1975). In university, he heeded the call to mission work, worked for a few years and then went to bible college. Thereafter, he served in the church and a mission agency. During a two year sabbatical at Regent College (1997-1999, Vancouver), under the teaching of James M Houston and Eugene H Peterson, he had an entire rethink about his Christian life and philosophy of ministry.
Upon return to Singapore, he taught Christian Spirituality in a bible college for some years before starting this spiritual formation ministry in 2004.
The Regent College experience regrounded his faith and life. There, he discovered afresh that God is relational – One yet Three Persons, Father, Son and Spirit, an eternal community in perfect communion.
Another re-discovery was the rich spiritual traditions and heritage of the Christian faith beyond the Reformation to the first century which further opened his eyes to the “glorious inheritance of the saints” in Christ (Eph 1:18).
Amelia Ang
Amelia’s areas of passion are in Spiritual Formation, Leadership Development & Coaching. Over the years, she discovered a natural love for building communities & relationships. She enjoys being involved in anything related to creating spaces for people to spend time on inner work and facilitating deeper conversations in small groups, especially groups that work or live closely together. She desires to value each person, in community.
Amelia is generally warm, welcoming and inclusive. But in her areas of passion, she has been told (and it is true) that she can be too intense. She is still being formed in some of her strong convictions.
Amelia attended her first spiritual retreat with CSF (then Trinity Life Community) in 2007. More than a decade (still on-going) of internal wrestling as a Christ-follower convinces her about the value of silence and solitude.
Lin Wei
Lin Wei quietly attunes herself to deep emotions through art.
画话 [huà huà] describes her — she draws, paints and sews. Drawing the words that are woven within her thoughts, feelings and stories, makes room for her to be her.
话画 [huà huà] is a shift of the two words, where 话 [huà] God’s Word holds her up, and draws her closer towards Him.
Lin Wei’s area of study is graphic design. She has worked as a designer in communications resource of a student ministry. She was in a missions agency for two years, where “missional art” grew in her. Today, she still accompanies children through art classes.
Who We Are
Our Volunteer Spiritual Companions and Retreat Leaders
Our volunteers are members of many years with the Community for Spiritual Formation (CSF). They have undergone our two-year Spiritual Accompaniment Training (SAT), in the year indicated under their respective profiles.
Christine
Christine is from the SAT2017 cohort. She is a mother of 3 adult children, busy pursuing their careers. Since retiring from the corporate world in 2016, Christine invests her time in family, community work and journeying with others through coaching & spiritual accompaniment.
Eileen
Eileen is from SAT2014. Her life and heart is full with being a wife, mother, sister, friend and member of her church choir. She is also a trained counsellor.
Tuan Bin
Tuan Bin is from SAT2015. God has led her through jobs in IT, sports ministry, consultancy, counselling and special education. Since retirement, she enters a season of her life where she volunteers her time as a spiritual companion at CSF. She also volunteers at Assisi Hospice, and teaches workplace literacy in a nursing home.
Yan Hua
Yanhua is from SAT2015. She is from China and a lawyer by training. She was introduced to the CSF community after completing her biblical studies in Singapore Bible College in 2013. With much delight, she has been involved since with the various offerings by CSF.
Dennis
Dennis completed his spiritual direction training program ‘Formation in the Art of Spiritual Direction’ program (2022) at StillPoint in Brisbane, Australia. He became involved with the work of CSF’s spiritual accompaniment from 2021. Dennis is a retired social worker and a grandparent to two lovely granddaughters. He is also a Companion of Northumbria Community (UK).
Yoke Wah
Yoke Wah is from SAT 2017. She has served many years with a missions agency, both overseas and locally. Apart from time with CSF as a spiritual companion, she spends her time with the young and old from her extended family, the elderly in her neighbourhood, and also at church and missions activities.