Responding to the Word in prayer, consecrating and committing the Year 2025 to the Lord

2025 began with a bang as we had our very first Togetherness in Training and Prayer (2TIP) on 2 January.

Ps Jireh Ang and Ps Daphne led the ministers to worship, through declaring Christ as the One we desire and sing our praises to.

Rev Dominic Yeo started by calling us to place our 2024 at the foot of the cross, otherwise we might stumble either by the successes, or failures of the past year, and unable to move forward.

Rather, we have to be future-oriented, and forward-facing as we launch ahead into the mandate and mission that God has given to the global Assemblies of God, MM33.

2025 is a year of new beginnings where God will bring about an entrenchment into greater successes and breakthroughs.

Numerical Breakthrough is putting our hands and hearts together towards 1 Million churches by 2033.

Generational Breakthrough is envisioning succession through the delegation and empowering of the next generation.

Growth Breakthrough is having a mindset towards growth in terms of Church planting.

Mandate Breakthrough is obeying the call to make disciples, both to be more like Jesus as well as to engage the world.

Spiritual Breakthrough is engaging in prayer at every Assemblies of God Church.

Holistic Breakthrough is growing our churches healthily in the pattern of the early church in Acts 2:44-47.

Missional Breakthrough is seeing the Church established where the Gospel has not been reached.

Pentecostal Breakthrough is longing for the normative activity of the Holy Spirit in our churches where miracles, signs and wonders are performed. 

Rev Dominic turns us to Isaiah 54:1 to see how we can receive these breakthroughs.

Sing, O barren one, who did not bear;
break forth into singing and cry aloud,
you who have not been in labor!
For the children of the desolate one will be more than the children of her who is married,” says the LORD.

Rev Dominic here emphasizes ‘more’. More in terms of the breakthrough, empowerment, provision, fulfilment, and catalytic movement of the Spirit manifesting and transforming the life of the Church, the ministers and our congregants.

1. Envisioning Breakthrough

As ministers we have to keep seeing where God is leading in order for us live out God’s call. God is always calling us to something new and fresh because He is always doing new things and calling us to participate in what He is doing. Our perception of the reality of God’s call enables, and acknowledges possession.

Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Philippians 3:12
Let’s take hold of Him, who takes hold of us.   

But not only do we perceive, we declare God’s breakthrough.

We proclaim God’s Word and His Work. Declaration releases formation and transformation. Let us declare from God’s Word what He says He will do because what He says, He creates, He forms, and He transforms our life, our ministry and our churches.

2. Move From Desolation into Joy     

Joy challenges the current reality of barrenness, sorrow and defeat, for the reality of God’s new creation.
But to remain in desolation, accepts ‘what is’, and denies any possibility of God’s power to form Christ in us, transform our ministries, and vivify us by His Spirit.  

Joy is the rendition of heaven. We realize the foretaste of what is to be, the new creation. We celebrate in what God is, and what He says He will in the midst of what might appears as a desolate reality.

Joy is the multiplication of God’s blessing. 

3. Your Current State is Never the Finished State

The cross not only is finished work, it is also the delivered work. What Christ accomplished once-and-for-all in the past, is realized or delivered and it can be appropriated in our lives, and in our churches today.

What this means for us is that we are defined by His Word which says that He is able to do far more abundantly than we can ever ask or imagine. Therefore, we live in the destiny, and destination that God ordains for us in the cross of Christ, and while we hope, we hope as heirs of God, and co-heirs with Christ, adopted and developed, into the image of the Son.

4. Get ready for the breakthroughs 

We get ready by adopting a disposition of anticipation for what God is going to do. Readiness postures us to be open to what God envisions to do in our lives and in our churches. Another disposition we adopt is joy because joy is faith manifest, this relates back to the joy that challenges the current state versus the promises of God. Rev Dominic then introduces another disposition and that is singing as opposed to complaining. Singing is both a disposition and our liturgical expression which comes from what we open ourselves to. It can be formative, because we become what we worship, and therefore we are to be discerning to what we sing. Singing builds faith, and it is important that faith is established on the Truth of God’s Word.

Rev Terence Ong took over to lead the ministers in prayer for each other in pairs because God’s call through the vision is intended not burden but to provide direction. Therefore, it was necessary for us to provide the care and support to one another as ministers to enable an understanding that we are not in this alone and we can take comfort and find strength in the body, in the community of pastors. Rev Terence then broke us into groups to share our struggles, and what aspect of the various breakthroughs we felt resonated with us in terms of our personal lives as well as our ministries and then to pray for an area of breakthrough that God placed upon our hearts.