My wife and I pastor RiverLife Church in Singapore. Three years ago God spoke to my wife for us to shift from spiritual leadership to spiritual parenting. A year later, God spoke to me about church as family rather than church as ministry. They are both huge, unfamiliar areas to us and we wondered how we would shift.

Last October, Pastor Joshua and CMO invited us to immerse here for a year, even though we are not a branch church. They invited us to experience the Tree of Life environment and to absorb its nutrients. But the idea of us as English-speaking pastors immersing for one whole year in a Chinese-speaking environment was very daunting.

The Holy Spirit however gave us a conviction to go. Almost four months later, we landed in Hong Kong to begin our immersion journey. We were encouraged to explore and connect freely in this Tree of Life family. We were also assigned to a discipleship group.

What is the Tree of Life all about? What is its DNA? How does this play out in the life of a local church family? Grappling with many of such questions, we started from scratch in this completely new environment. The first thing we did was to be present at morning devotions and cell group gatherings.

Before coming, two well-intentioned pastor friends mentioned separately that there was little need for experienced pastors to join the 611 in-house Leadership Institute. Nevertheless we decided to ‘empty’ ourselves so that we can learn to filter out thinking or practices that have impeded us from nurturing a healthy church family. We joined the Leadership Institute three weeks after arriving.

As overseas pastors trying to grasp an understanding of the Tree of Life, we prioritised courses that focus on the distinctives of 611 Bread of Life church. The Breath of the Tree of Life has been particularly helpful. We began to see how difficult matters were handled practically in the ‘Tree of Life way’ through weekly case studies.

Another foundational course that helped us catch the DNA of the church is Core Values. We now better appreciate the thinking behind various practices and how spiritual parents make decisions in dilemmas. Core Values definitely made us examine ourselves – too many past ministry decisions did not reflect the Father’s heart accurately. It was outcome-oriented with little consideration of the people involved.

My wife and I have also been challenged on our long-held philosophy of discipleship in the New Wine series. It is causing us to reimagine our paradigm on cell groups and shepherding.

We have practised expository preaching throughout our ministry. However, we found ourselves learning and struggling with Sentence Flow in Expository Preaching! It is an important skill that will sharpen our preaching and even our personal Bible reading.

We are very grateful that our time at the Leadership Institute has allowed us to glean discipleship insights from the Tree of Life. It has been invaluable to our life and ministry. There is still so much for us to discover and grow in.