He has been part of CityWorship for more than a decade, but Schumann Tong did not take the stage for many years. He shares with City News how God dealt with his heart by making him wait.
In recent months, Schumann Tong has become a familiar face on stage in City Harvest Church. Besides leading praise and worship on the weekends, the 34-year-old song leader with CityWorship also leads worship in online meetings, such as the SOT Bible study classes on Wednesday nights. By day, he works as a member of the church staff.
On stage, he is most aware that he is co-labouring with God and the Holy Spirit. “My mindset is that when I stand on stage, I’m working with God and I’m expecting God to move. I’m only a facilitator for Him,” he explains.
“Before I start a song, during the song, or even after the song, all I’m thinking is, ‘What is God doing? Is He healing anybody? What does He want me to declare? How can I work with Him to bring forth miracles? To build people’s faith?’” he describes. “I’m still believing God for the day when people receive their healing during worship!”
Offstage and alone at home, Schumann— is married to Sabrina Fonseca, a fellow CityWorship songleader—prefers to worship God without words. “I’m very technical when it comes to singing so I tend to start scrutinising myself—it ruins my entire worship session,” he admits. “I prefer to worship without any lyrics. I’ll just play the guitar and create my own random songs and sing it to God—that’s my personal prayer.”
THE JOURNEY OF WAITING
As a boy, he enjoyed singing and was a member of the school choir. So when he became a member of CHC and was looking for a ministry to serve in, it was natural that he would choose the CHC choir. At one choir practice, he heard about an audition for backup vocalists. Not knowing that the role was only for those who had served in choir for a certain period of time, he immediately signed up for it.
“Months passed, and nobody contacted me about the audition. On the day of the audition, I overhead two girls talking about it at a zone meeting,” Schumann recounts. He called his choir senior to find out why, and it was explained to him that he was still new in the ministry.
“But they were gracious enough to let me do the audition anyway,” Schumann chuckles at the memory. That was how he began serving in CHC’s children’s ministry, HarvestKidz, as a backup vocalist, and later as a songleader.
In that same period, he also served in the main service and the Chinese service as a backup vocalist. “I love to serve, so I would slot myself in every opportunity that arose,” he shares.
Three years into serving as a backup vocalist, Schumann went for another audition—this time, the church was auditioning for a youth band for Emerge and Schumann became a part of that outfit.
That was in 2012. After that meeting, the opportunity to lead began to dwindle, and opportunities were few and far between. For someone who loved to serve as much as Schumann did, this was a challenge.
“There was a long waiting period before I began leading more regularly in 2017,” he recalls.
MANY LESSONS LEARNED FROM WAITING
With the benefit of hindsight, Schumann recognises now that those years of waiting were God’s way of pruning and tuning his character and attitude. “God knew me well—He knew that shelving me was enough to change me,” he says.
“During those years, I would often open up the Excel sheet that held CityWorship’s schedule and I would type in ‘control F, Schumann’ and I would not find my name. Then I would think, ‘Okay lah, maybe next month?’ For a good two to three years my name was not there,” he recounts.
“It was a little bit frustrating for me, but at the same time, God used it to build perseverance in me. It was a journey of God peeling away the calluses of my heart and my life. He was peeling away my agenda, peeling away my need for approval from men, all to bring me to a place where I can truly lead worship,” Schumann admits.
“I remember growing up, I was so afraid of soundchecks because Sun (Ho, CHC’s executive pastor), Mark (Kwan, CHC’s creative director) and all the other song leaders would be scrutinising every single word and note I was singing. I would get nervous to the point that they would comment, ‘Schumann, you’ve got a lot of vibraltos.’ That wasn’t because it was my singing style but because I was so nervous!”
Schumann also admits that he was “a horrible person to deal with”. “I remember back then, I would lead worship for meetings in my zone. Now looking back, I realise I was so full of pride. I would go into the meeting thinking ‘I know the song; I don’t need to prepare’. That led to a lot of conflicts. It took years to peel away all those poor attitudes, and I’m grateful that God dealt with all of it.”
Schumann knew that God had seen what was in his heart and decided it was not the time for him to lead in song.
During the COVID years, Schumann went through a season of reflection, asking himself, “‘Why am I here? What am I doing? Why am I not scheduled to song lead?’ There were all these questions and I’d be lying if I say I never doubted myself, or that I never felt that I wasn’t good enough. Those thoughts kept running through my mind and I did think that maybe this is not for me,” he says candidly.
In that valley, Schumann decided to surrender everything to God. “I told Him that even if I don’t get to lead anymore, it’s fine. I’ve answered the call to serve Him full-time and I’ll just stick to what He has called me to do.”
That became the turning point for Schumann. Suddenly, things started happening. “It all started with me leading worship during a Zoom Bible Study session with Pastor Kong—that was a pivotal meeting for me. The next thing I knew, my name was put up for the Emerge weekend.”
Interestingly, the Emerge Conference was where Schumann first led praise and worship back in 2012. “That was 10 years ago! It baffles me that now at 34, I’m still song-leading in Emerge,” he smiles. “But maybe God sees that there is something I can offer, a seed I can sow into Emerge, into the youths in this particular season,” he said.
“It has come full circle for me, and it almost feels like God is saying ‘Hey wait, I’m not done with you. Now you’re ready. I don’t care how old you are, you have something to give.’ I’m just blown away at how God orchestrated this whole journey for me.”
HIS CALLING SPOKE LOUDER THAN THE WAITING
In these 10 years, it was the calling of God that kept Schumann going. “The calling of God was loud and strong enough for me to want to stick around,” he shared. He recalled that during one service in 2008, former CHC pastor Tan Ye Peng gave an altar call for members who wanted to serve God full time.
“What struck me was him saying, ‘If you’re not sure if God hasn’t called you, don’t respond. But if God has called you, make a decision to serve Him,” Schumann recalled. “I believe that sowed a seed in my heart, and that word was rooted in me very, very deeply.”
Schumann responded to the altar call and received full-time ministry as God’s portion for him. “Honestly, I studied engineering and have no credentials to work full-time for the worship department,” he says. “But I told God, I’ll just be available anywhere, everywhere. I remember that I even went to Cynthia (Chua, a CHC staffer and his cell group leader then) and asked if the church needed a janitor.”
Eventually, God opened a door for Schumann to join CHC in the finance department, which eventually led to his role as the copyright and administration coordinator in CityWorship today.
In the long journey Schumann has taken, there have been those who have stood by him and given him hope when he had none in himself. “There were many who believed in me—like Cynthia and Kelvin (Tan, a pastoral supervisor) and my ministry mentors like Annabel (Soh, vocal supervisor), Brother Poh (Teo Poh Heng, music supervisor), Mark, Pastor (Lin) Jun Xian (pastoral oversight of CityWorship). Many times, I tell them that they believe in me more than I believe in myself.”
Schumann with his wife Sabrina (first from left) and fellow CityWorship volunteers
Schumann shares that it was Pastor Jun Xian who “pulled me back from wanting to give up.” The pastor told him that life was like a cup poured out onto God. “That struck a chord within me. it brought me back to the time when I told God I wanted to serve him full time, and that I would do anything to serve Him. What Pastor Jun Xian said brought me back to that moment, and I made the decision that even if it’s a lifetime of pouring, it doesn’t change God’s calling for me,” he says.
When God deals with a person’s heart, it can be painful and difficult, but Schumann recognises that through it all, he has learned precious lessons.
“I realised that this was really God’s journey for me,” he says. “In my waiting, there was surrender. There has also been the nurturing of my relationship with the Holy Spirit. I think God needed me to reach that point before I could serve Him effectively.”
