Red Chairs & Records

My fellow elder whispered to me that before the church started the 2nd service 2 years ago, the numbers that attended Sunday service once exceeded 300 adults.  Today we broke records and the red chairs which had never been used since I came had to be cleaned to provide seats for those standing at the stairs waiting outside to come in. Twice I was interrupted in my sermon to allow movement of late comers to find seats around me. So my prayer for a larger space took on added urgency and lo and behold as soon as I reached home my phone rang and the church Treasurer told me that the landlord next door was prapared to let us view his shop unit.
With a double unit we can probably can fit 300 adults in one session comfortably with space for a couple of rooms for Sunday school.Now our children meet at the back of the church and sit on mats with many kitchen utensils which we keep for fellowship meals from time to time. The need for space is never greater but today was proof and a few elders were moved to take action without me prodding them. Obviously half of our worshippers are secondary school students and cannot contribute much financially and this caused us to be a slow in expanding our horizons. But I told my elders today that surely the church ministry is directed to these Secondary school students since unless they are properly nurtured in God's Word, they can easily be swayed to other things especially the strong Islamization movement in Sabah in various forms. I just spoke to a student before the start of the service not to give up faith as her mother had been pressuring her to convert to Islam. She is 17 years old and I told her that it is her life and I pray she would have the courage to stand up for her faith. Further these students come from villages and they are sons and daughters of our SIB members. They are our future generation and unless they become strong disciples the future of the indigenous church in Borneo will be bleak. But today I drew strength from the Lord to preach on the Lord's prayer in Matt 6,5-13. For the first 40 mins of the service we had to use the generator as electric supply has been intermittent since the earthquake but I stopped again when the supply returned and we turned on the air cons so that the 300 worshippers and the preacher could breathe easier. By then I had taken off my necktie and rolled up my sleeves to do battle for the Lord in His glorious Name.