"Without a Vision the People are Listless" (Prov 29,18)

Without a vision the people get out of hand (NJB 29,18). The church runs on the vision of its pastor. Everywhere I go I must have a vision of what I wanted to accomplish. As pastor, I must set the direction and mission of the church. How do I build up the church? If the church is strong, then its mission should be clear and bold. As this is my first year, my vision is to lay the foundations of the church, especially its Sunday services. In its 5th month, we tweaked the order of service with the reading of Scripture after the first 3 songs and offering after the sermon. All these may seem minor changes, but these are not insignificant. The flow of the worship and service as a whole has improved. Before we used to have two sets of readings, one by the children's ministry and set readings of the week. When you add announcements before that, it could be 20 mins before the first song is sung.
Before, the offering bag was passed round after the first couple of songs. I noticed many late comers missed the offering and the collection suffered. But now in its 11 month of the year, I thank God that the church income is expected to rise 40% when the end of the year account is finalised.  Obviously, the order of service helps a little but I trust the increase in offerings is due to the people's response to the Word preached Sunday by Sunday, and Wednesday by Wednesday in our mid week services. Further, a slight increase in members of about 50 adults has added to the church income.

Second, the home group has been revitalized since July. Before we were meeting in church even for home groups and the response was poor. Tonight is our final home group of the year in a member's home after all the elders and many deacons had their turns. I pray that more members will open their homes next year for cell groups.

Next year, a major vision will be launched. I will focus on discipleship of church members. There are two books with full notes on Luke's Gospel and Acts. We have them both in English and Malay. Each book is meant to be learnt over a year. Discipleship can't be done piecemeal or over a short course. It has to be regular, systemati and comprehensive over 24 months. May God bless this vision of His for His church to be built up, and his followers become disciples (Matt 28, 20).