Former Church

It wasn’t easy. It was only on Friday that I was asked to preach in my former church in Ranau. It was double duty as there were two Sunday services in separate places for different congregations. So I prepared two messages and with a 7.20am drive from College I got back just after 1pm. When I reached the church I saw in the church bulletin that I was also conducting the Lord’s communion and it is our custom to say a few words of exhortation based on Scripture before the emblems were distributed and prayers said before and after. Today was especially poignant because two of the church members were standing for the 14th General Election on May 9th. In the first service I led prayers for an opposition candidate from Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR) and the second service an BN candidate. A good friend to both, perhaps closer to the BN candidate as he was a church member in my former church in KK.
I did it all by God’s grace and without being their former pastor and perhaps still retaining love and support from most members I could not have done what I did today. Without a measure of the Lord’s authority it would be hard to lay hands on prominent leaders of the community in this heated election time. I preached two solid messages on leadership first based on Hebrews 13:7 and 2 Samuel 23 in the second service. I shared 4 things about leadership in the first and about 7 things from the 2nd. The elder in the church even remembered that I said in my farewell service that I would not be speaking in church for 2 years after leaving the churich. So today it was exactly 2 years and 3 weeks since I left and by the grace of God His Word resounded far and wide.