Pressing On & Going Forward

The last couple of months have been as hectic as ever. After the Good Friday-Easter services where I preached three long sermons I have been kept busy. I thought I might just wind down and lay low for a while but I have not stopped preaching since and conducting seminars. Last Sunday I preached my second sermon on giving after the first sermon three weeks ago and it brought some fireworks in the congregation. Some leaders might have a sense of unease I went on but I told them before hand that they might not like what they were going to hear. Thank God that the chairman is good friend of 20 years and whether he agrees with what I preached or not I trust we remain friends. I told the church that fund raising dinners and faith pledges are not biblical and not God pleasing ways to raise funds.
Imagine selling a ticket for RM50.00 a person at most RM10 goes to the church with the rest going to the restaurant. If you seek God for blessings on any ministry you go and pray and pray. God’s people fast and pray and not eat and raise funds in a worldly way. I also preached against faith pledges based on 2 Cor 8 “give what you have and not what you don’t have”. I told the church no one knows whether he or she is still alive tomorrow or the next day. No one knows whether he is employed the next month or the next year. No one knows how one’s business will turn out tomorrow or the next day. In fact many businesses have been shut down in the past half a year and a business friend told me that it is now worse than the 1997-1998 financial crisis. I shared with them how God answered prayers in 2004 and blessed us with more than RM300K and finished building the Ministry Centre without recourse to fund raising dinners and faith pledges. Day and night, week after week whether alone or with others I prayed and we prayed and over 17 months the congregation gave RM330K with RM30K extra for the church house renovations.

This Saturday I will conduct a leadership seminar up Mount Kinabalu for 6 churches called the District of Kinabalu named after Mount Kinabalu. It is a small district but I know many veteran leaders there and a number of pastors. Last year I conducted an end time seminar in one of the churches and returned to preach on a Sunday travelling twice from Namaus to the church over 1 hour’s drive. This time I won’t be staying on as my home church had invited me to preach this Sunday, being Father’s Day. So I will rush down from the mountain on Saturday night, attend the worship rehearsal as I had requested that they sang a new song. As I was preparing for my sermon for Sunday yesterday, another church leader from Papar called me and God willing I shall be there end of the month to preach another Fathers’ Day sermon, this time Father’s and Mother’s Day combined celebration.