2021 Overview (Part 1)

So many things happened in the past couple of months that if I don't record what I think is important and significant, things may fade away in my mind over time. The year 2021 came with the certainty that Covid19 was going to linger a bit longer and as I write I think it will go on for at least another year before we see breakthrough, either in oral vaccination or pills. It will become just like the seasonal flu once the worst is past. I preached an end of the year 2020 message based on Psalm 23 and took David's five smooth stones as a figure or metaphor that we could depend on God with 5 spiritual weapons. In the Lord, there is no want which means no anxiety over livelihood which affected at least a third of our members. I remember a number of leaders losing their jobs and a few got salary deducted due to less work or fewer hours.

It is a testament to God's goodness to the church I pastored that when I first knew of the financial situation of the church mid-2020 in a council meeting, it was reported that we had just over RM20K in our current account. The last I heard the Treasurer's announcement Sept 2021, the balance was over RM50K, more than double the amount since I came in as pastor. God is great and He is good. We started the New Year with a tnew hree-year lease of one of the shoplots. The Chairman of the building committee graciously invited me to lead the negotiations with the owner of the building. Basically, the Lord granted me wisdom to ask for half of the rent for 2021, then increased by another 50% the next year and back to full rent only in 2023. It had worked well for the church and it happened because the pastor had some legal and business experience with spiritual acumen. 

Second, I preached a New Year message centred on Jeremiah 29 about seek and pray after the welfare of your city, but the sermon got the least response. The chairman lives most of his time in another district and many leaders still felt attached to their home villages and they view Kota Kinabalu as a place of earning a living and not much more. Now I realise why I am moving on come 2022 because I need to find a team who shares my vision for Kota Kinabalu as the Lord had laid in my heart way back in 2014 to return to the land of my birth and coming down from Ranau to KK early 2019 also confirmed my conviction that my role and ministry would be a light in the city. 

Third, the plan to educate church members in the Word went ahead. I continued with John's Gospel using my commentary to lead a weekly study (Google Meet when church is closed) and it took us 17 months until July 2021 to finish the whole book until John 12. It is definitely a highlight of my pastorate and a number of these young teenagers still follow my Instagram and WhatsApp status of their pastor (soon to be former pastor). We actually planned for three short seminars for 2021 but due to the closure of the church, we managed to conduct a Seminar for the youths, "Love, Romance and Marriage" which was packed with 80-plus youths in the church hall just as the Covid19 cases were about to rise at the end of April. The lockdown came the first week of June 2021 but it was the three consecutive weeks the month before that deserved some mention. As our church hall's capacity was 100 people with physical distancing, we praise God that for 3 weeks in a row before the lockdown in June, we were filled to the brim with members who came late asked to sit in the rooms or hall-way and when we went past 110 people, we had no choice but asked them to watch the service online. 

Why did the church manage to attract full-capacity when almost all churches that reopened could not reach even 50% capacity. Some big churches with 1,000 members had to close down after a couple of weeks when less than 30 people turned up for their services. It was the presence of God which I emphasized in my last sermon (26th Sept) on Ezekiel 44 where the prince was told to eat bread before the Lord at the East Gate and the glory of God filled the whole Temple. The teaching is that (which most leaders failed to grasp) God's presence and glory only comes when you have genuine leaders, anointed by God, leaders who walk with God and wait on His Word and God will dwell in His skekinah among His people, His holy Temple. Not a few members had told me over the past 18 months that they felt different (in a positive way) when I came in as pastor. One specifically said that when pastor was around the church, he felt God's presence. I remember one Vietnamese student in Singapore whose church invited me to preach multiple times in Bukit Batok - "you mediate God's presence" She felt it when I was at her church. In Malay it would mean, "menghadirkan hadirat Tuhan". We are but instruments and vessels of God's glory- "my cup runneth over".