There is a division among the people concerning Him (John’s Gospel)

There are a number of occasions that John’s Gospel mentioned Jesus being the cause of division among the people. Today I sat between two fellow pastors, one slightly older than I am and the other more than 15 years older already in his retirement but still preaching in his local church. Both cannot be more different. One sang my praises before he preached and I was honoured by him in the sight of the whole church. But as we talked after service he paid great attention to what I said and by now most people know I am moving on from my current place of ministry.

But the other person said many things to me that told me that he completely failed to understand my calling in the Lord. There are still those who hold to the view of a dominant race theory and anyone outside of their race does not belong to their group which is racism or insipid racism though most of these people will deny it. I told him that I am now a veteran in the church since it is my 30th year in full time ministry. The other pastor who is strongly supportive of me has more than 40 years in full time ministry. 

But 30 years is not a short time and one can truly say it is a long time. I told him that I still served the church all these years since leaving the position of leadership in 1998. I am in ministry not for position but I have served for 23 years here in Sabah and 6 years in Singapore. 

I also told him that how can I not love the church when I had travelled to 70 places throughout Sabah in my early 30s and preached 300 sermons in 3 years. As I saw he remained unconvinced of my role in the denomination, I shared with him a story just a couple of months ago how my good friend from West Malaysia could not believe that I had pastored three Dusun churches all in bahasa Melayu. In my friend’s words that kind of cross-cultural ministry is impossible in West Malaysia. While my other friend looked on approvingly and with loving support in his eyes, but my other friend remained unconvinced. Perhaps at the end of it, all my sharing fell on deaf ears but it was meant for him who is humble and is glad that God has so called me in His service among the tribal peoples of Borneo.