Preaching in the Anointing

 It was unusual last Sunday as I sensed clearly the anointing once I started preaching from Ephesians 4:3-16. I spent the first 6 minutes talking about a former missionary who was the most influential pioneer of our movement among the Dusuns of Sabah in the late 1930s and then after the Second World War. The first local churches in Ranau were started in 1947. After that, I launched into my preaching and I felt the anointing for the next 45 minutes of the sermon, right to the end. In fact, I felt it was the highlight of my last three sermons, each having been anointed more than the previous one. This Sunday I shall be preaching my 4th consecutive sermon and I pray by God's grace the anointing will be upon me as I preach. I felt for last Sunday's sermon, I had spent a whole week, from Monday to Sunday morning, about 50 hours within the week to preach that 50-minute sermon.

77 Days

I shall be preaching this Sunday on my 11th Sunday with the church from the 1st Dec 2024 which happened to be a Sunday and my commencement as pastor. I am under no illusion of the challenges in front of me with so many things to do. Many things established over the years are set in motion and being done the same way without asking whether these things have biblical foundations. Unless there is a teaching priest in the house of the Lord, it is hard to see the congregation advances in anyway, spiritually and numerically.

My Third Month

This is my third month in my fourth pastorate and it is coming to my 10th week. It seems I have been around forever. I attend all church meetings, from prayer meetings, rehearsals and council meetings. As this is our election year it will get busy from now on. This Sunday we will launch our membership drive to prepare for our AGM slotted on the first Sunday in April, exactly 2 months from now. In the meantime I will lecture on our church’s Constitution which I plan to do every three years according to our election cycle.

Church’s Mission and Outreach

I devoted one session in the leaders’ retreat last Thursday to discuss the church’s mission and outreach, first in our Jerusalem/Kota Kinabalu and our Judea (Sabah). We prayed in our final session as we sought God’s will. Just two days on I felt I know the answer as to where we are going. First I met an elder and church chairman and he invited me to visit his church anytime and soon and in his words “this year”.