When God Opened Doors

My first foray into overseas ministry outside of the State of Sabah came in early February 2008. I had resigned from my pastorate in July 2007 with my HQ's blessings, and then informed my elders before telling the church council in August 2007. I officially handed it my resignation letter on 1st October giving 6 months' notice concluding on 31st March 2008. As I had almost two months of annual leave not taken, I would end my active ministry in church on the 2nd week of February 2008 when I preached my farewell sermon. But many things intervened before that.

The church I pastored for 5 years attempted to persuade me to stay on for 4 months until our AGM late January 2008 when they put forth a resolution asking me to withdraw my resignation and increased my salary with an extra RM2,000 per month. I was earning about RM3,000 per month then, so I would be getting RM5,000 per month if I agreed to stay on. 

Only much later I found out that church income had increased fourfold that in the final year 2007 we were averaging RM24,000 to RM25,000 per month. Basically, the pastor's pay (with increment) would be about 20% of the church income which was reasonable. 

Now in my current church, the pastor's pay takes out about 35% of the church income, though in the past quarter, we saw a significant increase in offerings, mostly due to consistent church attendance between 110-130 adults in one shop lot unit. Even on long weekends when we usually have half the attendance of 60 adults or so before, last Sunday we had 88 adults and 35 children. 

So I don't remember much of the date but it must be the last Sunday evening on 27th January 2008 when the AGM was called and the resolution was put forward. About 150 eligible voting adults attended the AGM which was usually attended by less than 100 people. 

The vote stood at 88.8% accepting the church resolution to reject my resignation with RM5,000.00 per month salary. I was frankly astonished. Although I thought I would win a majority of votes, I did not expect that 88.8% of members present voted in favour of their pastor. That was a ringing endorsement of my ministry for the past 5 years. 

The Secretary of the District Council chaired the whole meeting as I was also the District Superintendent then. I was taken to late dinner or supper after the AGM and I remember clearly one of the elders told me to stay on as according to him, the vote was a sign of God's will for me and the church. I smiled but I told the leaders that night that I would take a day or two to decide and will inform them. The next day, I did not feel any inclination to stay on as pastor despite the overwhelming vote, so I informed my elders and also my District leaders that I would be relinquishing my pastorate as well as the leadership of the District. My good friend and Secretary served out the term as Acting Superintendent. 

Two days after my decision to resign became final, came the call from Singapore to apply for the position of Lecturer in New Testament and also to book return tickets to Singapore on the 1st February 2008. It seems at that time, the Singapore's College had decided to call an emergency personnel meeting on the Friday, the 1st Feb and asked me to come over for an interview. 

The interview went for 45 minutes and I waited for about 10 minutes before the Principal called me to his office and we discussed terms of the appointment for about 15 minutes. The Principal later stopped at his house and together with his wife, we had dinner at about 8.30 pm since the interview was conducted at 6.30pm and concluded about 7.45pm. 

I was later taken back to the College for an overnight stay as my flight departing for Kota Kinabalu the next day in the morning. The next morning I checked in at Changi Airport and before boarding I checked the email (which I still keep a copy) and at 11.01pm the previous night, the Principal wrote a letter of offer. In short, my starting salary turned out to be 4 times my pastor's salary and I stayed at TTC for 6 years, the longest I have been in one place.