Thursday, 18th October 2007
Around this time last year, our church embarked on SerFest 2006 (an abbreviation for "Service Festival"), which was a brainchild of our former pastor, Pastor B where the different ministries such as Worship & Music, Silverboxes, TNG, etc put up stalls "advertising their wares" and to create awareness amongst the members of what ministries we could participate in. An encouraging number of close to 400 signed up at that event.
Alas, one year later, only about 30% of that number remains in active service. Hence, a Mini-Serfest was held on 14 October 2007 to stoke up the fire again.
I do not know what the numbers that sign up would be this time around, but I would be greatly surprised if it exceeds 300.
Our senior pastor preached on the Parable of the Talents as a means of encouraging the members to serve, and put to good use the talents that God has given us. The irony was that there he was trying to get the average pew-warmer to participate in the ministries of the church, yet here was a member, full of zeal and passion to serve, but not being allowed to do so because of his stand on grace teachings :-) :-(
As part of his sermon, he had invited a couple of members to share their testimony about serving the Lord, and the testimony of one of them who has been singing in the choir for many years summed up the state of affairs. She said that the one thing that motivated her to remain in service was her fear that God would take away her talent for singing if she did not use it!
When I heard that, a sense of sadness came upon me. Our service to the LORD should be motivated by a sense of gratitude because of what God has done for us. If it is because we are fearful of losing the talents that God has given us, then we really do not understand the heart of our Abba Father.
After the service, I checked out the 24/7 prayer-wave calendar and was not surprised to find that less than 15% of the hourly slots have been taken up. For those of you who are not from PLMC, the "24/7 prayer-wave" is an initiative started by our previous senior pastor, whereby hourly slots are set aside every 3 months for members to sign up and come physically to a prayer room located in the church to pray. When it was first launched three years back, the take-up rate was more than 80%, but the numbers have been dwindling ever since.
A couple of weeks back, I was also informed that cell attendance has dropped alarmingly across all clusters.
I suppose what I am trying to say is that if our church activities are law-based, they will not be sustainable. I had blogged about that earlier in an entry entitled Res Ipsa Loquitur.
As I was looking smugly at the 24/7 calendar, suddenly I sensed the Lord telling me, "Son, remember what Rev Wee Boon Hup told you during the lunch with him in Jan 07? The world may say "Ha ha, I told you so." but the proper response as Christians is to be there to pick up the pieces. How are you going to change things from the inside by being an observer, and worse still, by sitting in the seat of a scoffer?"
I quickly repented, and signed up for 2 slots.
Dear fellow readers from PLMC who are also embracers of the grace gospel. Let us serve our God out a grateful spirit because of the overflow of His love for us, and not out of a fearful spirit. Let us also do our part in helping to pick up the pieces. As the Lord leads, please do sign up for the 24/7 as well, and run this race together with the pastors and leaders.
As more grace-based believers in our church get involved in her activities, it will only be a matter of time before the grace message permeates our entire church. Amen?
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