15 Feb You will be glad that you obeyed His Promptings into His Mission
Over the public holidays last week, my wife and I took a one-hour drive for a long-overdue open invitation – a dinner visit with Zam and Angie (not their real names). Zam came to faith as a teenager in the 1980s during my early church-planting years in a rural part of Malaysia. He is an “Orang Asli” – one of the minority indigenous peoples of West Malaysia.
As we chatted, I could not but appreciate his spiritual insights and remarkably vibrant faith. God has certainly taken him a long way. From a remote village with only basic high school education, he has travelled internationally and now lives in a comfortable double-storied terrace house that he owns.
More encouraging, his faith walk has grown. He was never consistent in his teens and early adult years. Being one of the first few Christians from his tribe, he did not benefit from being part of a larger faith movement where more of his own kind are believers.
Yet he has matured against the odds. What is apparent is a passion for God and for ministry. He describes it as ‘gila Tuhan’ – crazy for God. He has served as a lay pastor while working at a job in a factory. At different seasons, he has also sacrificially engaged in church-planting, regularly driving far distances to reach out and disciple another culturally-related people group.
At the end of our visit, he pressed into my hands a red moneyed envelope. This is ‘payment’ he says, for the ‘Maggi noodles’ consumed over the weekends when as a teenager he stayed with me, the weekends I tried to disciple him and coach him in his studies.
I came home encouraged. I felt a sense of awe, thankful for the privilege of obeying God’s leading when I committed to serve in that rural area, where Zam and a small group of believers came to faith many years ago. Commitment to God’s mission has far-reaching consequences.
Obedience to God has ripple effects on other people beyond our expectations. I spent eight years there as a solo church-planter and pastor, just doing the routine things – sharing the gospel, discipling those who come to faith, and doing my best to meet the needs of people where they are. I left behind two small struggling churches, but years later, I meet former members such as Zam, who has done well. Kids from poverty-stricken, drunken families who came to faith, have gone on to college. A few of them are now pastors. The impact of the gospel is far-reaching even if not apparent then.
Obedience to God changes who you are as a person. My time in that rural area was a mixed bag of experiences. On the one hand, I deeply sensed God’s leading to step out of my comfort zone, to leave the city where I grew up and serve there until God says it is time to move on. Yet, as a young adult, I had to wrestle with (over the next eight years), and gradually overcome, a deep sense of personal loss and reorientation of personal identity – to a life of obscurity and relative poverty when compared to my urban peers, who were advancing in their corporate careers.
But it was also a season of deep learning and experiences as I immersed myself in different cultural worlds. I witnessed manifestations of the demonic that I had only read about before and experienced events that cannot be explained except for God’s interventions. It also birthed within me a life-long interest in understanding human cultures, especially where it relates to God’s mission – how our cultures influence leadership expectations, how we experience God and express faith, and how we deal with life’s problems and interact with outsiders.
In its essence, God’s mission is about people and human relationships. Mission agencies and churches will need to expend considerable energy to ensure organisational efficiency and effectiveness. Yet, we can only do well if we keep in view that God’s concern is ultimately for people – that we are reconciled to Him, and care and live well with each other in mutually enriching communities.
In this coming year, may God grant you great joy and gladness as you obey His promptings into His mission, for His world.
Shalom,
Rev. Chan Nam Chen (PhD)
Executive Director