SYNOD
PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS 2014
THE
CEDARS OF LEBANON
20
AUGUST 2014
By. Bishop Ng Moon Hing
Alkitab
– Brain Drain - Discipleship
The recent events
of the MH370, MH17, the Allah word, the confiscation of Alkitabs, the hate
speeches, the indecisive decision of the police on the custodian issues even
after the High Court rulings, the numerous proselytisation of kindergarten,
school and college students, etc. have driven home a serious question for all
Malaysian Christians as a whole, particularly we the Anglicans, to ponder over
– what God is saying? Some of these issues may possibly not have good solutions
and will later simmer into the back of many people’s minds as historical
events, while others may linger on longer and some may be resurrected by certain
quarters as their ammunitions for their struggles and advances. History has
told us that they are usually treated as just part and parcel of events of that
one generation. Nothing of these can with stand the test of time or has any
relevance after half a century, except as historical records.
The issue of the
Selangor government with its Menteri Besar has overtaken the limelight of the
media. Everywhere we go, we can hear people talking about it, even before and
after church and in cell group meetings. A moment ago it was the seized Bibles
then MH370, and followed by the water drought and MH17, and now Selangor. I am
sure there are many more issues occupying our little minds. In the midst of all
these, we are actually entering into a very difficult spiritual realm with lots
challenges from extremisms. I am not a prophet of doom and neither a prophet of
prosperity gospel. The real issue has to return to the big question – WHAT IS
GOD SAYING?
“… [E]ven if now for a little
while you have had to suffer various trials, so that the genuineness
of your faith … is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory
and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.”
What can we
Anglicans in West Malaysia do to prepare ourselves for the eventuality? I can
see there are THREE things we all must acquire, work towards and live by in
order to make sure our next generation can survive and able to contribute to
their society and nation i.e. EVANGELISM, CHURCH PLANTING, DISCIPLESHIP.
Generally, these are three parts of the one Christ’s GREAT COMMISSION
which all Christians cannot ignore.
“In order to guarantee the survival of the Church of the next
generation we need to teach our people how to evangelise and be able to
articulate their faith in word and action. That requires training disciple
makers to guarantee a multiplier effect.”
Malaysia as a
nation is going through a difficult phase of its life. It is in this middle age
phase of the life of this nation
where she has to change gear in order to move forward and advance in a more confident
pace. The race based politics and segregation of racial and religious motive
and policies have strangled the health and life of this nation. After 51 years
of hard works and striving together, suddenly due to insecurity, narrowness of
world view, greed and selfishness, things are left to rot and some even
deliberately are been dismantled. There seems to be a dark patch and gloom hovering
Malaysia now and in the near future. Brain drain has increased at a very fast pace.
I have met many people whom I knew before and they have left for ‘greener
pastures’. People are talking about it
but very little results are seen from those little efforts of trying to arrest
the brain drain process and luring those who have left to return. Can the
Church do anything? Church members too are sending their children to study
overseas in droves and telling them not to come back. The outward flow already
has a great impact on our churches such as a reduction of members which in turn
leads to a reduction of talent, manpower and money. Inevitably, such scenario
will all the more warrant more EVANGELISM, CHURCH PLANTING and DISCIPLESHIP. In
fact the present churches have to work doubly or triply hard to gain more
members and plant more churches and make more disciples.
1.0 The Vision of a Cedar
One day recently,
I woke up having a thought of a tree – the cedar of Lebanon. It was there in my
mind for a whole day. I looked up the Bible, concordance, dictionary and
Wikipedia. I have found that the cedar of Lebanon is
a type of tree grown in the mountainous region of Lebanon as
well as the surrounding regions such as Israel, Jordan, Syria and Turkey. Its
scientific name is Cedrus Libani – is an evergreen coniferous pine which can grows
up to 40m (130 ft) and has a truck size of diameter of 2.5m (8 ft 2 in) and at
attitudes between 1000m – 2000m (3,300ft – 6,500ft). It is a sought after tree
due to its straight long truck and hard wood. King David and King Solomon had
their royal palaces, as well as the Temple of Jerusalem, were built with this
type of wood.
My mind was
quickly led to the thought of the correlation between the Cedar tree and the
Church in Malaysia. I was asking myself, “What has this tree to do with the Malaysian
Church?” I believe that God wants the Malaysian Church, which is still a young
tree, to grow to be like the full bloom Cedar of Lebanon. It is a timely call
for the Malaysian Church to continue to grow to its mature size. We shall
capture every opportunity to press on towards the higher goal that God has set
for us and to make this a reality. What then is it install for the Anglicans
and the Diocese of West Malaysia?
Our own Diocese
was formed in 1970. In human terms, we have just reached the middle age
adulthood i.e. 44 years old. This is the time where one can either soar higher
or be complacent and contented with his own life. Since we have much room for
improvement, we cannot afford to slow down or stop our progress. Anything not
growing is doomed to deteriorate. It is precisely at this juncture, we must
start to change gear and move to the next phase of our journey towards the high
calling of God. Let us capture the vision of the Cedar of Lebanon where it is
just timely for the tree to grow stronger and taller and keep bearing much seed
cones. This is also the time the Cedar
tree will grow to branch out with more branches and more needle-like leaves.
The Anglican
Church came to this region through the East India Company as early as 1805. It
was a chaplaincy church then under the jurisdiction of the Bishop of London. Later
in 1814, when the Diocese of Calcutta was formed, our region and all the
churches east of Calcutta were carved out together and were made part of it. It
took 65 years before our region became a new diocese namely the Diocese of Singapore,
Labuan and Sarawak in 1869. 40 years later, the church grew to witness the one
united diocese becoming two dioceses – Diocese of Borneo and Diocese of
Singapore (later Malaya was added). It then took another 60 – 70 years for
these two dioceses to grow into 4 dioceses – Diocese of Kuching in 1962
(earlier as Diocese of Labuan and Sarawak in 1869), Diocese of Sabah in 1963,
Diocese of West Malaysia in 1970, and Diocese of Singapore since 1909. We
have come of age now to start growing new churches and growing new dioceses.
New dioceses will see decentralization, more ownerships, more focus growth,
more representations especially in a nation like ours, and more shepherds to
rely on to hold the fort in case of extreme persecution.
The
Cedar of Lebanon must grow and multiply.
2.0 The Seeds of the Cedar
The Cedar is grown
from its seed cones and they will mature in 12 months from pollination. It will
take many years to grow before they can become a full bloom tree. They are
usually grown in harsh and challenging conditions, especially in the snowy
mountains. According to horticulturalists, a mature Cedar tree will produce its
seed cones every two years.
Initially, we see
each seed as the potential of a tree, and eventually when we observe closely we
can see a mother of a myriad of trees. Similarly, each soul is precious, and
this new life has the potential of multiplying into millions and billions of
new souls. Evangelism is the way forwards that Christian leading new soul into
the kingdom of God. We need to employ every possible healthy and ethical
methods or ways to reach the unreached and unchurched. There are so many
methods available for us to adopt but the best way is to contextualize and indigenize
it. For example, Alpha Malaysia is redupping its 15 lessons in DVDs with
Malaysian faces instead of Nicky Gumble. One of the best methods is to let
ourselves to be trained as lights of the world i.e. making each one of us to be
able to articulate our own faith and testimony confidently and precisely.
“The end, for
Christians, is God’s work of salvation.”
“A man reaps what
he sows.”
A church is
destined by her evangelism efforts. When no seed is sown, one shall not have
any expectation of harvest. Exercising prayer or faith alone, in a non sowing
church, without evangelism will not bring any result of increase or growth.
Evangelism should be an intentional and deliberate course of action and desire.
The Bible says “without vision, the
people perish.”
I say, without evangelism, the people perish too. As much as a lamp needs oil
to keep it lighted, a church needs evangelism to keep it growing and
glowing.
The ‘waves of
change’
are always here. Today we have in most cases three to four generations living
together under one roof. Our churches are experiencing the same. At least three
to four generations worshipping in one church. Everyone knew that it is a great
struggle for any pastor to try keep in tune and in harmony all the different
generations of worshippers. We often see either the senior group voicing up or
complaining of the loud noise, fast songs and the lax clothing of the young
ones or the young ones leaving the church for other fast tempo churches against
an old traditional setting only suitable for senior citizens. The young parents
are complaining of the lack of nursery or crèche facilities in the church while
the middle age adults complain that the preaching is not substantial enough –
not relevant to the society and needs of the nation. Can the church possibly
reach out to all generations worshipping together in one service? Should the
church be thinking of expanding herself to cater for all people with different
services where essentially keeping the same message and ethos intact?
For a long time, I
was disturbed by the fact that many of our churches are unable to attract and
contain visiting guests. There are many categories of guests visiting our
churches these days, such as the curious one – those only come to experience
and see, the seekers – those quite interested in Christianity but seeking, the
enquirers – those who are keen to find out about the type of church, the
invited – those are specially invited by church members, the interested – those
who are really looking for a church which they can call home church, etc. Many
of our churches lose them immediate after their first visit. They are never
seen again in our churches. These are potential seeds which can germinate into
a great tree. We need to place some mechanisms to contain some of these seeds.
Among all of these
categories, I wish to single out one particular group of Christians – those
converted and accepted Christ overseas while studying. I was one of those. This
group does not have a home church to go to. They will usually tag along with
the recommendation of their friends and seniors. There is also a subset of this
group who are those Christians from smaller towns and villages going to bigger
cities for study and work. They too do not have a home church in the new
environment, and are not familiar with the environment and churches in the
larger cities. I do not have the statistics but I tend to believe that more
than half of them fall off and never come to church. Perhaps some will
occasionally attend church during festive seasons, marriages or funerals.
While I was
serving in St Peter’s Ipoh, I have a desire since 20 years ago to start a
church in Klang Valley. I have observed some of my church members ended up in
churches of other denominations. I praise God for them. But what about those
who did not turn up to church, there are those who were lost in the sea of
busyness, sophistication and tempting colours of the world. At the same time, I
was also concerned of the many children of my parishioners who went overseas to
study and not attending church upon their return. Many of them were very active
in their varsity Christian fellowships but not now. A huge number ended up in
Klang Valley, Johor Bahru and Penang. Obviously they have the freedom to go to
any churches in these places but they are not. The common response is busyness
and no friend. These are precious seeds
which we cannot afford to lose.
Some time ago, I
was praying and I was informed that Alpha International wanted to have an Asia
Hub and they are looking for a church to work with them to build up as an Alpha
Resource Church. I prayed and immediately jumped into such opportunity. As
first I was looking at the churches we have and to source one among them to
become an Alpha Resource Church. I pondered and weighed over and over many
times and finally decided to start a new church entirely. There are too many
baggages with the existing churches for them to change over or embrace a new
style of church life. I took the bold step to suggest to Holy Trinity Church
Bromptom for the possibility to jointly start a new church in KL. I wrote to
the Bishop of Kensington seeking for the assistance to send some people to
assist in the new church plant in KL. After more than one year of planning and
execution, this new church plant will be called Holy Trinity Bukit Bintang
(HTBB) and is situated on the top floor of LOT 10. The dedication service has
been set on the 21 September 2014 at 11.00am.
The first of the reasons for the establishment
of this new church plant is to capture the returnees from overseas,
particularly UK. I have met quite a number of them who are still unchurched. Some
are floating members of churches where they move around to different churches
each Sunday. Of course, this new church plant is also to reach out to other
overseas returnees and finally also to those coming from smaller towns and
villages as well as those who are from Klang Valley. This is a different
generation and is a crucial, strategic, potential and dynamic generation for
change. They are the up and coming leaders of the society and nation, given a
few years of experience and assimilation with the society. They are the seeds
of the next group of leaders in the church as well as in the nation.
“True success
comes only when every generation continues to develop the next generation.”
Church planting
must not be stopped. We have been reminded always ‘the harvest is plentiful but the labourers are few’.
The population of Malaysia is growing rapidly. The church must also follow suit
and in fact she should grow even faster. In 2008 Synod Presidential Address, I
have set forth a target to plant 200 new churches in the diocese in 10 years. I
praise God that we have planted about 50 new churches – many are still quite
young though, some are new congregations and outreaches within parish churches.
We presently have a diocesan missioner in the person of Rev Canon John
Ganapathy who spearheads this area. I hope to find someone from among the
Chinese speaking group to be a full-time missioner for such purpose. Evangelism
is the way to bring in new people and Church Planting is the way to keep them
inside for training and growth before sending forth.
The
Seeds of Cedar must be identified and set free to germinate into many huge
Cedar trees.
3.0 The Usage of Cedar
In the olden days,
temples and palaces are made of Cedar wood. King Hiram of Tyre hired Sidonians
to hew cedar trees from Lebanon mountains, and floated them down to the
Mediteranean Sea, and from there to transport them up to Jerusalem for the
building of the Temple of Jerusalem and King Solomon’s Palace. The
Cedar wood is also used for worship.
The Egyptians used it for their mummification of Pharoah; the Phoenicians used
it for building commercial and military ships; and the Summerians designated
the cedar groves as dwelling of their gods.
What can our Church be useful for in the nation of Malaysia? The way we are
doing church is somewhat detached from the everyday life of the nation. Of late
due to the ‘restriction’ of the use of the word ‘Allah’ and the raid of the
Bible Society of Malaysia with some seized Bibles, the Church in Malaysia seems
to be working together quite a bit and becoming more aware of the issues of the
nation.
We moan and
grumble over the problems and issues of the church and nation. The church talks
about F.A.T. – Faithful, Available and Teachable but the public talks about
C.A.T. – Competency, Accountability and Transparency. Can we merge the two? We
have seen many of our churches having great struggles with the C.A.T. while the
society is looking forward for people with F.A.T. We have leaders in our church
who are really faithful and available most of the time, however, the level of
competency and accountability and greater still transparency is not up to the
acceptable mark yet. How useful can we become when we are having such ineffective
persons leading the Church? Thus, I strongly believe the answer is
DISCIPLESHIP.
“Christianity
without discipleship is always Christianity without Christ.”
In 2009, I was
introduced to the Discipleship Model of SaRang Community Church in Seoul,
Korea. Immediately, I bargained with the SaRang leadership to allow my priests
to experience and learn from their model of Discipleship. They were very
generous and accommodating. I have sent more than 20 priests and deaconesses to
SaRang Church to see for themselves – how SaRang Discipleship model can be
implemented in our Diocese. After 3 years of digesting and sharing of vision, I
have decided to initiate two years of Discipleship Training for all
parishioners. The first of such Seminar was done in St Mary’s Cathedral in
2012. The subsequent Seminars were done in the regions in 2013 – one in St
Paul’s PJ and another in St Peter’s Ipoh. This year in early August, we have
tried another Seminar only for Disciple Makers – it is purely designed for
those who have gone through discipleship training in their parishes and are
ready to be trained as Disciple Makers. Feed backs from the seminar pointed
towards one grave issue – it is not the knowledge but the strategy.
SaRang model of
Discipleship has a very clear strategy thus it leads to the methodology.
Only having knowledge without strategy is like a locomotive without carriages
or having a bus driver without the bus. If one only having strategy without
knowledge, it is like having carriages without the locomotive or having the bus
without a bus driver. We need to have both knowledge and strategy together.
Each must complement the other. Some of our churches are like the former –
having knowledge without strategy – they are talking a lot but without any
clear action thus no result. Some churches are like the latter – having
strategy without knowledge – they are working hard but without success and
result. If our churches are to be useful, we need to acquire the knowledge and
strategy along with the ministry philosophy and methodology otherwise we are
just a maintenance church. SaRang model of Discipleship is always undergirded
with strong prayer meetings and prayer altars in office and at home. Prayer is
like the fuel for the locomotive or diesel for the bus.
“Anglican Witness recognises the
need to explicitly spell out that ‘whole life’ discipleship is an essential
part of the process of evangelism and church growth, and that not only must
evangelism include discipleship, but that discipleship must also include
evangelism.
The implication of lack of such emphasis has among other things contributed to:
Christianity and Christian faith that has become unattractive to some people,
both of faith and those with none;
·
The growing diminishing impact of
Christian influence in public life;
·
The growing decline in church
attendance and members in some contexts;
·
The growing diminishing confidence
in the Bible among Christians and the general failure by many Christians to
articulate their personal faith;
·
Nominalism – even where the Church
is growing numerically, Christian faith tends to remain a nominal religion;
·
The sustained division between
‘sacred’ and ‘secular’ and the failure to connect faith and life, faith and
work place!”
Is the Church
useful to the society? How the people in the society see the Church? We all are
struggling with these expectations. The Bishops of the Anglican Church are in
agreement that the Church needs to be useful in the midst of the challenging
and diverse world and our Church is not living up to her Call yet.
LAMBETH Conference 2008
Resolution 25. “We affirm that evangelism concerns the making of
disciples and spiritual growth. This must involve a personal encounter
with the risen Christ and a commitment to discipleship. Evangelism is the
cutting edge of mission in the proclamation of the Good News of Jesus Christ as
Lord and Saviour by word and deed. The Gospel is the life blood of the
Church and involves mediating by proclamation, by word, and by action the good
news of God’s love in Christ which transforms the whole of life. There
must also be a compassionate community, the enabling of others by the
leadership of the Church, and the marginalized must be kept in focus.”
While being in the
process of transformation to be a disciple of Christ, there is a need for
two-fold transformation – an inner transformation and an outer transformation.
The Inner Transformation is the change and growing more like Jesus in
character, life, emotion and thought. This is the arena of spirituality,
behavior, thought pattern, mindset, lifestyle and concept of ownership, etc. Many
Christians are struggling with getting this transformation aright,
let alone the other transformation. The Outer Transformation involves the
change of one’s world view from self to the larger community including the people
of God and the involvement of social transformation and change and nation
building.
"We
have many Christians but part-time disciples, many business men and women but
part-time disciples, many pastors but part-time disciples".
Part-time
disciples will only be able to have partial impact on the church, society and
nation. We need full-time disciples. Discipleship training must be intentional.
It is the missing link of the church today. We don’t need to debate further
rather embark immediately on obtaining the ministry philosophy, knowledge,
strategy, and methodology of Discipleship and start going.
First, set in the
Agenda of your PCC an item on discipleship.
Second, allocate
some budget for discipleship training.
Third, organize a
discipleship training programme in your own church. Start with a small group.
Fourth, have a
monthly evaluation on the item of discipleship.
Fifth, keep doing
the discipleship training for every member of your parish.
Sixth, send those
who are keen and willing to go further in becoming Disciple Makers where they
can train others.
“Discipleship is
the relationship I stand into Jesus Christ in order that I might take on his
character. As his disciple, I am learning from him how to live my life in the
Kingdom as he would if he were I. The natural outcome is that my behavior is
transformed. Increasingly, I routinely and easily do the things he said and
did.”
The
Cedar wood must be intentional for good purpose and use.
4.0 The Symbolism of Cedar
“The righteous
will flourish like a palm tree; they will grow like a cedar of Lebanon.”
The Cedar of
Lebanon has always been referred to as strong, big, fragrance, stable,
important, useful, etc.,
it is not sufficient to be associated with the symbol of Cedar alone. The
psalmist particularly mentioned that the Cedar of Lebanon was planted by the
Lord. This
association of the Cedar of Lebanon with the Church reminds me of our nature.
- The Church is planted by the Lord
- The Church must grow and expand otherwise she will deteriorate and
become redundant.
- The Church must become useful when she matures and grow to her full
bloom size otherwise she will be as good as firewood.
- The Church must produce and multiply otherwise she will face her
own destiny soon.
- The Church must provide and cater for her young otherwise she will
face a lonely old life.
- The Church must offer her usefulness for the society and nation
otherwise she will be as good as non existence.
The
Cedar must stand tall and bring glory to the Creator.
A prayer from
Archbishop Oscar Romero, martyred while ministering mass in 1980:
“We cannot do
everything, and there is a sense of liberation in realizing that. This enables
us to do something, and to do it very well. It may be incomplete, but it is a
beginning, a step along the way, an opportunity for God’s grace to enter and to
do the rest. We may never see the end results, but that is the difference
between the Master builder and the worker. We are the workers not the master
builders, ministers, not messiahs. We are prophets of a future not our own.”
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