For more than a year, many globetrotting people have become homebound people. Worse still, all have become homebound, leaving home only for essential matters. That is what the pandemic COVID-19 has done to us all.
Christians have lost their opportunities to worship and serve together. The fellowship gatherings are no more. The recent surge in COVID infections once again stopped us from meeting together for our usual spiritual activities.
However, the enforced restrictions to our social gatherings and travelling, though necessary, should not make us “introverts”. We cannot become negligent of our LORD’s mandate to reach others, with love and compassion, to care for them and spread the Gospel. Even though we have many constraints today in physically meeting with others, especially those who are far away, we must resist the temptation to become introverts.
We must be thankful that by His good providence, we have many ways to reach others these days (e.g. Zoom, Facebook, live streaming, etc.), to encourage them and to spread the Gospel blessings even to people farthest from us. After all, the mandate of our Lord – “Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature” (Mark 16:15) – challenges us to be always outward-bound for the Gospel’s sake; not even this time of pandemic should negate this mandate. Our methods of reaching people for the Gospel’s sake may change, but we must not waver in our commitment to being outward-bound for the LORD.
Christ’s commission to His apostles gives the Gospel work a global scope. The Gospel of Jesus Christ is to be offered to the whole world. It is His will concerning us that we make every effort to extend the Gospel beyond all boundaries, divisions and classes. The whole world is to be reached with the Gospel. When it comes to our commitment to spreading the Gospel, it should not be subject to limitations of country, or distinctions of culture, or barriers of ethnicity, or restraints of language. We are commissioned to preach the Gospel to “every creature”. Wherever there is man, Christians should attempt to bring the Gospel. Our Lord has commanded us to expand our vision for the Gospel outreach constantly. It is gross disobedience to limit our attempt to spread the Gospel beyond our region. We must be ever ready to forward the Gospel to new frontiers.
No one who takes the words of the Lord seriously can remain passive about the global advancement of the Gospel. Christians must know that they are commissioned by their Lord and Saviour to be wholly involved in the global movement for the Gospel. They must join forces, as God has enabled them to send forth the Gospel everywhere with the rest of the church. Not every Christian is called to be an evangelist or missionary or preacher. However, every church and every Christian must joyfully yield to advancing the Gospel across the world.
The preaching of the Gospel is the greatest work that Christ has entrusted to Christians. Therefore, all true Christians must enthusiastically give themselves to make Gospel-preaching a worldwide movement. It must be their joy to be part of the Lord’s grand plan for redeeming sinners and gathering them as His saints for the eternal celestial home which He is preparing. The apostle Paul asks us, “How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach, except they be sent? as it is written, How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace, and bring glad tidings of good things!” (Romans 10:14-15).
Our Lord says to us, “Go”. Will we then answer Him, “No, we will stay back or hold back”? Our Lord’s charge is that we must always be committed to spreading the Gospel. Let us arise then and go to preach the Gospel to the uttermost part of the world. Let us do our part for global evangelism.
The 6th Missionary Conference is organised to strengthen our mission efforts around the world. It provides every Gethsemanean and all our friends an opportunity to joyfully partake in fulfilling our Lord’s mandate concerning global Gospel dissemination. May none of us turn his/her back on this extraordinary occasion to serve our King in His kingdom expansion on earth. Let us participate in the Conference prayerfully and enthusiastically. See you online during the Conference (7-11 June 2021).
(A recent report on the preparations for the upcoming Missionary Conference presented by Elder Mah to the Church Session is reproduced below, with minor editing.)
n just about two weeks, the 6th Missionary Conference will begin on Monday, 7 June 2021. Much has been achieved by all the various teams over the past months, with a few important tasks remaining. Thanking the Lord – for all that He has provided in enabling the progress thus far – is due. Thus, I would, with much joy, share some recent accomplishments, updates and relevant information on behalf of the teams.
From the registrations received thus far, we expect 396 adults and 23 children to participate in the conference. Praise the Lord for this encouraging response. Of course, some members and regular worshippers have not taken time to register (Please don’t delay any further in registering, if you have not yet done so.)
We praise God for providing two brethren from our like-minded churches to teach the children, namely Bro. Kelvin Li (from Berith BP Church) and Sis. Rachel Leong (from Tabernacle BP Church). They will be teaching 7 lessons each, based on the theme, “Life of Jesus Christ”, with the aim that the “children may grow to manifest the traits of Christ-likeness in their lives”. May the Lord be pleased to grant these two brethren, who are recent FEBC graduates, the joy and blessedness of serving Him – that through them, the younger children of our members and friends will be drawn closer to the Lord as they learn more of Him.
We praise the Lord for His enabling grace given to the Music Team in their recording of all 33 hymns needed for Singspiration Time during the conference; they are 100% completed. The audio and video recordings of 4 special items by the Children and Youth Choirs are also almost done – with some editing remaining (which is certainly expected to be completed within this week).
The technical/operational aspects of planning and managing this online Missionary Conference were undeniably a major focus area in recent weeks. The drive to enable a flawless execution and to produce audio/visual content of high quality for brethren over the large expanse stretching from Ethiopia to Australia (across a time-zone difference of 7 hours), amid varying bandwidth qualities, poses significant challenges to the team. A simple indication of the amount of work done just the previous week, may be seen from the 8 trial runs conducted to simulate the challenges and issues that may arise when we have these online/virtual meetings. We praise the Lord for the lessons learned through the 2 local trial runs last Wednesday, as well as the 3 trial runs with our Asian missionaries and with Rev Paul Cheng in the morning, and the 3 trial runs with our Ethiopian missionaries in the afternoon. Another 3 trial runs on the Children’s Programme were also held on Wednesday afternoon. A further internal technical trial run on Wednesday evening was conducted to test the quality of a completely home-based event in Singapore as a contingency plan.
Brethren, pray for the spiritual building up of all participants, our church and our mission endeavours. May the LORD continue to open more doors of Gospel mission through faithful and fervent men whom He will call and send.
Dear Pastor,
…We also thank God for a successful trial session to help us from Ethiopia to participate in the upcoming 6th missionary conference. We praise God for all those who are working hard to make the online conference a success.
We are looking forward to the refreshing, strengthening and enriching time of fellowship with all Gethsemaneans during the conference.
Please convey my regards to your dear family and all the brethren in the church…
Yours in Christ,
Ephrem Chiracho