Bringing Love to the City

When we left London twenty years ago, there was an increasing change in the makeup of the people. More and more, we saw non-English folk making the neighbourhood their home. They added cultural flavour and different culinary smells. Some assaulted the English language, some embraced it with passion, bringing their own translated expressions and phrases to enhance their communication.

Angliophiles abounded. But at the same time, one needed to keep one's own culture. It is not easy to draw the line.

Our recent trip highlighted this.

We attended a local interchurch event. Whilst the majority of the folk were not white, they mostly had English accents. From Pakistan, India, Sri Lanka, the West Indies, and the African continent, their worship was vibrant, foot tapping, arm raising and hand clapping stuff.
They came together because they wanted to launch a district-wide outreach. A 5,000 seater tent was booked. The publicity was going out. And they had three guest speakers.

This man is one of them. He is playing and singing a Hindi worship song here. A well-known musician amongst the Asian circles, he is also a pastor.
The outreach being planned is to touch those of Asian background. One of the other two speakers is a famous Bollywood actor and comedian called Johnny Lever. He is a committed Christian. The other is a firey evangelist - classic Asian fare. He has a healing ministry.

All this led by a humble Englishman who pastors the anchoring church.

Love transcends all. Love reaches out to all. Love should be shared with all.

God is Love.

In the Marketplace

Paul the Apostle was a tentmaker. He made tents. That was his profession. There were times in his life where he worked to earn a living and shared the gospel at the same time. Hence we learned the term, "tentmaking". YWAM has an interesting article on this.

Nowadays a new term that has evolved is marketplace ministry. Essentially similar, but one would not need to go to another land or culture. Yet, there would be an obvious expression of one's faith and a desire to engage people into dialogue to share the good news of Jesus Christ.

Take for example this shop I saw in 1Borneo.
In case you can't make it out, the plaque on the wall is signed by a pastor who blessed the shop on its opening. He includes a verse on it.

And this is positioned at a most visible spot of the shop - behind the cash till counter. One cannot help but notice it when you stand to pay for your purchases. In particular, when waiting for a card purchase to be processed, one's eyes inevitably are drawn to the cute dog and then subsequently to the words as well. A potential conversation starter, a definite point-to-the-Lord moment.

Which is why it caught my eye and I am blogging about it now.

When 100 Youths Get Together

I TOLD my Hubby and children that I we could have a simple open house. Just for a few hours. No main meal times, i.e. only mid morn or mid afternoon.

But no, before I could blink, we ended up with a fullscale dinner - barbeque with an initially unknown number of guests attending! Right up till the day, the hour, we didn't know how many to expect.

Worse, to my horror, it had been put into Facebook! I had visions of multitudes invading my home! I had read enough horror stories about that! Needless to say, I told my family that I was concerned (read upset)

But that same day, as we sat in the Sunday Service, I was reminded of how every opportunity should be used to reach out. I repented and told my family that I had the wrong attitude and that we would be more open and all-embracing! Then we rolled up our sleeves and got down to preparations. Lots of it!

The barbeque pit

In the end one hundred youths came.

That's twenty-five youths for each one of my children (foster son included).

I know how many because I had to give out that many ang-pows!

They were ex-classmates, local church friends, down-the-road friends, different church friends, and even a couple who were new friends.

They came, they sang, they chatted, they laughed (softly and huge guffaws), they danced (to a game), they ate, they drank (no hard stuff) , they enjoyed the fireworks (of the neighbours), they made a lot of noise and mess.

But we had a great time.

We are also amazed that the food was enough, with surplus! Hubby prayed that the food will multiply when we saw that we had double the expected number for dinner! (My household help deserves a medal! And I had a good workout walking and clearing and tidying up during and after)

The last ones didn't leave till after midnight. That is, if you don't include the ones who stayed over. That was about half a dozen, half of whom didn't get to sleep till close to dawn...

Many new relationships made, many old ones strengthened. Now we need to continue to reach out... and possibly, we need to appease our neighbours too!

A Christmas Variety Act

Whilst still on Christmas, last night I went to a church celebration. There were a number of presentations.

* Three part harmony - exquisite voices and parts.

* Praise with Movement - although they hardly moved their feet it was sweet, especially the chubby little girl at the front.

* Concert pianist - awesome fingerwork. Showmanship too. He was raising funds for children in India.

* Children doing a High School Musical dance - they had fun, but what about Christmas?

* Drama on the Nativity - from the perspective of bees and a Sabahan Joseph and Mary.

* A Mime based on the song, "What a Strange Way to Reach the World" or something like that. It was simple and powerful. I texted the leader of the congregation to tell her that she should take them further afield. She replied that she planned to take them to Brunei. So it is confirmation for her!

* Youth dance - my daughter was in it. No comments! Hahahahaha!

* There was even a Lucky Draw, Christianized by calling it a Blessed Draw

And so it went on.

I sat through the evening, I wondered about it. No strong theme throughout. No strong push for altar call. I wondered, what is this all about....

Then the Lord answered.

"This church doesn't need one-off events for outreach. They do it all year round," He seemed to say.

I thought about that.

This church has recently established a new church consisting of 60-70% new believers. In a short while, they have 100 members. They have another 2 congregations, the youth service, and are planning for a bilingual BM-English congregation next year.

I guess this was a variety act Christmas service, yes.

But it was also a celebration of their diversities as they came together to celebrate the Lord's birth and reason for His birth.

Nice.