Wednesday, September 06, 2006
Thoughts on the Church work in Batu Pahat
Looking back at the 6 years of my involvement in the Batu Pahat Church work, it brings me the feelings of happiness, joy and a sense of fulfillment and i am always thanking God that He allowed me to work for Him in this area of work. But then it also brings me some disappointments... But this work has really help me to grow up in the Lord.
Batu Pahat is a town in Johor, Malaysia. It takes about 2-3 hours drive from Singapore to there (dependant to who is the driver:). It is the 3rd biggest town/city in Johor, 1st is JB and 2nd is Segamat. We have a small church there with about 10 adults and 10-15 children. Singapore have been supporting the church work there since 1980s, members from Singapore would always travelled up and help out with the REU and also with the Sermon speaking etc.
I stated to get involved in the church work there in the year 2000 when i was invited to go attend the 2 nights evangelistic and to help with the RE class. Since then i have been going up constantly and in the recent 2-3 years about once every month.
And through this church work i have grown close to a few older Singapore church brethens who have been involved in this work for more then 15 years, they have taught me many things and i also admire their dedication to the work there. There is this deacon who is now about 75 years old, he has been going to BP for over 20 years but till now he would still always go up once every 2 months to carry out the Holy Communion there. I have learnt many things from these older Brother and Sisters who would not give up on the work there and continie to persist although the work there seems to bear little fruits in all these years.
Also all the workers that are helping out in the BP work are quite close to each other due to the time that we would spend travelling together there and also activities there sometimes that we had to stay over, and through working with them i find a lot of happiness and joy and feel greatly the Lord's love.
Although the Church work there have gone on for so many years, but the growth of the church there seems very slow. And due to the slow growth, members there are often not able to cope with additional church works that need to be done. And some of the members there are relatively new and hence have little experience in the work of God. There are often many children there, half of them are actually observers who are maybe the relatives of the church members or neighbours etc, these children will be brought to church by these church members, but their parents do not come. And since the Batu Pahat town is relatively small, there is no many colleges or unis for the children to attend, so when they reach 16-17 years old, a lot of them will go to KL or JB to study and then after work there, so the church in BP do not have many youths and also do not grow...
This is where my disappointments come from, the Church is not able to grow in numbers thoughout these years. From 2000 when i started to go there till now, we have in fact negative growth in membership because one of the family moved to KL. It is sad to see the church there getting smaller and smaller. The members there also sometimes have different opinions and in such small church, difference in opinions may cause big problems. But thank God that though met with all these setbacks, the members there are still strong in their faith and are very willing to work for God.
Due to the family moving to KL recently, BP members themselves now do not have enough teachers, so we from Singapore would now need to go up even more often. We used to have people going up about 2-3 weeks a month now we will need to help out 3-4 weeks a month. Thus we now need more teachers from Singapore. I know God will provide, so we need to pray to God to guide. We had transport problem few years ago and God provided, so He is definetly working with us, hope the currently teachers will not be discouraged and hope more Singapore members would offer to help up in this ministry work.
Looking at this 6 years, i have always ask myself, can we do more for the church work there? It is definitely needed, work like evangelism, pastoral, children ministry are some areas that the church there can or have to look into, but they would need help from the workers from Singapore because their numbers are few. But this will require more commitments from the Singapore side, and also more workers in which we have now a shortage too, we are currenltly approaching some church members in Singapore to help, hope they will accept...
All in all, i thank God for the grace that He gave for me to help out in this church work. I have learned many things from my involvement and also grow to be able to take up more responsibility. And i do hope that the Lord will continue to bless and guide this work and that the workers will not lose heart due to the lack of fruits, but continue to be able to serve better in this work.
Please pray for us.
-Peace-
Batu Pahat is a town in Johor, Malaysia. It takes about 2-3 hours drive from Singapore to there (dependant to who is the driver:). It is the 3rd biggest town/city in Johor, 1st is JB and 2nd is Segamat. We have a small church there with about 10 adults and 10-15 children. Singapore have been supporting the church work there since 1980s, members from Singapore would always travelled up and help out with the REU and also with the Sermon speaking etc.
I stated to get involved in the church work there in the year 2000 when i was invited to go attend the 2 nights evangelistic and to help with the RE class. Since then i have been going up constantly and in the recent 2-3 years about once every month.
And through this church work i have grown close to a few older Singapore church brethens who have been involved in this work for more then 15 years, they have taught me many things and i also admire their dedication to the work there. There is this deacon who is now about 75 years old, he has been going to BP for over 20 years but till now he would still always go up once every 2 months to carry out the Holy Communion there. I have learnt many things from these older Brother and Sisters who would not give up on the work there and continie to persist although the work there seems to bear little fruits in all these years.
Also all the workers that are helping out in the BP work are quite close to each other due to the time that we would spend travelling together there and also activities there sometimes that we had to stay over, and through working with them i find a lot of happiness and joy and feel greatly the Lord's love.
Although the Church work there have gone on for so many years, but the growth of the church there seems very slow. And due to the slow growth, members there are often not able to cope with additional church works that need to be done. And some of the members there are relatively new and hence have little experience in the work of God. There are often many children there, half of them are actually observers who are maybe the relatives of the church members or neighbours etc, these children will be brought to church by these church members, but their parents do not come. And since the Batu Pahat town is relatively small, there is no many colleges or unis for the children to attend, so when they reach 16-17 years old, a lot of them will go to KL or JB to study and then after work there, so the church in BP do not have many youths and also do not grow...
This is where my disappointments come from, the Church is not able to grow in numbers thoughout these years. From 2000 when i started to go there till now, we have in fact negative growth in membership because one of the family moved to KL. It is sad to see the church there getting smaller and smaller. The members there also sometimes have different opinions and in such small church, difference in opinions may cause big problems. But thank God that though met with all these setbacks, the members there are still strong in their faith and are very willing to work for God.
Due to the family moving to KL recently, BP members themselves now do not have enough teachers, so we from Singapore would now need to go up even more often. We used to have people going up about 2-3 weeks a month now we will need to help out 3-4 weeks a month. Thus we now need more teachers from Singapore. I know God will provide, so we need to pray to God to guide. We had transport problem few years ago and God provided, so He is definetly working with us, hope the currently teachers will not be discouraged and hope more Singapore members would offer to help up in this ministry work.
Looking at this 6 years, i have always ask myself, can we do more for the church work there? It is definitely needed, work like evangelism, pastoral, children ministry are some areas that the church there can or have to look into, but they would need help from the workers from Singapore because their numbers are few. But this will require more commitments from the Singapore side, and also more workers in which we have now a shortage too, we are currenltly approaching some church members in Singapore to help, hope they will accept...
All in all, i thank God for the grace that He gave for me to help out in this church work. I have learned many things from my involvement and also grow to be able to take up more responsibility. And i do hope that the Lord will continue to bless and guide this work and that the workers will not lose heart due to the lack of fruits, but continue to be able to serve better in this work.
Please pray for us.
-Peace-
// posted by madcowkey @ 9/06/2006 04:34:00 PM 
