Monday, April 24, 2006

to be or not to be

This week is the second week of Missionary program in Swanston Street Church of Christ. And before this very evening, I never thought about the purpose of churching.

I went to Sunday evening service and the Pastor who was in charge is from India. He is a missionary and at that moment he led us to have a passage from Acts 1:8. “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth.”.

Ok. To tell you the truth, the passage has got me stunned. Why? It’s because the passage, as a matter of fact, is telling me the purpose of having church. Maybe that’s why God doesn’t let me join in the ministry yet here, I have to learn something new first. Yes, admittedly, I apparently used to have no idea about ministry itself. When I did my ministry at church in Indo, it turned out that I was too busy inside the church building. I was too busy to design programs for the local community. I was too busy to perceive that ministry is more than that. Ministry is more than designing a list of splendid events for special occasions like Easter and Christmas. Ministry is more than having a play-act on stage like I used to do or conducting the biggest play ever at church. Ministry is more than doing charity on the street. Ministry is not only performed inside the wall of church building, but also outside the wall of it. And that is the main purpose of churching.

For nearly twenty years I had thought I had done much things for God, yet right now I do not even think I had done much things for Him. I had done much things for the church, yes, for the people, to make them happy to keep coming to the church. I even still remember how we were too busy to be more concerned about how we worship, how we sing, how we praise God. We were too busy to reject anything new that actually might build a better community in the place. We were too busy about the system and did not even aware that we have been undoubtedly controlled by the system and placed us under it to decline someone who actually had a desire to serve Him as a pastor. For goodness’ sake, haven’t anybody ever been declined by Him? Why we are too busy with the secondary purpose of churching and do seem to overlook the main one?

In fact, there are only two choices for human before God; those are to believe and not to believe. And after we choose to believe, there is only one option after all; that is to be His witness in this world. That is obviously the key purpose of churching.

I am not declaring myself to be a missionary, anyway, but at least when someone asks me to be or not to be, I am exactly to be. I am to be His witness wherever He puts me. And the other things are well positioned on the second line.


Sunday, 23 April 2006
10:51 pm

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