第八課﹕我們的教會為何存在?…課後分享

第八課﹕我們的教會為何存在?…課後分享

1. Where are we now?

• Love God and love people but not always Fear of God.
• New Chinese pastor, English pastors are leaving, no senior pastor. Church leadership is trying to put effort in seeking God’s guidance for future direction of our church.
• Chinese congregation is aging, less passion/physical energy to train the young generation.
• Church board helps provide many spiritual programs but the corporate spiritual growth is insignificant.
• No clear and specific identity of our church, do not know the direction of next year and next 5 years.
• Individuals seldom express to seek God’s guidance in their daily life.
• In-frequent collaboration between Chinese and English congregations.
• Enjoy the life of small group but not often reach out to preach gospel together.
• Offer a lot to satisfy the basic needs of individuals but a lot less in spiritual relationship.
• Seldom express the joy of serving God but more often burn out / constraints. Difficult to find workers to serve.
• Significant portion of our congregation is not living in the church community. It is difficult to reach out to the community or do community works.
• Church community comprises of various racial / ethnic groups. Within Chinese group Mandarin speaking is dominant.
• While the Chinese congregation is aging, English congregation is relative young. The young generation has no presence in the church board leadership team.
• We have new comers to attend our Sunday services. But we saw the new faces stay and familiar faces gone.

2. Where do we want to go?

 

I don’t know yet. I believe we need to live out a Christian life, i.e. follow Jesus Christ, Love God, love others and fear of God. Then we ourselves can be the witnesses of God’s good news (gospel). The matured adults can be the good examples while the young generation can bring in creativity. Practice and demonstrate God’s love. Serve collaboratively and in unity to reach out. The bottom-line is that our whole congregation must pray for the guidance of God and discernment of God’s will. Let God Lead us.

Shard by Eric Kong

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1. Where are we now?

We are just in survival mode.  In HCEFC, we keep the church machinery going, often trying to "follow the Bible", sometimes trying to find a strong purpose or meaning, but in reality, most of our energy or attention is spent in managing the various daily/weekly/monthly/yearly operations and activities, without consensus of the answers to the two vital now-questions that Kory asks today.

     

Using the image of a train, we know how to keep the train running, but we have doubts about where the train is going or where the train should go.

2. Where do we want to go?

It depends on who the "we" is.  If the "we" is the general congregation, they want a strong and good leadership, sound preaching, intimate fellowship, the feeling of a good church.  If the "we" is the leadership team, they need to have a realistic assessment of "what was" and "what is", then they need to reach a consensus of "what should be".

Again using the image of a train, both the drivers, workers and passengers are aware, happy and motivated of where the train is going. They are in for the adventure ride of their life!

      

With respect to HCEFC, merely "survival" for a long time is living without mission, meaning nor passion.  We need to reach consensus of our purpose, demonstrate that the purpose is right and good, get the crowd motivated, train them for more participation if necessary......... Frankly, I have to admit I don't have a good and specific answer to this question.

Shared by Eric Lau