Outreach Concert

On Wednesday, September 10th, our church co-sponsored with some other Christian organizations an outreach concert featuring Henry Chong and his partner Raymond Looi (張漢林與雷聖雄). The concert was mainly gear for non believers working in the service industry (restaurants). That is why the concert was held from 10:00pm till midnight.

The theme of the concert is "I have God's power". Henry Chong is a very well known gospel singer in South East Asia and he is also a very good old traditional pop song singer. We invited people to come and enjoy the old traditional Chinese pop songs because those people will never come if we invite them to listen to gospel music.

He preached through his music and he is really very good at it. After each song, he shared some gospels through everyday witnesses and he is very effective. This is the second time I hear him. (He also came to our church last year). This time around, I think he is much better in conveying the gospels. I am a believer and a long time Christian and I was touched by his message.

I think a lot of Christian especially those that have been Christian for a very long time does not remember how to spread the gospel and God's love. We tend to feel that church should be for Christian only and we should share and enjoy our Christian life selfishly. The sense of ownership is very strong in this particular case. We also want to make sure that we should only sing Christian songs, actually some believe that only certain Christian songs. We should only do activities that are "holy" and Christian like and all those that are not like us should not be here. I am not advocating we do anything other than being good witnesses to our God. However, we forgot to ask ourselves, how do we spread the gospel? How do we attract non believers to our church? How do we share our love with them and how do we bear witness to God?

I think what Pastor Tseng brings to us for the past year is what we as Christian and what our church as body of Christ should be doing. We should be spreading the gospel. We should make believers out of non believers and not try to ask other Christian to "jump ship" from other churches. We should share our love with our neighbors and be true witness to them.

The outreach concert is one of the events that I truly believe is leading us to the right direction. There are those that say that the pop singers should not be singing in the church, or we should not let people sing pop songs in our church. My question would be: How do we attract non believers to our church or any church? I am sure it will not work by telling them how beautiful and soothing the gospel songs are. They are not interested because they don't know them or they have never heard them other than may be they are boring. I think we have to think outside the box. (I am so impressed with our new District Superintendant when he encouraged us to think outside the box). We have to think how they think. We have to do what they do. We have to accommodate them as long as the gospel is not compromised. We invited them to come to a concert that they want, listen to the songs that they love, be in a church and listen to a message which they may not even know that they are listening. If we can get someone to accept Christ this way, I think all our effort and resources are indeed worth it. Just on the side not, two of them accept Christ during the concert.

Pastor Tseng also initiated some very innovative ideas on spreading the gospels and growing our church. I think we need to support him and work with him. We need to give every idea a try. How would we know they don't work if we do not try? There are some naysayers. I know there are some reservations on his ideas and plans and it is very discouraging for the pastor, especially a new pastor. Change is hard. I know that because I am one of them. I was actually one of the worst. I have always resisted change and I have always been content with the present situation. I think over time, God has finally changed me. I am now looking forward to change. I want to support every effort to change. We have always complaint that nothing is going on at our church and we are just sitting on the sideline for our church to die. I think the opportunity is here, and the time is now. God answered our prayers and He sends us a leader that is not afraid to work hard and is willing to lead us to try different approach. What do we have to lose? If we fail this way, we try another way...... We are in God's hand. We should have some faith....

That is why I am also very supportive of the Callahan consultation proposed by Pastor Bentley. I was very impressed with his book but if you ask me if he can really help us, my answer is "I don't know". But I think if this experience will help us work together (Chinese and English) and there is an opportunity for revitalization, why not? What do we have to lose? I really don't think we have anything to lose other than money.... but then money spent on the possibility of revitalization is money well spent regardless of the outcome....

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