The Forerunner Times

"A life journal by Nathan J. Elias, called under God's grace to be His forerunner and restorer for His glory."

Martin has been asking me about the outcome of my three weeks holiday mission in mid-February to early March 2007. Well, let’s say that on one hand it was quite fruitful, but on the other hand there were also some devastasting after-effects of the mission on my own personal spirituality. Let me elaborate further down here and see if this post will actually be longer than Martin’s usual blog novels. I actually took FOUR very long e-mails to write this entire story in parts to my friends and my mentor at ORPC.

On forming the KTB/Cellgroup
One of the things I wanted to do during my stay was to form my own KTB (Kelompok Tumbuh Bersama), separate from the church, because the one in the church does not seem to be functioning well at the moment. For the members, I have chosen the people from my ex backing vocals group that includes my brother Bryan (who was replacing me after my departure to Singapore), my God-sister Junnany and two other friends Fenny and Vivi. Honestly, I do not know how they fare at the moment, because I have not been following their progress since, but from what I know, they never hold any more meetings after I left, simply because they have no leader there (which is sad, and reminds me of what is actually happening to my church’s KTB as well).

That said, the only thing that I managed to plant to their minds was the Cat and Dog Theology. I felt that it was important for them to know this theology because it is exactly why my church is in ruins now. All the deacons and chairpersons think about is now programs, programs, and more programs. They think only about their own church’s affairs and no longer about what God wants or what God gets in the end. This problem is so bad that even people from my church are not allowed to attend other churches’ events that might benefit them and bring them closer to God, due to fears that people will move from my church to the other church. If this is the case, then who is the largest and who gets the priority in my church now? The church itself or God as the head? People often think that these two are the same, but actually they are not. God is larger than just one church and He can send you to many churches for His purpose and mission (like what I’m doing now, attending ORPC and also interchurch events such as FESIM, ISCF and IGCF). By limiting people to your own church, you might actually are also limiting these people to be used more by God, and I’m very sure God doesn’t want that.

I hope thay by teaching them the Cat and Dog theology, I can make them remember that God is the focus of their lives and missions. Sometimes we only SAY that what we do is for God, but actually what we do are for our own selfish ends. I haven’t actually checked on how they are doing right now in terms of their relationships with God, as most of them don’t have active Internet connections at home (and conversations by SMS can’t go into too much details), but I hope they can keep up their Bible reading and prayer life that I’ve told them to take care of, so that they can become close - and closer - with God.

On the church’s problem
This has been very bad. From my KTB I heard a lot of bad things on the church, and one of them who were working on the church’s polyclinic actually received some abuse (being unpaid, the reason being that “she works for God and not for money”, which is so DAMN STUPID of an excuse and then being abused verbally). This left a very bad impression on this friend’s family. Her father, who is not a Christian, lost trust in all Christians, saying that if Christians can treat one of their own this badly, how will they treat those who are not Christian? Her mother, a Christian, lost faith in my church and moved to another church, and now she harbors a deep hatred and vengeance against the people of my church, to the point that she says if she ever meet the people who mistreated her daughter, she will go out of her way to embarass them in public.

Now this is a church that no longer bless others and bring others to Christ, but has fallen to the point that it even becomes a stumbling block. I’m afraid that God may decide to abandon and left my church to rot and destroy, and I can’t even think of how could those people dare to do this. Can they face God in His judgement later and dare to say to His face that they have done nothing wrong with this? Have they entirely lost their fear to God? I myself shudder when I think of what lies ahead of them, what kind of judgement will God pass upon them once He lost His patience upon this church. May God have mercy and one day restore order and truth in this church.

On the problems of the youth group, where the KTB is not growing and spiritually the members are going stagnant, I spoke to the chairmembers and actually they knew the problem is there, but they have lost faith and they only asked themselves “well, what can we do anyway?” without asking God if He wants something drastic to be done. They have lost themselves to the situation and have become dead, just like the Church of Sardis (Revelations 3:1-6). They asked me to stay in Indonesia and form a team with them to fix the wrongs of this church, but I said no. It is not my time yet, and even if I stayed, with the political system that exists inside the church (deacons hold the most power and have the ability to crush any other elements in the church), going in with a team to reform the church will never work, they will just crush and destroy us to make us silent and obey to their programs and agendas, just like now.

On personal counselling trips
I bought a NIV Life Application Bible before I went back to Surabaya. I was thinking about buying it after I return to Singapore, but somehow God gave me an insight to buy one before and bring it back with me to Surabaya for a mission. Indeed it was very useful for my counselling of others. On the day when I have just finished reading through the Book of Job, I met someone who has problems in her life similar to Job, where her life is going down, there seems to be no exit and God seems to be nowhere. She kept asking God why did all that happen to her. With the knowledge from the Book of Job, I shared with her some insightful notes and concept about God’s providence that was there within the NIV LAB. I’m happy to say that after a few meetings, her life was changed and now she is walking with God in her life.

This is one of the better accomplishments that I managed to do during this three week mission. I honestly never knew that I had the gift of counselling and this was my first time doing so. All the time in Singapore, I was the one being constantly counselled and I was the one who was in constant need of help from others (especially from Rita who gave me a lot of help and counsel that time, thanks jeng!) so I was actually in a bit of disbelief when God told me to help bring others to their feet and bring them home to be with Him again (another purpose of the Elias name). But as I shared in my previous article The Door and The Key, all of us might have hidden talents we never knew before, waiting to be unlocked by God for His true purpose. This is also a career path I am pursuing right now and I hope that God will grant me a job in this direction, if it stays true to His will.

The Fall
Sadly, these accomplishments made me a bit proudful of myself and after I returned to Singapore, I decided to take a “spiritual holiday”, which eventually led me to do things God wouldn’t have wanted me to do (see previous entry, Lost). The relationship was broken and even though it was eventually mended by the end of March, I have not been able to bring it back to the previous level. My “Bible Reading Plan in 1 Year” is disrupted and discontinued as of now, and my prayer life has also took a significant hit.

But thanks to the Bereans Forum and the Bible Studies at ORPC Youth, I managed to rekindle my spirit of learning the Scripture again. That’s why I bought the Expositor’s Bible Commentary and later was granted access to an online library that consists of more than 1000 books to use, including bibles, commentaries, dictionaries, encyclopedias, lexicons, maps and many other materials. I might not have been called to be a full-time minister or preacher, but even then, I think that as a lay person, I will still be able to minister in ways that full-time ministers cannot, by reaching to people one-by-one as a friend and as one who is at the same level with them (people often think of full-time ministers as people higher or holier than them and this often creates an unwanted gap).

I pray that I will never break any relationships with Him again, and that He will continue to use me for His purpose and mission in my entire life. To Him be the glory of all things, even in all the things I do. The glory shall be to God alone and not to me. Amen.