BISHOP’S CHALLENGE
Theme:
Mission Today and Tomorrow
1]
BIBLE PASSAGE - Philippians 3:4b-14
Philippians 3:4b-14 If
anyone else thinks he has reasons to put confidence in the flesh, I have more:
circumcised
on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of
Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews in regard to the law, a
Pharisee; as
for zeal, persecuting the church; as for legalistic
righteousness, faultless. But
whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ.
What
is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the
surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord,
for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them
rubbish, that I may gain Christ and
be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the
law, but that which is through faith in Christ-- the righteousness
that comes from God and is by faith. I
want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of
sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in
his death, and
so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead. Not
that I have already obtained all this, have already been
made perfect, but I press on to take
hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold
of me. Brothers,
I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do:
Forgetting what is behind and straining towards what
is ahead, I
press on towards the goal to win the prize for which God has called me
heavenwards in Christ Jesus.
2] GREETINGS
I
greet you all
in the name of our
Lord
Jesus Christ!
I praise and thank God for the
Ordination of
our eight (8) brothers earlier this evening. It is a real honour
and privilege for us to celebrate with our eight (8) brothers the
very solemn offering of their life to God. I have asked my office
to make a copy of my Sermon at the Ordination Service for each one
of us. I hope this will be useful material to remind all of us what
God has in mind for each one of us when we
respond
to
His
Call and offer
our life for the full-time ministry of the
Lord!
3] I PRESS ON
Paul's
dramatic encounter with the
Living Christ on
the way to Damascus had given him a new life and changed the
direction of his life totally. He realised that to be a true and
effective
Servant of the
Resurrected Christ,
he could not "put confidence in the flesh" any more. All the
credentials that he inherited, worked so hard to build up ie
Philippians 3:5-6
circumcised
on the eighth day, of the people of
Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin,
a Hebrew of Hebrews; in
regard to the law, a Pharisee; As
for zeal, persecuting the church;
as for legalistic
righteousness, faultless.
has to be
put aside. These had to be considered as loss and as rubbish. To
replace all these earthly credentials, his
ultimate ambition
and
passion for
life now was
Philippians 3:10
I
want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of
sharing in his sufferings,
becoming like him in
his death,
This new
direction of life and new impetus to become like Jesus in His Death
propelled Paul from within. He became zealous missionary for
Christ. His whole
passion was
directed to the
Mission of
God. He became an
"all
out missionary"
for Jesus. Hence nothing was too hard or too strenuous for him. He
lived for
Mission and he
would willingly die for
Mission. Just
listened to what he said:-
Philippians 3:12
Not
that I have already obtained all this, or have already been
made perfect,
but I
press on
to take hold of that for whichChrist Jesus took hold
of me.
Philippians 3:14
I
press on
towards the goal to win the prize for which God has called me
heavenwards in Christ Jesus.
What a
challenge and
what an
inspiration
this is!
Praise the Lord!
In ten
(10) months' time, I will reach my 65th birthday. I will
officially retire from the office as the Bishop of Sabah. I am glad
that the process for nominating my Successor is progressing well. I
hope by September this year, through prayers and thoughtful process,
according to our Constitution, we can find the Man after God's Own
Heart to be our
new
Bishop. Thus,
this will probably be my last official Annual Clergy/Pastor
Conference and Retreat as your Diocesan Bishop of Sabah. As I plan
for my farewell around the Diocese, I think it is right and most
appropriate for me to start the farewell at this Conference and
Retreat. To all of you who have been working and ministering with
me as fellow workers, I want to praise and thank
God
for your prayers, support, fellowship, partnership and hardwork with
me all these years. Together we have built up our Diocese and taken
our Diocese to what it is today.
It has
been a real joy and pleasure to serve our Diocese together with
you. I want to take this opportunity to say thank you to all of you
who are my closest comrades in the ministry of the Lord. You have
meant a lot to me and my wife. I cannot find any better word to
express my deep and sincere gratitude to all of you apart from
repeating Paul's words to the Philippians -
Philippians 1:3-6
I
thank my God every time I remember you. In
all my prayers for all of you,
I always pray with joy
because
of your partnership in the gospel from the first day
until now,
being
confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on
to completion until the day of Christ
Jesus.
The
time-table for saying farewell has been set in motion. I will have
a very busy year. But the momentum and the ongoing strategy, plan
and work of the Church for the next season should not and must not
be slowed down. The next ten (10) months will have many urgent
matters to deal with in our Diocese, our Province and our
Communion. I will take
God's
clear
instruction for
us as expressed by Paul seriously. I will press on as the Bishop of
Sabah and the Primate of the Province of South East Asia until the
day I retire. I know I must plan a smooth and progressing
handover. I need to prepare a good solid ground for my Successor.
Please pray that I will have the health and stamina, the will and
wisdom from God to run the last lap of a long race of more than
thirty-five (35) years in ministry.
May all
Glory, Honour
and
Praises be to
our
Almighty God!
4] FAITHFUL SERVANTS OF
GOD
(a) Archdeacon Emeritus Arnold Puntang and
Canon Martin Yuen - we want to record our deep appreciation for
the long and faithful ministry of the late Archdeacon Emeritus
Arnold Puntang and Canon Martin Yuen. Archdeacon Emeritus Arnold
Puntang and Canon Martin Yuen returned to their heavenly Father on
29th October 2004 and 11th November 2004
respectively. Both funerals in the Cathedral were attended by big
crowds of people showing their love and respect for these two (2)
Servants of God. They have "fought the good fight"; "finished the
race" and "kept the faith". [1 Timothy 4:7] They now form
part of the "great cloud of witnesses" [Hebrews12:1] in
heaven to cheer us to "run with perseverance the race marked out for
us." [Hebrews 12:2]
(b) Mr David Wong, who had served our Diocese as
our Chancellor for 28 years had stepped down at the end of June
2004. His service to the Diocese is both thorough and outstanding.
We are grateful to God for his long, faithful, dedicated and
exemplary best to God for his service. No word can be adequate to
express our grateful thanks to him. Mr David Wong will continue to
be the Provincial Chancellor until I retire as the Primate of the
Province of South East Asia on 20th February 2006.
(c) Rev Canon Fred David felt the Call of God to
take up the post of National Director of Alpha Malaysia. He needs
to be released from the parish responsibility to do this job
fulltime. After consultation and careful prayers, I have decided to
grant him "Leave of Absence without Pay" from the Dioceses
from 1st July 2005 to 4th January 2007. When
he reaches the age of 60 on 4th January 2007, he will
take early optional retirement provided for by the Diocese. In this
way, he will retain his retirement benefits and continue to be under
the spiritual cover of the Bishop of Sabah until he takes optional
retirement. It is a great loss and sacrifice on our part to
facilitate this movement. But we are grateful to God for choosing
one of ours to do a job for Him. We also want to appreciate Canon
Fred's contribution to the ministry and growth of our Dioceses in
the last 24 years. We want to thank him for his faithfulness and
hard work. I will pray for him and send him off officially at the
Synod Meeting in June 2005.
(d) Mr Kenneth Thien, a meteorologist turned
lawyer has accepted my appointment as the new Diocesan Chancellor.
Mr Kenneth Thien is a young lawyer who knows and loves the Lord. He
serves the Cathedral well as Youth Leader, PCC, Preacher,
Interpreter and a wide range of ministry. He is also a member of
the Provincial Synod and PYNET. We praise and thank God for raising
him up for us.
(e) Newly Ordained - We congratulate those who were ordained Deacons
and Priests earlier this afternoon. We welcome them to this Retreat
and Conference as Clergy of our Diocese.
Priests
·
The Reverend Jeniol
Tuaty
·
The Reverend George
Kok
·
The Reverend Norman
Sham
·
The Reverend
Clarence Chin
·
The Reverend Lin
Khee Vun
·
The Reverend David
Wong
Deacons
·
The Reverend
Jackson Araman
·
The Reverend George
Chong
(f) First Timers - With great pleasure and thanksgiving to God, I
like to welcome the following Clergy and Pastors who attend our
Annual Clergy/Pastors' Retreat and Conference for the first time:-
1. Reverend Ray Pearce
2. Reverend George Chong
3. Pastor Grace Chau
4. Pastor Roland Chia
5. Pastor Susan Tan
6. Pastor Henry Olorosisimoi
7. Pastor Alice Olorosisimo
8. Pastor Michael Wong
9. Pastor Ho Kee Chung
10. Pastor Janet Lee
11. Pastor Maradin Kapong
12. Pastor Alice Liau
13. Pastor Lim Heng Loong
(g) Bishop Chen Fah (& his wife Mida), is taking his Sabbatical
Leave from 29th March to 18th May 2005. They
are in Moore College, Sydney for the whole duration of his
Sabbatical. We are grateful to the Reverend & Mrs Ray Pearce for
their willingness to come back to Sabah to help the Church of the
Good Samaritan at this time.
(h) Our Special Guests - I am so glad that we are able to create
three (3) half-hour Sessions for Mr David Virtue and Ms Flora Chong
to speak to us. I am sure both of them will contribute to our
overall theme for this Conference.
i. Mr
David Virtue is a cyber journalist. His web-site, Virtueonline
has been a persistent and clear voice to expose all the unorthodox
practices of ECUSA. I have invited him to visit our Diocese and be
our Guest at the Ordination and the Clergy/Pastors Retreat &
Conference so that he can observe first hand how we live, work and
minister as a Church in our context. I have arranged for him to go
round the different parts or our Diocese to have a feel of our
Diocese. He wants to do an in-depth report of our Diocese.
ii. Pastor Flora
Chong - She is one of ours. At the moment, she is under the
Parish of St Patrick's, Tawau as a Missionary Pastor looking after
our work in Gereja Kristus Batu Penjuru, Tarakan, Indonesia. I have
invited her to speak to us on her work in Tarakan.
5] THE OVERALL DESIGN
This
four-day Retreat and Conference was designed for active
participation by every Clergy and Pastor who attends this Meeting.
It is important that you have read through thoroughly the papers and
materials sent to you in the booklet. Please participate fully in
the Small Groups discussion to help the Diocese to formulate a good
and sound strategy for the coming years. May I share with you my
rational of making the design as according to our Time Table.
(a) Biblical Foundation of Mission
This is the most important element
in our Retreat and Conference. The four (4) Morning Sessions and
Bible Studies can be regarded as the Retreat part of our
Conference. It is time that we as a body intentionally put down
everything and quietly listen to God speaking to us through
His Words.
Four (4) Senior Clergy have been
assigned the responsibility of doing Bible Study for us each day.
We want to be challenged to go in-depth into the Bible to discover
what God says as the basic foundation of
Mission. They
have been asked to do the studies on the subject of -
·
The Vision
·
The mandate
·
The Leadership
·
The Strategy
I hope these studies will make clear
God's
heart for
Mission for
us. May
God
through
His Holy Spirit
continue to steer us on the path to
Mission that
will be pleasing to God Himself. Indeed, these
Biblical Foundations
of
Mission will
anchor us firmly so that we can explore other
Mission Issues
without being carried away. I want to thank -
·
Archdeacon Albert
Vun ;
·
Reverend Canon
Moses Chin ;
·
Archdeacon Lidis
Singkung ; and
·
Dean Koo Tuk Su
for helping us on this venture of
faith.
(b) Mission Today & Tomorrow
The theme of this Retreat and
Conference is to pick up
God's
own breathtaking desire
to reach out to the lost
souls. As the
Spiritual Leaders
of our Church, we need to be concerned and must be totally committed
to the
Mission God has
given us. The whole Conference is designed for us to explore,
recommend and implement what we have discerned as
God's
own heart for
us.
i. The Evaluation &
Projection
Clergy and Pastors
are the
top
Spiritual Leaders
of our Church. It is right that we take the opportunity of the
Annual gathering of all our Clergy and Pastor as an appropriate and
opportune time to take stock and evaluate the
spiritual progress
of our Church. We want to see "how are we doing" as a Diocese in
the last fifteen (15) years. I am grateful to Bishop Chen Fah for
taking the trouble to complete his paper before he left for his
Sabbatical on 29th March 2005. He has asked Mr Alfred
Yong from the Church of the Good Samaritan to help him to deliver
his paper.
ii. Strategies for
Planting New Churches
The following people
have been requested to look into the strategies for new Church
Planting in Sabah -
English
Speaking Church
·
The Reverend John
Yeo
·
The Reverend
Clarence Fu
Chinese
Speaking Church
·
The Reverend Chak
Sen Fen
·
The Reverend Chan
Peng Wah
BM Rural
Speaking Church
·
The Reverend Arun
Kuak
·
The Reverend Canon
Lidis Singkung
BM Urban
Speaking Church
·
The Reverend Melter
Tais
·
The Reverend Canon
Lidis Singkung
These Groups of
colleagues can be classified as our younger group of Clergy. I know
as they mature in years, they will move onto more prominent
leadership position. The future belongs to them. I was very
excited to read through their thoughts and ideas when these paper(s)
were sent into my office. The verse of Scripture that comes to mind
is:
Acts 2:17
'In
the last days, God says,I will pour out my
Spirit on all people.Your sons and daughters
will prophesy,
your young men will
see visions, your old men will dream
dreams.
May I ask all of
you to stand! Let us hold hands together and pray together that
this
promise and
prophecy of God
will be fulfilled in our
Diocese!
iii. Discussion and
Recommendations
All the five (5)
papers will be presented during the First Day. On the Second Day,
we have two (2) Sessions with a total of 2½ hours for Small Group
Discussion. Please refer to page 25 for details.
May I request the
leader of each Group to take leadership for these discussions. You
need to appoint a Secretary who will report the findings of your
Group to the plenary session on Tuesday night. Please look at each
paper carefully and make appropriate response to each paper. Please
suggest implement-able recommendations for the Diocese and
Parishes/Mission Districts/Churches to do.
We praise and thank
God for the indication of our Statistics of a good and healthy
growth of our Diocese for 1990-2001 (Average Sunday Attendance -
6366 to 17730). But we must also admit that we have had negative
growth from 2001 to 2004.
|
|
2001 |
2002 |
2003 |
2004 |
|
BM |
4899 |
4703 |
3766 |
4002 |
|
Chinese |
3900 |
3799 |
3779 |
3820 |
|
English |
2230 |
2121 |
2125 |
2036 |
|
Rural |
6701 |
6757 |
7088 |
7436 |
|
Total |
17730 |
17380 |
17294 |
17294 |
It is important that
we find out the reasons for this negative growth and make helpful
and positive plan to arrest the decline and reach for higher ground
again.
The BSL [Bishop's
Senior Leaders] had looked at Bishop Chen Fah's paper and encouraged
the Clergy Conference to make input as much as possible. Any church
planting venture that fits into the present movement of the Diocese
should be implemented as soon as possible. But BSL also looked at
the proposal for changes [pages 51-54] and advised that we move with
caution. It is hoped that this Conference will make suggestions to
revise this Paper to be tabled in Synod for information only without
discussion. Only with the approval of the New Bishop, this revised
paper will be tabled in the next Synod for discussion and
implementation.
iv. Finance
The Standing
Committee has approved the revision made by the Finance Committee on
the Salary and Working Conditions for our Clergy/Pastor/Evangelist &
Youth Evangelist. We have taken a moderate revision in term of the
stipends of our workers. We have also made some amendments of the
conditions of work as according to the feedbacks from Clergy and
others. We hope our Diocesan Income will be able to cope with these
revisions. Mr Paul Chong, our Diocesan Treasurer will be here to
explain to us the impact of the revision to the financial position
of our Diocese.
6] CONCLUSION
I hope the
other agenda items will cover most issues we need to deal with as we
minister in our churches.
Mission and
Ministry are
intertwined as we continue to be
God's
Church here in
Sabah. As we focus on
Jesus
and the
heart
of God, we
earnestly pray that the
Holy
Spirit will
renew us
day
by day.
May our
Spiritual Eyes
be opened to see
God's
Glory!
May our
Spiritual Ears
be opened to hear
God's
Voice!
May our
Church respond to
God's
desire to reach
all the lost souls in our land and beyond!
Let Us .....
press on towards the goal
to win the prize for which
God has called Us
heavenwards in Christ
Jesus.
Philippian 3:14
The
Most Revd Datuk Yong Ping Chung
10th April 2005
