Dear BPCWA worshipper, I wrote last week about some activities that have been going on backstage, unseen and possibly unknown to most worshippers. While it is intended to update everyone on some of the challenges that the Session faces behind the scenes, it is also intended to help us understand some spiritual truths about service to God in the church.

Perspective of service and titles in God’s church. There are 3 common erroneous thinking about service and titles in churches today. 1) Some people are willing to serve only if they are given titles such as deacons. They think that if they serve, they should be given titles. Hence, they would get frustrated if they are not put in that office despite serving. I am glad that we have deacons who are truly deacons, i.e. readily doing even menial tasks and not just “title holders”. This must always be the mindset in the church and we should not ever have people in Session who are in it just to hold an office title or serve in order to have a title. There must also never be just figurehead officeholders in a church. Deplorably, some people want to be deacons in churches because they see the role as an elevation of position that can draw attention and admiration to themselves and gain the power to tell others what to do while they watch. 2) Regrettably, some would nominate another to be a deacon because they think that it elevates the person who deserves a certain position in the church. But deacons, by definition of the word in Greek, are servants, not about being in a position. When Paul continues to exhort that if we have the gifts of “ministry, let us wait on our ministering” (Rom 12:7), the word “ministry” is diakonia, similar in root to that for deacons. Deacons labour and are in active service. 3) Some erroneously think that deacons must be outstanding in the sense of being prominent, articulate, a charismatic teacher or speaker, or possess certain academic or professional qualifications in the working world. When we do so, we overlook the worthy deacons i.e. those who are quiet workers who are willing to do any task assigned and are happier doing so without being noticed. Some people see such ones as not being of deacon quality and write them off because deacons are, in their minds, prominent charismatic individuals.  Without such a trait of truly serving not to be seen, the person does not have a heart for service, but is instead an attention seeker. The children of Israel chose their first king, being impressed with the outward only. We saw how wrongly they chose.

The privilege to serve the Living God. God does not need us to serve, but He allows us to. If you reject the opportunity, He can easily give it to someone else whom He can raise. The privilege of service is not because we have a title, but because we serve the Living God.  Moreover, let us be honest. While we lisp that it is a privilege to serve the Living God, the real test of our sincerity is in our actions. This is especially so when there are very mundane, menial, laborious, and thankless tasks that have no glory in the eyes of man. When He gives us health to be able to do His work in whatsoever way He deems is needed, we must willingly use it for Him in gratefulness for the gift He has given to us. The purpose for His sustaining our health and our strength is that we must be willing to use it for His service and His glory. But most importantly, we must realise deeply that it is our privilege to do something for God when He opens the opportunity to serve Him.

A precious environment in BPCWA. We have a precious environment in BPCWA today where titles and offices are not seen as positions of elevation and status. We thank God that many serve in BPCWA regardless of whether they have or are given a title. This is a very unique environment that God has created. I constantly thank God for it in my prayers, and even more after all the recent tasks done in the church which I mentioned last week. But such attitudes in the church can be easily lost unless each one of us serves our Lord with only one motive – that His work progresses and not seek any form of attention or praise or compete with others. Such an environment can also easily be damaged by our wrong perspectives of the deacon’s office and seek to promote ourselves or others into it because we believe it is a recognition and elevation. When such erroneous thinking occurs, this office of a servant will be an office to be craved after for significance and recognition, and no longer for service. Any office in the church in any capacity is always about serving God in the responsibilities related to the office, nothing else. And it is our hope and prayer that our people in BPCWA will always rise to serve even in menial, laborious tasks, or when their technical expertise is needed in the maintenance of God’s house regardless of whether they have titles. When we do serve, let us see it as our privilege to do so, with the right spirit of serving one another and not serving “the church” nor “the church leaders”. When we have such a mindset, titles do not matter at all.

Praise God for the worshippers in BPCWA who labour. We often notice those on the forefront. However, we must all be very thankful that many work in the unseen “backstage” quietly for their Lord. In a country that experiences the four seasons, have we experienced in our homes a breakdown of our cooling or heating units? Have you been so relieved and thankful after it was repaired and you were able to have cooling or heating in your home again? We must not forget to be thankful for these behind the scene workers. The fact that they do all these, unseen and unknown, belies the fact that they are doing it not for recognition. Moreover, many do so in gratefulness to God for the health and strength that He has given to them to be able to serve in any manner. At the same time, if we are not thankful for these men, we will not be thankful to God for providing these ones for His church’s work. Those who do so willingly without the desire to be recognised or seen by men realise that God has made us “many members in one body, and all members have not the same office” (Rom 12:4), and “much more those members of the body, which seem to be more feeble, are necessary” (1Cor 12:22). “Having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us” (Rom 12:6), we must realise that God has given to us that which He intends for use for His work.

Let us seek always to be like Christ, our Lord and Master, and so

Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus:

Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God. 

(Phil 2:5-6)

Yours in our Lord’s service,
Pastor