Dear BPCWA worshipper, As we have been doing for the past few years, we distributed our church calendar bookmarks during the Watchnight Service. This hard copy calendar contains the dates of the Bible studies, special services, fellowships, and key church activities in the year ahead. At the same time, a soft copy of our church calendar is available online on our website for download to our calendars. It has been many years since we started doing this and I thought it would be useful for all to understand the process involved, and to recap and remind ourselves about why we have it since it may be new to those who have joined us in recent years.  The hope is that worshippers would appreciate the efforts taken by many to enable you to plan ahead and benefit spiritually from the organised activities. I pray that all will take the aim of the calendar seriously and make it part of their lives.

Preparing the calendar. Preparation for the calendar needs to begin a few months before the new year begins. A table of contents for the next year, mirroring the current year’s events, needs to be prepared first. Ministry Leads are then requested to go into the table to thoughtfully revise it based on the dates for each year. For example, for the Seniors Fellowship Gospel meetings, some dates must be revised and set to be close to dates of the actual festivities, like the Lunar New Year or the Mooncake Festival. Many of the activities are also timed to coincide with school breaks, and so must be planned considering the school and university holidays. We also target at least a certain number of meetings to ensure sufficient opportunities to study the Word. Since I teach at all the Bible Studies, there must also be an overall consideration of the dates submitted. In some cases, the proposed dates may be too close together and may need to be adjusted, if possible, to space them apart to allow time for me to prepare for the Bible study. Events that are conducted on a monthly or less regular basis are then added. Before translation into Chinese, there is the need to produce a different set of dates for the Chinese congregation meetings. Then there is proofreading of the finalized dates for both calendars.

Church theme incorporated before printing. While the calendar dates are being coordinated, the design of the church theme needs to be selected. Careful consideration is given to design or purchase copyright for the appropriate artwork to best represent the theme. Someone has to put all these together, print, and hand cut every single calendar before it lands on the table for distribution in the church at the Watchnight service. At the same time, the soft copy calendar is loaded online on New Year’s Day. 

Maintaining the online calendar. Our online calendar (www.bpcwa.org.au/addcalendar) contains more information than what is printed on the hard copy bookmark. For example, it also includes the more frequent Bible Studies like Teens and Mothers Fellowship as well. The online copy is also adjusted, where required, if there are needed last-minute changes to the dates of the activities. For example, if an activity has to be cancelled such as when I was down with COVID-19, they are removed from the online calendar as well. Ongoing effort is put in to help ensure that you have a dependable reference for your planning. If you have not already done so, do go to this link, add our BPCWA calendar of activities to your Google calendar, and it will automatically populate and update any changes to your Google calendar.

Why go through all this? Why do we bother to go through an annual planning instead of just reacting month by month by adopting a “let’s see how things get along this month” approach? After all, it takes a fair bit of effort to coordinate meeting and event dates among ministry Leads, not to mention handling the design and logistics for the printing of the hardcopy calendars.  These are done to prioritize the spiritual, not merely to be organized. We do it so that worshippers can have an overall view of the church’s activities for the year and plan their work, personal, and family schedules so that they can attend the activities to benefit spiritually. We recognise that people do need to plan some things in advance, especially when it comes to leave applications, trips overseas, or vacations. This is especially needful during peak seasons. Some may need to book their annual leave several months in advance for the church camp. When it comes to planning personal vacations, the annual schedule helps worshippers do that so that they don’t miss what they should prioritize to attend. My heart is grateful to God for the encouragement that many families are realising the importance of this. As in the passage I read at the Lord’s Supper during the Watchnight Service, the children of Israel were told to keep a new calendar as they prepared to enter the Promised Land. The point was to forget the life in Egypt and prioritize living for God with a new calendar without the baggage that may tempt them. Several families delayed their trips out of Perth so that their children could attend the Holiday Bible Program. Some departed for their holidays after the Christmas Day Worship Service. Some made it a point to return to attend the Watchnight Service. As the axiom says, a picture paints a thousand words. The picture of what is important to the children is painted by the loud example of what parents show to the children is important by how they plan the schedule for their family. If God be God, how would you honour Him? After all, how we spend our time is ultimately a reflection of what we value about God and the covenantal family.

The church has done its part in making these available to families in BPCWA. Sure, there are recordings of messages, but does mere home-learning make one a Christian? If so, why did God establish churches? Why not just have Bible Colleges churning out loads of material for believers? The people of the world would pay a premium to attend a prestigious event in person instead of just watching it online, reading about it, or merely reading the book. Will Christians be willing to pay the cost of discipleship, an investment for eternity? I hope instead that attending these activities at church will be viewed in the right light, “Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching” (Heb 10:25). Brethren, let us find our greatest fulfillment of our time and life in giving it to know and worship our Almighty Lord and engage in spiritual in-person fellowship in 2024. Pray with us that every one of these activities will be well attended so that all will grow and know the blessing to the soul.

Mt 5:6 Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness:
for they shall be filled.

Yours in our Lord’s service,
Pastor