Dearly Beloved,
Greetings in the Name of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ!
Last weekend, we took a break from our regular weekend ministries to celebrate the life of Pastor Laurence Wan - a man of God who gave our beloved church 20 prime years of his life.
To God be the glory!
In these 20 years, we have experienced not just how the Lord used him, but his entire family of four, to impact and inspire our church family.
Such is the wealth and multiplicity of the Lord’s work through our lives; if only we courageously choose to embrace His call upon us.
And such is the clarity and irresistibility of the Lord’s love through ours; if only we courageously choose to envision that His love is the very best thing that could happen to the world that we live in.
Are we feeling courageous to embrace His call and envision His perfect love for the world today?
And so, we remain grateful, not only to Pastor Wan, but to his devoted wife and two amazing children, for having made difficult choices through these past two decades, in ensuring that the church is not without the spiritual leadership and pastoral care of the man, whom they would respectively know as husband, and papa.
To the Wan family, thank you for your courage, sacrifice and commitment to the Kingdom of God. The church owes you a debt of love.
In honoring this family, we were further honored to have Pastor Ken Russell, District Superintendent (BC & Yukon), to share from the pulpit on the theme of Spiritual Mentorship as the Church’s framework for passing our Christian faith from one generation to the next.
I once heard a pithy saying that encompasses much of life’s endeavours,
No successor, no success.
So, how do we groom our successor(s)?
In Love.
And so, there it is.
Love is the language, syllables and pedagogy of discipleship.
Pastor Ken’s exhortation upon us to intentionally build loving relationships resonates deeply within us because ours have always been a loving and relational church and thus, it becomes absolutely intuitive and imperative that we continue in this course.
In one of his key sermon text taken from 2 Timothy 1:5-6, we read of the Apostle Paul's message to Timothy, his son in the faith,
“I am reminded of your sincere faith, which first lived in your grandmother Lois and in your mother Eunice and, I am persuaded, now lives in you also. For this reason I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you through the laying on of my hands.”
Likewise for us, undergirded by exemplary lives of faith that is imparted inter-generationally. we need to ‘fan into flame' this same 'gift of God.’
St. Augustine in a short essay entitled, The Holy Spirit, Gift of God's Love, had this to say about this gift of God,
“There is no gift of God more excellent than this. It alone distinguishes the sons of the eternal kingdom and the sons of eternal perdition.
Other gifts, too, are given by the Holy Spirit; but without love they profit nothing. Unless, therefore, the Holy Spirit is so far imparted to each, as to make him one who loves God and his neighbor, he is not removed from the left hand to the right. Nor is the Spirit specially called the Gift, unless on account of love.
And he who has not this love, "though he speak with the tongues of men and angels, is sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal; and though he have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge, and though he have all faith, so that he can remove mountains, he is nothing; and though he bestow all his goods to feed the poor, and though he give his body to be burned, it profiteth him nothing.
How great a good, then, is that without which goods so great bring no one to eternal life!”
Church, the divine prerogative to enflesh this gift of God remains upon us this day.
We need to be an intentionally loving Christian community, allowing ourselves to resolutely and selflessly share this eternal love with whomever our God - the Source and Supply of this Love – brings amongst us.
Let us ‘fan into flames’ God’s gift to us, and make the love that we so clearly share in our church so hot, that in the cold world we find ourselves in today, we, our children, their children and the world around us, will choose to stay together in the radiant and eternal warmth of God’s love.
That’s right.
God will help us build a universal campfire, nay, bonfire, and we will stay warm around it, but more importantly, we will see people come out of the cold to join us.
This is a tall ask, but this is God’s ask.
May we be up to His task.
Shalom.
Let us pray.
Our Father in Heaven,
Hallowed be Your Name.
Your Kingdom come, Your Will be done on earth, as it is in heaven.
You are Love, and because of that, we are able to experience, and express love.
We thank You for Pastor and Mrs Wan, Hymnial, Stephen and their respective families.
For a family in Your ministry, we know that these past 20 years have been hugely challenging, and yet, immensely fulfilling. We thank You for sustaining, renewing and reminding them that they are indeed storing for themselves treasures in heaven.
We thank You for allowing the Wan family to exemplify Your eternally binding and fruitful love through the course of their lives and ministry in our church.
Dear God, may we continue in Your love in all that we are and do.
May we always allow Your Holy Spirit full access in our lives to forge within ourselves – and with-out – eternal bonds of love relationships.
May we live to offer Your perfect and eternal brand of love to a world so desperate, and so familiar only with the imperfect and the temporal.
May we be your agents of Love now and forevermore.
We thank You and pray all these in the name of Your Son and our King, Jesus Christ. Amen.
Greetings in the Name of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ!
Last weekend, we took a break from our regular weekend ministries to celebrate the life of Pastor Laurence Wan - a man of God who gave our beloved church 20 prime years of his life.
To God be the glory!
In these 20 years, we have experienced not just how the Lord used him, but his entire family of four, to impact and inspire our church family.
Such is the wealth and multiplicity of the Lord’s work through our lives; if only we courageously choose to embrace His call upon us.
And such is the clarity and irresistibility of the Lord’s love through ours; if only we courageously choose to envision that His love is the very best thing that could happen to the world that we live in.
Are we feeling courageous to embrace His call and envision His perfect love for the world today?
And so, we remain grateful, not only to Pastor Wan, but to his devoted wife and two amazing children, for having made difficult choices through these past two decades, in ensuring that the church is not without the spiritual leadership and pastoral care of the man, whom they would respectively know as husband, and papa.
To the Wan family, thank you for your courage, sacrifice and commitment to the Kingdom of God. The church owes you a debt of love.
In honoring this family, we were further honored to have Pastor Ken Russell, District Superintendent (BC & Yukon), to share from the pulpit on the theme of Spiritual Mentorship as the Church’s framework for passing our Christian faith from one generation to the next.
I once heard a pithy saying that encompasses much of life’s endeavours,
No successor, no success.
So, how do we groom our successor(s)?
In Love.
And so, there it is.
Love is the language, syllables and pedagogy of discipleship.
Pastor Ken’s exhortation upon us to intentionally build loving relationships resonates deeply within us because ours have always been a loving and relational church and thus, it becomes absolutely intuitive and imperative that we continue in this course.
In one of his key sermon text taken from 2 Timothy 1:5-6, we read of the Apostle Paul's message to Timothy, his son in the faith,
“I am reminded of your sincere faith, which first lived in your grandmother Lois and in your mother Eunice and, I am persuaded, now lives in you also. For this reason I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you through the laying on of my hands.”
Likewise for us, undergirded by exemplary lives of faith that is imparted inter-generationally. we need to ‘fan into flame' this same 'gift of God.’
St. Augustine in a short essay entitled, The Holy Spirit, Gift of God's Love, had this to say about this gift of God,
“There is no gift of God more excellent than this. It alone distinguishes the sons of the eternal kingdom and the sons of eternal perdition.
Other gifts, too, are given by the Holy Spirit; but without love they profit nothing. Unless, therefore, the Holy Spirit is so far imparted to each, as to make him one who loves God and his neighbor, he is not removed from the left hand to the right. Nor is the Spirit specially called the Gift, unless on account of love.
And he who has not this love, "though he speak with the tongues of men and angels, is sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal; and though he have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge, and though he have all faith, so that he can remove mountains, he is nothing; and though he bestow all his goods to feed the poor, and though he give his body to be burned, it profiteth him nothing.
How great a good, then, is that without which goods so great bring no one to eternal life!”
Church, the divine prerogative to enflesh this gift of God remains upon us this day.
We need to be an intentionally loving Christian community, allowing ourselves to resolutely and selflessly share this eternal love with whomever our God - the Source and Supply of this Love – brings amongst us.
Let us ‘fan into flames’ God’s gift to us, and make the love that we so clearly share in our church so hot, that in the cold world we find ourselves in today, we, our children, their children and the world around us, will choose to stay together in the radiant and eternal warmth of God’s love.
That’s right.
God will help us build a universal campfire, nay, bonfire, and we will stay warm around it, but more importantly, we will see people come out of the cold to join us.
This is a tall ask, but this is God’s ask.
May we be up to His task.
Shalom.
Let us pray.
Our Father in Heaven,
Hallowed be Your Name.
Your Kingdom come, Your Will be done on earth, as it is in heaven.
You are Love, and because of that, we are able to experience, and express love.
We thank You for Pastor and Mrs Wan, Hymnial, Stephen and their respective families.
For a family in Your ministry, we know that these past 20 years have been hugely challenging, and yet, immensely fulfilling. We thank You for sustaining, renewing and reminding them that they are indeed storing for themselves treasures in heaven.
We thank You for allowing the Wan family to exemplify Your eternally binding and fruitful love through the course of their lives and ministry in our church.
Dear God, may we continue in Your love in all that we are and do.
May we always allow Your Holy Spirit full access in our lives to forge within ourselves – and with-out – eternal bonds of love relationships.
May we live to offer Your perfect and eternal brand of love to a world so desperate, and so familiar only with the imperfect and the temporal.
May we be your agents of Love now and forevermore.
We thank You and pray all these in the name of Your Son and our King, Jesus Christ. Amen.