Posted on 2 Dec 2024 by Lucas Tan
Dear fellow workers of the gospel – grace and peace to you in our Lord Jesus Christ.
It’s been one month since I started my Church Minister’s Apprenticeship (CMA) in CERC. The desire to be used by God for full-time paid ministry began 5 years ago after a sober realization that many in the Klang Valley do not know the written word of God.
These are alarming questions that I have struggled to answer for certain. Scripture saves. As our Lord himself says, “The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life” (John 6:63). To that end, what better task is there to do than to labour for the plentiful harvest and preach the word of life before our Lord returns?
The past month, though brief, has taught me many harsh but necessary lessons about what it takes to be truly up to the task. Given my weaknesses and shortcomings entering a programme that rightfully demands so much, it has become imperative for me to practice mindfulness in thinking, writing, reflecting, and applying what my trainers have been helping me (amongst other apprentices) see about ourselves and ministry.
I thought to share 3 of my recent reflections, so that you too – brother, sister, can be edified to love and serve God and His people better.
Ministry is about people. This has been Elder Robin’s refrain in meetings with Growth Group leaders and apprentices. Do not misunderstand – this is not man-centred theology which teaches that the primary call for churches is to cater to the felt needs of its churchgoers. Rather, ministry is about God having a people who will share in the suffering and the glory of His beloved Son Jesus. And so, I have had to shake off the naivety of thinking that insofar as I preach the gospel to people, the Word will do it all, without me having to deal with fleshliness that corrupts minds, desires, emotions. For a very long time, I thought that being a minister only required you to be good at reading the Bible. But I’ve learnt that ministering faithfully requires you to be able to understand how someone’s family upbringing affects their doctrine of God, how the media they consume affects their epistemology, how it’s important to immunize people against the winds and waves of individualistic propaganda on social media, even after conversion. You need to understand people. “Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.” (1 Peter 2.10). Ministry is about God’s people, with the emphasis on “God’s” but also on “people,” so we must be responsible for the people that God has entrusted to us to shepherd. May we shepherd God’s people well.
In light of the above, preaching is about persuasion and proclamation. In my sermon writing process, I have had to consider whether I am proclaiming and persuading, rather than merely providing information. The intention of challenging worldviews, calling out sin and weeding out presuppositions is a prerequisite for any form of preaching and teaching, since “the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart” (Hebrews 4:12). I commonly fall into the trap of wanting to be a charismatic communicator (or worse yet, just a communicator), without the intention of shifting perspective, and persuading them from what is known to what is unknown. “Given the sinfulness of the hearts of man, have I been sufficiently challenging in my manner, matter and method?” I admit that I am poor at this, but I must not give up. Jesus’s kingdom is worth too much for me to give up.
Dying to myself has been one of the most difficult things to embrace in the past few weeks. I am naturally a man who values stability, order, predictability. If you are familiar with the Helen Fisher personality test, I am overwhelmingly a “Builder.”
This means that I tend to be “traditional, conventional and cautious”, with a bent for needing things to be in order (to read more about the 4 personality types under the Helen Fisher framework, you may refer here: Personality – Helen Fisher, PhD). Being a “Builder” brings certain advantages to the table, but it has also been showing itself in my constant worrying about everything that is on my plate, thinking about the next big tasks while working on a big task that is right in front of me in such a way that causes me to lose focus on the task that needs to be done. Reflecting on this, I understand that it stems from a sinful desire of wanting control over my life, in a way that is not aligned with what God teaches us about humility and reliance on Him. Fundamentally, I am seeking out my own form of comfort by desiring order, by wanting to run away from the job that needs to be done. To that end I must die to myself and, at the risk of sounding reductionistic, just do what needs to be done, by any means necessary.
These are some thoughts that I have had the past few weeks about the work and myself as the worker. In my next blog, I will hopefully share my reflections on the necessity of reading well, thinking for the future of our church, and working on the work. I hope to be able to maintain a healthy cadence of reflections for my trainers and me to assess my growth and trajectory as a minister. As Seneca wrote, “If a man knows not to which port he sails, no wind is favourable.”
It has been a difficult month, and I have had to face my failures every single day. But growth and maturity are called for if I want to be qualified for the task. So, for the sake of the kingdom of God, the show must go on. Training is everything. For the next 2 years of apprenticeship, nothing else matters. So help me God.
Please pray that I will be faithful and responsible for the gospel work that has been entrusted to me and that I will not fall into the trap of navel-gazing and parochialism as I face failures and die to myself every day.
May the grace of God sustain you as you resist the devil in your sufferings for the kingdom, and may you set your eyes on the eternal glory of Christ daily.
In Christ,
Lucas.
