Encourage One Another
Pastoral word from BPCIS
Written by Ps David Wong, Gen. Secretary
Since the start of April, our seven BPCIS churches have been live-streaming our Sunday services. Thank the Lord, reports indicate healthy attendances and offerings, in fact, increases in some churches.
Our pastors continue to meet via Zoom, and share about how the COVID-19 pandemic is changing the way we think of church and ministry. We have decided to postpone the July Leaders Retreat to next year. In its place, our retreat speaker Bishop Emeritus Robert Solomon will address a webinar on “No Longer Business as Usual: The Post-Pandemic World and Church”. Details will be announced.
While the current circuit breaker has curtailed movements and meetings, opportunities have opened up for service to our community. Two of our churches have “safe sleepers” staying at their premises. One of them is delivering meals and groceries to low income families and elderly people living on their own.
Our Good Friday gift has been sent to help believers in China affected by COVID-19, and another gift will go to migrant workers likewise affected in Singapore. Meanwhile our churches are rallying to help their own members as well as others in need.
As the apostle Paul commends the Thessalonian church, so we do the same, “Therefore encourage one another and build one another up, just as you are doing.” I Thessalonians 5:11 ESV
Continue to worship at your church, listen to the sermons, be faithful in giving, keep in touch with your small group, and read your church bulletin. Take advantage of technology and time provided by this God-appointed pause to meet virtually to study, pray and fellowship. Pray for God to keep us close to one another and to the Lord. And don’t forget to reach out to those in need.
In these strange and uncertain times, do not hesitate also to reach out for help. God has brought our work, our study—and our faith—to our homes. Overnight, parents have become tutors, teachers, and home-schoolers. Working from home, taking care of children and elderly parents, spending extended time in the confines of our home—all these can take a toll. Our elderly, lacking tech-savvy to keep in touch, are prone to loneliness. Let us remember one another, and as needed, give or receive help.
BPCIS has planned some years ago for 2020 to carry the theme, “Sharing Resources”—how appropriate. At such a time of crisis, we need one another more than ever. We are glad to announce that Mount Horeb BP Church has voted unanimously to join BPCIS as the 8th church. Together may we stand firm, though we may not meet physically or see each other face to face.
Only let your manner of life be worthy of the gospel of Christ, so that whether I come and see you or am absent, I may hear of you that you are standing firm in one spirit, with one mind striving side by side for the faith of the gospel….
Philippians 1:27 ESV
