This is a fellowship like no other. The aim of the BM Fellowship at Boulevard shopping mall Kuching is noble – which is to give employees who work on weekends a chance to worship God with other Christians.

Numbers
However, the numbers are not increasing exponentially as hoped. In fact, the turnout fluctuates like the side profile of a range of mountain peaks. On days when there are sales, they are busy. On other days, when their rest hour is not between 5.10 and 6.10 p.m., they do not come to the Fellowship. Or they might prefer to relax with their colleagues at the “crew hang-out area” while waiting for their shift to resume. We tend to measure success with numbers; we want to see an exponential increase in turnout to justify the time, effort and funds put into the ministry. However, this is one area where we need to break our mould of “successful fellowships”.

Pastor Patrick who came to speak to our Fellowship several times in 2015 has once told us, “Don’t look at the numbers. Each of them has many people behind them. When their lives change, many people see it.” Indeed the Fellowship has touched many lives in total. I have met some of them more than 50 times and others 1-2 times. It is 60 weeks since we first started on 7 March 2015. They do not all come to the Fellowship at one time, or else we would be able to take a huge group photo and show it as testimony of the success, and perhaps claim glory for it.

To me, a measure of success is when they share that they look forward to the Saturday Fellowship and cannot wait for Saturday to come. Or when they say that the Fellowship venue is like a church to them.

A brother in his forties said, “Selama ini, sejak saya menyertai persekutuan ini, hati saya bersenang. Dulu walaupun saya jarang pergi ke gereja, pada waktu malam saya membaca Al-Kitab. Sekarang, saya memang tunggu masa ini untuk bertemu dengan kita semua.”

Another brother said, “Kita ikut shif, jadi kita tidak dapat pergi ke gereja. Dengan adanya persekutuan ini, sekurang-kurangnya kita dapat bersama kawan-kawan seiman. Dalam Tuhan, kita semua dalam satu keluarga seperti adik-beradik. Kita rasa tempat ini macam satu gereja.”

Another sister who works as a helper shared how she prayed for her Aunty’s mother who was sick during the recent Chinese New Year. And her Aunty’s mother was healed. This sister has also seen Jesus appearing to her in her dream. She was always shy to share in front of a large group. On one of those Saturdays when there were just about a dozen of us, she had the courage to stand in front of the microphone and talked about how she shared Christ with someone whom her Aunty had asked to come to the house to do something.

Trying to do a lot within a short time
This is a fellowship like no other because time is not a luxury. We hold the Fellowship between 5.10 – 6.10 p.m., the hour the FMC Pastors and the Boulevard top management felt was the best choice. We also have the option of 4.10 – 5.10 p.m. and 6.10 – 7.10 p.m., so choosing one slot means that we cannot cater to all who might want to come to the Fellowship.

Let me walk you through that hour. At 5.10 p.m., Athiu goes off her shift. She goes to the toilet and walks up four floors to Level 3 meeting room where we have our Fellowship. It is 5.20 p.m. She sees her colleagues from other stations come in, up till 5.25 p.m. She sings praise and worship songs for about 10 minutes, usually three songs. It is 5.35 p.m. and the pastor starts his sharing. When it approaches 5.50-5.55 p.m., the pastor closes his sharing on his own accord or is signaled to stop. The MC or the pastor says a prayer. A few of the FMC members distribute the packed food and serve the milo/tea provided by the Boulevard shopping mall management. It is 6 p.m. Athiu gobbles down the food, and runs back to her station in 10 minutes.

It does not always happen according to plan. Sometimes our programme overshoots the time, or the Boulevard employees take longer to eat and get back to their stations. The top management has given leeway for employees who attend the Fellowship but there is a practical problem for their immediate supervisors when customers need their service and there is no one at the station yet. I happened to see this at the beginning of our Fellowship at one of the cash registers but now we do not have any cashiers in our midst, which is just as well. I feel bad seeing how our Fellowship had caused hiccups in their otherwise-smooth operations.

The Fellowship with shopping mall employees cannot fall into the mould of church fellowships or cell groups where time is not a constraint. We cannot have courses or Bible studies in the same way. We do activities that pastors working with young indigenous Christians have recommended – Bible reading, sermons, talks, evangelistic videos, and praise/sharing.

Sharing a meal
We cannot get to know one another like in the church context because there is too little time. It happens gradually in snippets over many Saturdays. It is important to have a number of FMC members who are always there, week after week. I may not talk to anyone in depth this week because I am busy distributing the food and drinks but someone else would have done it. Being around allows familiarity to develop and bonds to be built – gradually.

We have some time to talk before the Fellowship starts, and some time during the dinner. Some FMC members take turn to order the food and bring the packets of food there. The dinner is absolutely necessary because most of the Boulevard employees need to last another five hours before they go home at 10 plus. So having some biscuits and kuih will not do. They come to the Fellowship during their rest/dinner hour.

Besides, it is also very important for them to see us sharing food with them; we are not there on a high horse to feed them, so to speak. For churches contemplating a ministry with shopping mall employees, food is the major part of the budget. Not every Pastor or LCEC may believe in long-term investment in an indigenous ministry of this nature because the ministry does not target the mainstream congregants.

Making a mould
I am not sure if a mould can be made for other churches to use when it comes to shopping mall ministry. One thing I am learning is to understand the people who come to the Fellowship because that is how we get to know their needs (Whether we can meet all the needs is another matter). The Indonesian helper I talked about earlier can read the Bible on her own but skips words during the Bible Relay Reading. She had asked me and others repeatedly about dates in our quarterly schedule, and I got impatient. Only yesterday I finally understood that she probably cannot understand numbers in a calendar. To think that a printout of the schedule solves the problem!

Sustainability seems to be a buzz -word nowadays. It is not as simple as drawing up a schedule and slotting the Fellowship members in so that in time they are trained to function on their own, and we can sit back or move on. Sure we have Boulevard employees volunteering to be MC, song leader and guitarist. Different people warm up to different roles in their own time. Cajoling and persuasion also do not necessarily speed up the process.

A year plus in the shopping mall ministry, what I can see is that the continued commitment of the church and the mall top management is crucial for the continuation of the ministry. The shopping mall employees are only the MC, song leader and guitarist at the moment. Even if they take on more roles which are currently held by FMC members such as planning the programmes, ordering the food and operating the LCD, these are only functional roles. The church needs to provide the organising structure (monitoring) and financial resources while the mall top management needs to provide the venue and other support for the Fellowship to exist. On the side of the church, we need Pastors and LCEC with a strong will-power to see to the continued existence of the Fellowship. On the side of the shopping mall, we need top management who believe in the benefit of the Fellowship for their employees. If either side lets go, the shopping mall employees will lose their weekly spiritual haven.

Su Hie,
Faith Methodist Church, Kuching