ON New Year\u2019s morn, my neighbour and I were talking on our back patios. We confessed to each other that we were not attending the church New Year service.<\/p>\n
\u201c52 Sundays plus prayer meetings, and many other activities. That\u2019s a lot of times for an old man like me to be driving to church,\u201d he said. He lives more than half an hour away from his church.<\/p>\n
\u201cMaybe the church feels that more activities draw people closer to God,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo,\u201d my neighbour told me. \u201cIt\u2019s the church leaders living by example and in this way, they show God\u2019s love.\u201d<\/p>\n
We carried on talking about rambutans and durians but his statement left a big impact on me. Yes, pastors have drummed into us that we should talk with God and listen to Him (i.e. pray and read the Bible). This is about getting close to God. But my neighbour\u2019s statement reminds me how to be close to people.<\/p>\n
Currently I am in LCEC. Sometimes we are in LCEC not because we are living out Christ\u2019s example but because we can perform certain tasks in ministries. Even if it is the latter, I am reminded that as long as I carry the title of a \u201cchurch leader\u201d, I should live by example and be a channel of God\u2019s love \u2013 and be able to respond to people\u2019s needs and cries. For me, this reminder of the \u201creal deal\u201d of being a Christian was reaffirmed in the first 2019 FMC prayer meeting.<\/p>\n
It is a tough call and I know I will fail but with God\u2019s help, I will try to live by example and \u201cAnd they\u2019ll know we are Christians by our love, by our love.\u201d<\/p>\n
By Ting Su Hie, Faith Methodist Church, Kuching<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" ON New Year\u2019s morn, my neighbour and I were talking on our back patios. We confessed to each other that we were not attending the church New Year service. \u201c52 Sundays plus prayer meetings, and many other activities. That\u2019s a lot of times for an old man like me to be driving to church,\u201d he […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":48980,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[181,220,10],"tags":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/scaccmm.sarawakmethodist.org\/new\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23549"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/scaccmm.sarawakmethodist.org\/new\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/scaccmm.sarawakmethodist.org\/new\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scaccmm.sarawakmethodist.org\/new\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scaccmm.sarawakmethodist.org\/new\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=23549"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/scaccmm.sarawakmethodist.org\/new\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23549\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scaccmm.sarawakmethodist.org\/new\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/48980"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/scaccmm.sarawakmethodist.org\/new\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=23549"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scaccmm.sarawakmethodist.org\/new\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=23549"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scaccmm.sarawakmethodist.org\/new\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=23549"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}