Christian's unique function

Yesterday at NMCAC Paster Hung spoke of a message of grave importance regarding our church. Stats showed that congregation and leaders alike in the researched Christian churches had low participation in evangelical missions. He attributed the lack of local evangelical missions for the youth to be a important cause to the recent shutdown of several English-speaking churches. Often we consider evangelic mission as something that should take place in distant countries. Seldom we notice the need to sow the seeds in our local community. Whereas taking care of our society is something good to do, he was afraid that we've spent too much resources on that and neglected the unique function of our church and that of us as Christians in the society: to evangelize the gospel.

Colossians:28-29 says: Whom we preach, warning every man, and teaching every man in all wisdom; that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus: Whereunto I also labo(u)r, striving according to his working, which worketh in me mightily. The paster referred to two kinds of people that fit into the meaning of "every man":

1. Those who relate to you: your parents, your siblings, your extended family, and other relatives. You have become a Christian not b/c of coincidence. Rather, you are in the unique position to bring the Good News to those who relate to you.
2. Those whom you run into in any day. Paul delibrately went to the marketplace every day to argue with others about Jesus and his resurrection. Paster Hung recommended each of us to carry at least a pamphet that summarizes our belief so that we can explain to another perons when the chance arises. We all run into many unrelated people every day. We should carry the burden to spread the gospel in a bus or shopping mall, in a line-up, at work, in your neighbo(u)rhood. We should proactively seek the opportunities to tell people about the Good News. At our workplace, we can place some pamphets at an obvious place of our desks. Whenever anyone gets curious and asks about it, we can give one to the person and/or explain our belief.

And Paster Hung pointed out that it takes labo(u)r to spread the Good News. Don't expect your parents, siblings, and relatives to be interested in what you want to say the first time you try. When we fail to draw their attention, we must neither despair nor tell ourselves that our job is already done. More often than not, it takes many attempts to draw the attention of a person before s/he may want to listen to the gospel. Just think about what it has taken for you to believe in Jesus.