Pastoral Letters

The Important Step in Reaching Out to the Community

June 21, 2015 Author:Elder Liu Kerh Li
On 31 May, the brothers and sisters of Tree of Life Christian Church, regardless of their age, ‘mightily’ took the first important step in our community outreach work. Everyone wore the church’s ‘uniform’ to distribute gifts at the designated flats and introduced Tree of Life Christian Church to the residents. Although I have distributed tracts at residential areas before, this experience is quite different. When I distributed tracts at the residential areas in the past, my aim was to invite the residents to attend the church’s Gospel Rally or I simply shared the Christian faith with them. I never thought of visiting them after that and I did not put much thought into how we can serve these residents so that they may experience the ‘love’ and ‘God’ that is often talked about in Gospel messages. This time it felt as if I was visiting some friends, some friends whom I yet to know. When I distributed gifts and introduced the church to these residents, I paid special attention to how we can provide support for their families. I was also wearing the church’s ‘uniform’ which made me feel like I was representing the church. In addition, because our brothers and sisters were wearing the same church t-shirt, it was a lot more obvious that this involved team work and it was not a lonely battle for a few individuals but a group effort by the church to show concern and take care of 200 odd households.

During this round of community visits, I was extremely thankful for the unity of our brethren. If our hearts are not united as one and without the active participation of our brethren, this community outreach work would be difficult to execute and there was no way we could start. Using this round of visits as an example, if only the church committee and pastor participated, it would be a very difficult task to visit about 300 households. In comparison, our brethren used only 30 minutes to complete this ‘big mission’! Of course, the main point is not how easily we can finish this round of residential visits. The main objective is for our brethren to care for God’s Gospel ministry and also care for the salvation of these residents who are strangers to us. As we work towards a common goal, we had to encourage one another and muster the courage to knock on strangers’ doors, and also be brave enough to face rejections. The unity of our brethren was also displayed when we had a time of sharing a week later. Everyone actively shared their suggestions on how to improve based on their experience visiting these residents. Everyone also shared their valuable feedback and views on our church’s plans for community visits in future. I was very encouraged when I saw our brothers and sisters sharing their point of views as this meant that our brethren agreed that it was important to expand our community work and that they are willing to serve.

In the next few months, the committee will arrange for another round of community visits. The community visits this time allowed us to touch base with about 60% of the residents. Hence, we still have to work hard in terms of getting to know these residents (or these residents getting to know our Tree of Life Christian Church). Also, we should take things to the next level, and not just greet the residents at their doorsteps or give away presents. We need to provide practical support and care for these residents. Thank you to our brothers and sisters who have given their feedback for our committee’s consideration. Please pray that we may have the spiritual foresight and wisdom to better use our limited resources to effectively execute our community outreach. Plus, please also continue to pray for all of us to be passionate about sharing the Gospel. If you have missed this recent round of residential visits, we hope that you can make arrangements to attend our next round of visitations in future. When the entire church works hard for the Gospel ministry, we will definitely be used by the Lord to sow the seeds of the Gospel no matter how tough the task is. “because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now, being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 1: 5-6)