CERC Blog
Here’s What Happened in 2012
Posted on 4 Aug 2013 by Jerome Leng
I thought it best that I share with you God’s goodness in nurturing and using me for His service throughout 2012. It was a fruitful year because many people that I’ve met have come to know Christ and matured in their faith. I too, grew a lot in my understanding of reality as God continues to guide and lead me by His Spirit.
Here are the main highlights in reverse order. (This was inspired by Facebook which puts up all the latest posts first and then you scroll away!)
December – White Water Summer Camp (WWSC)
Team Athens – the smartest and craziest bunch at camp!
This was a summer camp (the first of its kind in M’sia!) organized by a bunch of servant-hearted Christians for youths to have a year end holiday as they learn about life under God. I was glad to be part of the organizing team because it was great fun working together and living in the outdoors for a week!
My task was to look after the well-being of my group (as you can see on the top), teach them the Bible and some important life skills. At camp, I was known as the “Tribal Leader”. Haha!
Through this camp, I understand better now the needs of today’s youth and the way in which we are to bring the Gospel to them. Youths are seeking for the truth and they are able to discuss the complexities of life. They actually go through a lot of pain and hardship which is often overlooked and ignored. We need people who are willing to invest into their lives and be patient in nurturing them. My heart is burdened to do this and I am thinking of pursuing this path of becoming a Youth Minister one day.
November – Preaching on Campus
INTI CF campus students having their weekly makan time after CF.
I gave a few sermons throughout the year at different campuses but the one from last November was especially evangelistic. Topic: the Resurrection of Jesus Christ.
The students were challenged to consider the truth about Christ’s Lordship and some have decided to believe in Him.
Working on campus is a weekly affair for me so each week I get to meet lots of campus students. I am thankful that God is growing the students in our ministry in life and doctrine.
October – Word Works (Post-Exilic Prophecy)
That’s me with senior member Jeremy Johnson working on the text.
This was a conference about the post exilic period in salvation history; in particular are the books Haggai, Zechariah and Malachi.
People often say that they don’t know how to read the Bible. In one sense, that’s good because the Bible is a hard book to read and we should not assume that we completely get it! But the questions is, do they now, after realizing their inability, want to learn how to read the Bible? So a number of us gathered to study the Scriptures together at Word Works. We are the people of the Word and we should (must!) invest our lives in studying it so that we can live by it. And it will always be so refreshing to hear God’s truth delivered in all its unique forms and genres from the Bible. The post exilic prophecy gave us a greater sense of God’s work of Salvation. Truly, the Lord of Hosts is Mighty to Save.
September – A holiday with my wife-to-be and her family
This was taken at a beach near her parent’s place. Please excuse my horrible photography skills which chopped my head in half!
Robyn’s family lives in Auckland, NZ. It was great to meet her family and to get to know my future in-laws a whole lot better!
The lady at the airport said to me with her Kiwi accent after I told her the purpose of my trip…”Oh, one of those ‘holidays’ huh?” But it turned out to be a good holiday. Her family was kind and generous towards me.
I missed Robyn very much and I was very happy to have all my meals with her for 10 days straight. 🙂
She’s currently in her final year in Med School in Australia and will be graduating end of 2013. Marriage plans are underway! (Will keep you posted)
August – Thinking Theologically Conference (TTC): The Holy Spirit
The elective I ran – Charismaticism and the gift(s) of the Holy Spirit.
TTC is always impactful. Always.
The person of the Holy Spirit is often misunderstood…even in Christendom! And especially in our times, it is crucial that we understand how God works in His Church by His Spirit.
About 80 of us gathered to dedicate 4 days and 3 nights to thoughtful study.
I was deeply encouraged to see so many people who are keen to learn. Everyone went home empowered by the Spirit of Christ to grow his Church! The effects of this conference can still be felt today. Usually, after a conference or a camp, the so called “hype” will die down. Not for TTC. Our minds were transformed. As I often say, “TTC is always impactful. Always.”
July – Creation to Consummation (CTC): Prophecy
This was a City Conference that the Gospel Growth Fellowship (GGF) organized. It was a week long conference and about 300 people came. It was great meeting so many Christians and Church Leaders at CTC.
The best part of this conference for me was an opportunity to interact with Rev. Dr. Andrew Shead personally. I was part of the organizing committee and was “assigned” to take him out for breakfast one morning. He told me what it’ll be like if I go to theological college one day and what it takes to be a minister or a lecturer at a seminary. I was inspired by his humility and passionate for Christ.
At the end of our breakfast, I offered to pay but he plainly said to me – and I can never forget this – “You’re poor and I am rich so let me pay”. And we both laughed. In fact, he offered to find financial help for me back in Sydney and told me to perform well in hope of getting a scholarship. I took his advice to heart.
Rev. Dr. Andrew Shead was the speaker at this conference. He’s the Head of the OT department at Moore Theological College! One of the best OT departments in the world! The college that I am hoping to go to! It was a great opportunity to speak to him for an entire week. He was exuding godliness! Great man.
I was the song leader for all the nights at the conference. The music team worked really hard and I was glad we did our part to encourage the people in song and worship.
June – A Month of Evangelism and my Swan Lake
2 major things happened …
Haggai Sermon
My “Swan Lake” moment.
After all my training in MTS, it was now time for me to put all that I have learnt into practice.
I was given the task of designing a sermon series and write bible studies based on the book of Haggai.
By the grace of God… I managed 😉
Introducing God (IG)
My church decided to run a 10 week evangelistic series and I was in charge of organizing it. My oh my, the amount of work that was involved! But it was worth it. More than 100 newcomers came of which more than half of them were Non Christians.
So for 10 weeks, we expounded on the gospel and the newcomers who came were delighted to know that they could speak about God freely in a comfortable environment. We sat in groups of 6, have dinner together, followed by a talk and discuss the questions that were provided.
The newcomers were impressed by the way we spoke about the gospel. They could see that it was important and they wanted to talk about it. We had lots and lots of great discussion.
I am proud of my church. Everyone and I seriously mean EVERYONE…worked hard. From cleaning, to cooking, to waitering, to evangelizing to more cleaning…it was a beautiful picture of God’s People working together for one sole purpose…for His Name to be known.
This was what it looked like!
I was the MC for most of the weeks.
We had performances to entertain the crowd. At the same time, we tried to introduce some gospel themes or questions that one might ask in the performances so that the audience will be prepped for the talk afterwards.
We used the baptism pool as a sink because of the amount of cutlery we had!
May – Word Works (Thessalonian Letters)
We learnt how to read a genre of the bible: the Epistles/letters of the New Testament. It was crucial that we learn this because a lot of the books in the NT were letters. And since we’re an email/Facebook/Twitter culture, learning this genre is particularly crucial if we want to hear God’s Word. Plus Paul was brilliant and sometimes we have no idea how we are to read his complex sentence constructions.
Word Works equipped us with the basic skills to read the text. It was good for me because I’ll be working on a lot of the NT letters in the years to come! Before I teach or preach, I want to make sure that I have worked on the Word so that I do the work of the Word faithfully.
April – Preparation Month
We have an exciting year ahead of us and I have lots to prepare. So the highlight for this month…*drum roll* my study table… of which I will not take a picture of because of its untidiness. 🙂 I seriously needed the time to study, think and pray for all that is about to happen in the rest of the year.
I serve the Lord with the confidence that he goes before me. I am not my own man. The ministries that I serve in are His. It is my joy and privilege to carry out the duties that my Lord has called me to do.
March – Little People
We organized Little People (LP) 4 times per year. This was the first session. The book that we covered was Jonah. LP is for little children ages 2 -10 and we had an average of about 40 kids each session.
We would invite families from around our church’s area to come to listen to the gospel and they would! Their kids love Little People! It was fun preparing and speaking to the children about Christ.
February – CERC Church Camp
This was great for the church to get to know each other better. Guess what book we did? Our topic was “the Meaning of Life”. That’s right! It was Ecclesiastes. The author of Ecclesiastes was so wise and extremely crazy! No wonder he knew the secrets to the purpose of life!
His craziness rubbed off on us…not too sure about his brilliance though…Ha!
We learnt that it is in “the Fear of the Lord” that unlocks the secret to the meaning of life. Although I say this simply, it’s actually quite complicated and some of us still find this hard to understand. I too am struggling on some points. But I trust that God will nurture our church into maturity in Christ as we carry on in our lives together.
January – Fellow Workers’ Conference (FWC): The Gospel and Culture
This was a great start for the year. Evangelicals from M’sia, Australia and Singapore gathered to celebrate the Gospel together!
We addressed the issue of modernity and how that affects the Christian Church. At the end of the conference, we were all geared up to be faithful to Christ in ministry.
I always cry at the end of FWC. I hate to see God’s people in their local churches misguided by false teaching and influenced by the “patterns of the world”. We are not of this world for Christ has taken us out of the world. We belong to Christ and we ought to live for His Gospel and His Church.
FWC set the note for me in 2012.
Who are we?
Are we not the people of God?
Who serves Christ?
Are not all who call upon his name serve the one Lord?
When do we serve our Lord?
Are we now not called the citizens of heaven?
We are the Church; saved and brought under the Lordship of Christ by His Word and Spirit. And we serve Him now in hope of the reality that is to come when we shall all be gathered to worship Him forevermore. This is who we are. This is how we’re meant to live.
Here’s a verse that I live by and I hope it “en-courages” you to live for Jesus.
18 And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.
And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
(Matthew 28.18-20)
May the Lord be with you!