All Christians Need Theological Education - Kerrhui

My church's notice board showing the different sectors of my church's ministry and the church's mission: To lead people to Lord Jesus, and enable them to become a member of God's family, be involved in ministry and mission, and glorify God's name. (Translated from Chinese to English.)

Through the first few days of STEP, I realised the importance of theological education for every single Christian. It does not only teach us more about faith and strengthen our faith and understanding of our God but more importantly it enables us to think, face, and solve problems in lives in ways that are pleasing to God. Even though I am just a young adult in church, I need to be theologically educated. 

In fact, all Christians have to be theologically educated. Only when our foundation is based on God's word and teachings, we can grow in Christ and be more Christlike. Furthermore we should always strive to learn more, so that we can be the salt and light to the people and fellow Christians among us. As Prof. Simon Chan have shared, there are both 'farmers' and 'chemists' in churches. With theological education, we can be sure that we are there to guide other fellow Christians in the correct path through the use of God's teaching and not by our own actions and thinking.

I enjoyed the talk on 'Youth Ministry in Transition' by Dr. Calvin Chong as I felt that the topic is very relevant to me. It highlighted the problems of many churches which I am much familiar with, so it connected to me on a deeper level. 

One point he mentioned was about how youths are leaving to join mega churches, which are said to be engaging, fun and interesting. I always knew that we should avoid attending such churches, but I never knew the exact reasons, so I did not know how to encourage people to join other churches instead. However the talk had shed light on how the "contemporary gospel" focuses differently from ours, making them more 'appealing' to the public. Perhaps we have been trying too hard to engage the youths by making our programs fun like what the mega churches are doing, and by choosing our 'vehicle' first, we lose track of our values and visions. 

Again, there is a need to build our foundation on our Christian values and God's teachings, so that that what we do would be pleasing in God's eyes. So far I have been learning many wonderful teachings and there are definitely many learning points which I can bring back to my own church to share with my fellow friends.

Chau Kerrhui