In our church, it has been a great challenge for the youth to step up and serve, let alone reaching out to the people outside of the church.
Passion is the key in motivating people to serve. We, the younger generation of our church, often lack that passion for Christ. This might be due to the fact that we are the second or third generation Christians, and have not experience many ups and downs in our life as compared to our parents or grandparents. Hence, we do not experience God in our life and will not see the need in serving or reaching out to the community.
As a third generation Christian who grew up in church, I used to think that the duty of preaching the word belongs to the pastors and the missionaries. This mindset changed when I started to experience him and see the urgent need in reaching out to those who have yet to hear about the gospel.
The unwillingness in stepping out of our comfort zone is another obstacle that prevents us from reaching out to these people. We are so used to being in our comfort zone, that we are often not compelled to act out of it. It is only when we are willing to be exposed to the varying ministries out there, will we then have empathy on them and see the importance in reaching out to them.
“The harvest is plentiful, but the labourers are few.” How many truly understand and respond to the calling?
We may often have a misconception about ‘responding to the calling’. We may think that this means we must be in full-time ministry serving the church as a pastor or being a missionary in another country preaching the word. These are definitely respectable actions and are good, but there are also a variety of other methods that we could employ to respond to the calling. For example, expressing God’s love through caring and showing concern to the needy is one such method.
Sometimes, the gospel could be spread through our actions. Through the visitation to Healthserve clinic and listening to the stories of the migrant workers, I realised that there are many of them out there who need the gospel but not all of them have heard about the gospel. I was impressed by how the gospel is being spread amongst the migrant workers themselves even when the volunteers serving in Healthserve clinic did not explicitly present the gospel to them. It is through the help and care given to the migrant workers by the volunteers that arouses their curiosity in finding out the reason why the volunteers are helping them, which eventually lead them to know Christ.
In similar way, we could reach out to the migrant workers by showing more care and concern to them. In my opinion, what migrant workers need the most is a listening ear. They left their family and travelled miles from their hometown to Singapore just to earn a living. They may be down and lonely, especially those who were injured badly from work and yet treated unfairly by their employers. They need people to listen to their stories, show care and concern to them.
What we can do is to go down to Healthserve clinic with a group of youths occasionally to distribute welfare packs to them. They could contain necessities or something handmade by the youths in church. We could also include handwritten notes to encourage them. Besides distributing the welfare packs, we could spend some time chatting with them during dinner, listening to them and praying for them. During Christmas, we could sing Christmas carols to them outside Healthserve clinic. We could also go to some of their dormitories as a group for carolling. These may be small acts of kindness by us, but they could mean a lot to them.
Prayer is essential component that we need in order to mobilize our youth in reaching out to the migrant workers. Without prayer, we cannot do anything. It is by the works of the Holy Spirit that ignite the passion in our hearts, placing willingness in our hearts to step out of our comfort zone.
I believe we will be unable to understand the importance in reaching out to the migrant workers, unless we expose ourselves to the migrant workers and hear their stories first hand. It is then will we have empathy for them and are more willing to step up to care for them. Therefore, we can organise tour to the clinics with our youths to allow them to understand more about the migrant workers ministry.
In addition, the youths might have little knowledge about the different ministries that their local church is serving. To inform them of the varying ministries, the local church can organise a one day tour for their youths to the community service centre or ministries that they are serving. In the case of our own church, Providence Presbyterian Church, we can bring our youths down to the Providence Care Centre to explore and know more about the works being done there.
In conclusion, to reach out to the people outside of church, we need the passion and the willingness to step out of our own comfort zone. To mobilize our youth in the ministry, prayer is essential and exposure to the ministry by the youth is needed.
Koh Xiu Li
STEP 2015
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