Sharing from
The First Chairman of the Local Church Executive Committee (LCEC) 1984-1989
By Ting Ming Hua, China
Congratulations! Congratulations on your successes over the past 15 years. I have to be very careful when I congratulate you on your success. How do you measure successes at TMC? Growing congregations and additional services? Bigger BB & GB companies, bigger Sunday school? Setting up more cell groups and preaching points? Yes, all these are good indicators of a successful church, in terms of statistics, but how does God measure our success?
In the book of Acts, we see that after the day of Pentecost, the church grew rapidly by the thousands. Due to the rapid growth, problems crept in especially administrative problems such as the distribution of food to widows at the beginning of Acts chapter 6. In a way, when they were successful and growing fast, complaints and problems crept in. If that is true, then no one likes to.be too successful. However the apostles made a decision to let the members participate and share in these administrative works while they give their attention to prayer and the ministry of the word. In the whole process we see how the apostles did God's work in God's way, as we see in Philippians 2:12-13, "... as you have always obeyed...for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purposes." If we follow this process we can be successful every time, any time because we do God's work in God's way all the time. In order to be able to follow this process for success, doing God's work in God's way, we must have a close relationship with God. Jeremiah 9:23-24 says, "This is what the Lord says: Let not the wise man boast of his wisdom or the strong man boasts of his strength or a rich man boast of his riches, but let him who boasts boast about this: that he understands and knows Me..." Yes, this is the true measure of our success. Not only that we will be successful in what we do, through the process, we will know God and experience God himself.
To experience God personally we have to know that (Experiencing God by Henry T. Blackaby):
- God is always at work around you.
- God pursues a continuing love relationship with you that is real and personal.
- God invites you to become involved with Him in His work. God speaks by the Holy Spirit through the Bible, prayer, circumstances, and the church to reveal Himself, His purposes, and His ways.
- God's invitation for you to work with Him always leads you to a crisis of belief that requires faith and action.
- You must make major adjustments in your life to join God in what He is doing.
- You come to know God by experience as you obey Him and He accomplishes His work through you.
May the Lord bless you and keep you as you continue to abide in Him and bear much fruit to the glory of His Name.
The Ting Family
Notes: This article was published in the TMC 15th Anniversary Magazine in August 1999.