Saturday afternoon, rain began to fall, everything was made wet. I was happy with it. Rainy day seldom makes me glad. This was exception.
Saturday 9.11. Divine appointment. Divine initiation. Divine Mission on 9.11.
It all begins with our simple/house church planting. We are planning to plant new churches 1.1.11(next year). And it will begin first at our home. But ours is small & messy. Clean-up needed. So I had some days off 10 days ago to do this. I simply wanted to throw away at least 1/5 of our old stuffs. But then the idea of having a yard sale came up. Yeah. Maybe our neighbour could use up some of these stuffs. At our home, they are retired. At others, they could be revived. But we have never done a garage sale before.
Thinking of all the complications involved, I almost wanted to back off. We could simply give them to Value Village. Why all these headache? Only if there was a meaningful cause... I thought.
Then one morning, when I was praying to Jesus. I started to wander a bit in prayer. Thinking of this yard sale. Thinking how to make it more meaningful to others. An idea of donating all proceeds to a charity/relief organization suddenly popped up. WOW. That's meaningful. But to whom? Then I thought of the devastating Pakistan Flooding. I thought of UNICEF. But I didn't receive its information for quite a while. Not knowing if they have something ongoing for the Pakistan flooding. All this happened in my prayer. We can say that was "not focus" in prayers. But to me that could be the "Spirit hovering over" my mind(Gen.1:2). Ha ha, my excuse.
Right after prayer, I went down to check what the postman just delivered. Guess what? Yes. It was the mail from UNICEF. In this sacred moment, I was a bit tensed while opening it up. Oh. I found a few donation requests for African AIDS. I could compromise the "vision" from my prayer. I thought. Then I checked through the last flyer. Alleluia! It is for helping children in Pakistan flooding.
What a divine initiation! What a quick divine confirmation!
The way from divine initiation to divine mission is not smooth. There is human weakness. My weakness. Always.
We had to do the yard sale on 9.11. Nothing political or spiritual. But economical. All donation would be matched by Canadian Government. But the deadline was 9.12 Sunday. Sunday - Sabbath day + church anniversary banquet - not a choice. 9.11 Saturday was our last & only day to double the donation.
That means we only had a few days left for checking all stuffs, cleaning, pricing... And we had to distribute flyers to our neighbourhood. Only me & Aden were doing these. We were so exhausted that we hardly could bend our waists. But the most draining was the weather.
We had seen for a few times how God could change weather for outreach sake. But that was history. Recently I loved to check weather forecast before & during event planning. 9.11 was locked. Do it or drop it. Weather forecast Friday, Saturday and Sunday: light rain; cloudy shower; light rain. What shall we do then? God encouraged us to "look up" to him. So we drew the kids together. Briefed them the what & why. Then we prayed and prayed for good weather, neighbour. Our family went together door to door distributing flyers. We would not back off.
There must be some implications from God for 9.11. Rain or shine, we would not give up.
You knew it. Friday - overcast + sun. Saturday - sunny + rain. Sunday - rain rain rain.
At 10:00am, people already started checking out before we were ready. The flyers worked. 32" Color TV @$10. Ikea single bed with mattress + delivery @$10. Digital camera @$1. Desk + delivery @ $1. Free sofa bed + delivery. Free pen & stationery... for kids. Free DVD...
It was a big success. We remade our home while old stuffs found new owners. Beautiful. We met many neighbours & managed to talk with some, from India, Middle East, Philippines, Chile, Croatia, China... When they knew the reason why we did that. They showed much appreciation. Most people loved our beautiful cause - doing it for the sake of others - the Pakistan children. (Do you know Pakistan is one of the most unreached people by gospel?) People tended to give more. We ended up with an earning of $96.66. Double it up becomes $200 for the Pakistan kids. Plus our kids experienced God. This pastor once again had his experience of Jesus, the Master of wind & wave, been revived. We were amazed to see the rain started to fall in the afternoon, 4 hours after we ended. Isn't it beautiful to see rainfall like that?
What more beauty is mission 9.11? It is divine forecast of what we, the simple church, will be doing.
We'll let go of the old/used/not important stuffs, say the church buildings, comfort zones... we choose to gather together anywhere, everywhere. Then what save up could be used locally & globally in impacting people's lives, in giving hope, in caring orphans, widows and the poor. We might be small. Our impact are profound.
We do not attract & evangelize people inside the 4 walls of church. Rather we'll break out and reach out. Like yard sale in open space, we meet the lost in the harvest field. No more bringing people to Christ, but bringing Jesus to people, to the neighbourhood, to the community.
We do not treat adult are superior. Different ages, different colors, different generation & gender, of course with children, we fight together, pray together, experience Jesus together. There is only one team, one focus, one dream.
We do not rely on our wisdom or the sure win program or principles. We learn to wait and listen and discern His will. Each and every time. We trust the Spirit will teach us how to fight.
We will make friends with the Muslim, the Hindu, the Sikh, all those unreached people group. Because God brings them here in our neighbourhood. Because God so loved the world. And they are the world. And God loves them. "Jesus loves them, this I know, for the Bible tells me so"
And we'll do exactly what the world undo. God locked us up on that Saturday for a reason. A very important implication. When the world was so split up on 9.11, when the world was so filled with hatred and sorrow on 9.11, we sowed the seed of peace, the seed of love, the seed of unity, in the name of Jesus Christ on that same day. (I helped loading the bulky TV to a Filipino family. You know the tension between HK & Philippine; Our Muslim friends visiting & appreciating our cause of action...) We, simple church, shall preach a gospel of love, a gospel of peace, a gospel of transformation.
The world needs Mission 9.11. The world needs a group of simple, focused, obedient followers of Jesus to be their salt. The world needs simple church, organic church, house church to be their light. I am very much crazy for it. I pray that it's been passed on to you. I pray that you'll as much crazy as I to see it realized as such.
Mission 9.11. A small win. But God reminds me a war out there, lest I am too much carried away. 2 young ladies from Jehovah witness just knocked my door... I am very furious with the filtration of the heresy, very much sadden with few Christian workers for the harvest, very much zealous in seeing His will be done on earth...
Awake! Brothers and sisters: Mission Not Accomplished!
Let's stand up. Let's stand tall. Let's stand firm. Fight time...
