SPAC News
01 Nov 2017

One Church, One School

Source/Author: By Rev. Ng Shiong Kim

On 5 October 2017, Sandakan Taman Mawar Methodist Preaching Centre (TMMPC) started a new ministry initiative – Campus Ministry. Our church partnered with Miss Leong Ting Ting, the Lead Counsellor of ‘The Bridge Communication’ in conducting 2 different semi- nars for SJKC Tai Tong Sandakan.

For the morning session, we held a self-improvement workshop “Being a better self” for Primary 5 and Primary 6 students. There was an overwhelming attendance of more than 100 students. In the afternoon, we conducted a professional seminar ‘You can nurture and inspire the extraordinary in students’. There were 72 educators from 10 neighbouring primary schools who participated. Through the session, the speaker provided guiding principles with relevant examples for the betterment of educating the students, and took the opportunity to encourage the educators to be positive influences in the students’ lives. It has been a fruitful day and I would like to take the opportunity to thank the schools and teachers for their participation and support. Most importantly, I am thankful to the Lord for His guidance and providence that enabled the event to end on a high note.

The Church Must Take A Proactive Role In Reaching Out To Schools
How did TMMPC begin our campus ministry? TMMPC is a small church that has an average of 30 worshippers for our Sunday service. Do we have the resources to start this ministry? Are we able to sustain the ministry should we embark on this journey? If we were to start this ministry, how should we progress? Although the church has been in existence for 4 years, we are still seeking God for His guidance on potential ministry opportunities. In the midst of seeking, I recall Bishop Ong Hwai Teik sharing the vision of ‘One Church, One School’. In order for us, the Methodist church, to make an impact on our younger generation, we need to reach them at where they are - School Campus (Pelita Methodist, VOL. 41, NO. 1&2 JAN/FEB 2015). This vision kept lingering in my mind for a long period.

After seasons of praying, I was reminded that our God is a true and living God. We, as His followers, ought to make a conscious effort to shape our church and our society’s culture; where they can experience the love of the incarnated Christ amongst them. Therefore, our churches need to play an active role in serving our community and campus ministry is one of the avenues in which we would do so. TMMPC spent some time praying about this matter and decided to begin the campus ministry with the mindset of “asking when in doubt, learning when in lack”. With this, we started to reach out to the relevant school authorities with various outreach programs. As the saying goes “we need to win the younger generation for Christ for they are the future of our church tomorrow” and we are committed to win the young for Christ.

The Church Needs A Long-Term Commitment To Impact Lives
There is a chinese saying that goes “Great wall of China was not built overnight, a man’s maturity is also not achieved within a day, it takes ten years to nurture a tree, but a hundred years to train a man’, it would take time before one is able to see results. Therefore, as our next step, TMMPC will give our best effort to introduce and conduct meaningful activities in the hope that we will sow good seeds in the hearts of our students. Although I am unsure of the end results, Our Lord who is the God of harvest will make all things beautiful in His time. And my conviction is - We, as the church of Christ, need to take the step of faith, go out of our “four walls” and enter into campuses (society) in order to make an impact.