A touching moment...

Last Sunday afternoon, after a prayer meeting, some of us gathered together for a briefing for our upcoming YA event, 13. It was a touching moment for me as I saw the Y, YY, YYY generations working together for a worthy cause.

Indeed, this is a glimpse of the kind of the church that Jesus is building. A kind of church where people do not allow their differences (age, background, personality, etc) to divide them. Rather they decide to complement one another with their unique strengths. This is a kind of church where each member is not interested in exalting their own individual interest but the interest of the Kingdom.

For those who are not familiar with the definitions of Y, YY, YYY in our young adults ministry, here they are:

Y - those who are in their thirties
YY - those who are in their mid twenties and late twenties
YYY - those who are in their late teens and early twenties

That touching moment provides a perfect platform for me to publish in writing what I shared from my heart verbally during a district missions nite on 20 Sep 2007.

I want to be reminded continually that God has put the Y, YY, YYY generations together to accomplish His purpose in our world.

Below is what I shared that night (not a verbatim copy but almost):

Sharing from the heart to the YYY and YY generation:

I am now part of Y generation. One regret that I have is that I didn’t cultivate dilligence in the early part of my life, when I was part of the YYY and YY generation. In fact today I am still cultivating dilligence though I am thankful that I have progressed.

You see, when I was younger I depended too much on my intellect and the grace of God. I am very far away from being genius. But since young I knew, through a test, that my IQ was higher than average. And somehow I depended on it, at least partly, for survival.

I didn’t understand the word “study” perhaps until Secondary School. Even after I understand the word I didn’t study much still, a trend that continued even until my university studies. Thankfully, I somehow repented I think during my last year of my university studies.

One day when I was in Primary 3 or 4 my teacher was so fed up with me as I didn’t do any of my homework at all, a usual habit for me. He commanded me to leave the classroom. I didn’t want to. He dragged me but I held on to one table and then probably to a chair. But he was stronger than me. I was out of the class. I then wandered away to a particular area in the school. I think the teacher was trying to find me. Later on when I came back to class it was another teacher. He was quite nice to me. Perhaps he was scared that I would wander away from school.

In my life I did many stupid things. When Lean Choo and I got married the theme of our wedding was “Only by grace”. Indeed it was only by grace that I survived physically, emotionally and spiritually to get married that day.

Though I have many stories to tell about my mischiefs and grace encounters I do regret wasting my life a little bit by not being a dilligent person.

YYY and YY people, I urge you not to repeat my mistake. Learn from mistake. You are only in your late teens and twenties once. Do not waste it away. Don’t allow the world and your peers to distract you. Invest your life fully into the cause of the church. Live out the purpose and destiny God has for you fully.

YYY and YY people, you know, it is not about me. It is about you.

Many years ago God birthed into my heart a burden. The burden was for me to be in a place in the world where I can find people from various nationalities to win them for Christ, disciple and train them and release them to the various parts of the world to plant churches or contribute in some ways to the church of Jesus Christ.

When I was Singapore, in the early years, I saw a mental picture of a greyish building with many classrooms, a large auditorium with flags of many countries of the world there. Then I saw a mental picture of the map of the world. One picture of this greyish building appeared on the map then it multiplied to many greyish buildings all over the map. There was fire on top of the picture of one greyish building. The fire also multiplied and appeared on other greyish buildings on the map.

I believe this is it. This is the place. Singapore is getting more multinationals by the day. Singapore is an excellent training ground for world missions.

YYY and YY people, indeed, it is about you. In the years to come, some of you will be leaving Singapore to extend the work of God in different parts of the world. Some of you will be in Singapore to strengthen the base. Some of you will be going while some of you will be training and releasing people to go. Some of you will be in Singapore but you will travel quite a bit to support and strengthen our teams out there. Some of you will be in Singapore but you are pumping financial resources to advance God’s work abroad.

That’s your destiny. In the years to come, whether you are a church planter, a full time staff, a pastoral leader, a specialised minister, a marketplace minister we share the same destiny. God has a vision for the world and He wants us to fulfill it. God wants each us to sign up fully for the cause of the greatest corporation in the universe, the church of Jesus Christ.

YYY and YY generation, live out your destiny fully. Invest your life fully to the cause of the church of Jesus Christ. Do not waste your teens and twenties away. Make it count for yourself, God and the Kingdom.


Sharing from the heart to the Y generation:

I have not forgotten you. How can I forget my own generation?

Whatever I spoke about the YYY and YY generation apply to you as well.

But there is one thing that I would like to speak to you about.

I believe that God wants you to be a mentor to the YYY and YY generation.

In a way, you eat a little bit more than salt than them. As such why don’t we invest our lives so that the YYY and YY people can flourish better than us? Why don’t we allow them to learn from our successes and failures so that they will eventually do better than us in all fronts.

In a LC in Kuala Lumpur some years ago a man of God gave a word of prophecy. He prophesied that God is going to use some people who are not apostles to shepherd and raise apostles from those under their care.

The future apostles, prophets, evangelists, teachers, pastors, specialist ministers and marketplace ministers are among the YYY and YY generation. But many of them need spiritual mentors. Many of them need career mentors. Many of them need life coaches. Many of them need spiritual fathers and mothers. Many of them need friends who have gone a little bit further than them.

Y generation, that’s our calling and destiny. Would you join me to raise the next generation of leaders for the nations?

Let’s live out our destiny fully as well.