Ministry Does Not Equal to Intimacy with God

By Jack Chui

Today (or yesterday if I this gets posted on Monday) was the probably the busiest day in ministry I have ever been involved in. Pushing off from home at 9am, I was coordinating a BBQ at church, stopped for a coffee with friends for an hour before leading a group out to the detention centre for Outreach in the afternoon, then finished with evening mass and helping Jean out in her music ministry. That last one was optional and I got home at 10pm not exhausted but with enough energy to start writing this post.

I entered today having read this short article which a good friend sent me the day before:
http://lp.willowcreek.com/WCA-Blog/August-2012/Craig-Groeschel-on-Investing-in-Your-Personal-Deve

And I believe he's right - Ministry does not equal intimacy with God. I had known this for some time now being in active ministry for a few years and having experienced it first hand but the article made me stop and think about it without quickly pressing the 'Archive' button in gmail. Initially like others, I entered ministry as a seemingly good way to grow my faith in God. So why then do I put myself under so much stress and trouble in so many ministries? (I'm a leader in STAY, a leader in Outreach, a leader for a Tuesday cell group and help out with almost everything during mass and around mass for St. Augustine's)

I think its a combination of my love for the Church and that I love to give. The Church has given me so much - most importantly my faith, and I want to share that faith and joy with more people. Its almost like I don't really care about myself so much because its more important to me that others are better than me. But still, I should care about myself, because I have to be able to love myself first to be able to love others well.

My personal relationship with God is virtually non-existent. Its scary admitting this because I'm in active ministry but I think its kind of true. A lot of what I know about God is in my head, and not so much in my heart. God seems really real and present when I really need him in tough times, but when tough times are over, He fades away - or more that I make Him fade away. Before I started being active in ministry, my prayer life was a lot better than what it is now, and its a struggle at the moment.

For me, its seems to be the right time in my life to give a lot of my time to ministry. I have a stable job, financially well off, study commitments are finished, live on my own near the church and am single/uncommitted. I'm in the right place and time for this sort of work and I should make the most of it before things come around in my life to make it more complicated. This season in my life may not last so long adding to the desire of doing what I can while I can.

I was big receiver of ministry in the past and continue to receive it but in a distant way - so I'm still being fed spiritually. In those times I have been formed and I would say not quite enough because other people in those groups are spiritually much stronger than me and yet I've been thrown into quite active ministry. I am actually quite unqualified especially with the weak prayer life and relationship with God that I have to be able to lead church ministries. Yet I still do...

Sometimes, I/we could be the only person by which another person that we meet could experience God. Today at the detention centre, the refugees wanted some prayer and few of the visitors want to pray over a refugee let alone know how to actually do one. I'm not that experienced at doing it and its not exactly a task which everyone's going to put their hands up to do so its the choice of saying an 'incompetent' prayer or not praying for them at all. I have learnt to just do it, even though I'm not qualified.

I don't think anyone is ever ready for big things in life - like a new job, dating, getting married and having kids. Its hard to be fully prepared for these things - many times what ends up happening is so different to our expectations. I think its like that with ministry as well. Who is ever qualified to lead ministry? Its something that's learned by just doing, observing and just being involved. I guess I'm a very slow learner... I give what little I have, and hope that God will multiply it like Jesus did with the 5 loaves and 2 fish.

I think its amazing that God can still work wonders as He did today through my failures and insufficient qualification. I'm always looking out for the seemingly weak people who seem to have nothing to offer and seeing God do amazing things through them. So while I haven't really grown so much personally having been so involved in ministry, what I have witness is the awesome power of God to still work through me. I pray that those around me, can continue to minister to me - even though they don't think they are qualified, God is so much greater that He thinks otherwise =)

Spring is Arriving

Hello STAY peeps! :)

This is my first blog post, just thought it was necessary to write something before it quickly becomes Jack's diary. :P

I just got back from St Augustine's Feast Day BBQ. I must say today is actually quite an "ordinary" day... I woke up late, setting my alarm clock without pressing the "ON" button. I circulated the church vicinity for 50 minutes, looking for a car park, and telling God to be God (and therefore generous and kind to a girl like me). And then I arrived at Church and was pretty overwhelmed.

There were so many people there! Deserts (Chai Yin's brownie screaming at me), so many salads laid out, BBQ was on, and meats (I write in order of personal food preferences). The sun was out, people were smiling, hellos and hugs were being exchanged, and everyone was just standing around... suddenly, I felt like I was back in the old St Augustine's days.... where the church has always been known for its community spirit. And today, I am just so humbled and grateful to those individuals who have kept this church going, praying for a revival in the life and community spirit during our desert period (esp when St Augs appeared to not have a future at one point) - like those from the Legion of Mary's group, Paul, Emelda and Priscilla, the altar servers, Stay, Cell group members of the parish, etc. With the news that Father Victor is soon returning to be our Parish Priest again, it's really a testimony to me that God is FAITHFUL to His people. And during these dark days, He has asked for a number of church members to carry His cross with Him, to be like Simon of Cyrene, as He couldn't do it alone. Because these individuals (and many others whom I haven't listed down) responded in times of hardship, we can now start to see the beginnings of Spring, and new life. How timely it is that Spring is literally approaching too.

Coming home from the BBQ, I feel like today was an "ordinary" day. There was no particular spiritual fanfare or sky splitting moments. Yet, it is precisely because it is ordinary and simple, that I am all the more grateful, because I have tasted the beauty of Heaven in the people who showed up today, in the generosity of hearts, in the laughter, the sun, the smell of BBQ.

What a day. =)

P.S.
To all STAY members, if you'd like to share your thoughts on this blog too, please let us know through emailing stayministry@gmail.com

God bless all,
Jean

Generosity

By Jack Chui

Just a little progress update with me and the STAY ministry. This weekend I'm preparing for 2 events - a BBQ for the whole church after morning mass and also an Outreach to the Detention Centre to bring people to be friends with the asylum seekers in the afternoon. I've organised both events before and several times so I'm comfortable in getting those done, just that I haven't done them both on the one day before. Timing is such, that these events can't be moved.

The BBQ is the one that concerns me the most because there are a lot of dependencies. I can pretty much run the Outreach by myself, but the BBQ requires more than me to run - I definitely can't do it all by myself. Being the slight control freak that I am, it makes me a little more anxious about whether I can pull it off well because quite a bit is at stake - just the whole morning mass parish missing out on food and taking off without hanging around for fellowship. (ok some hyping up here).

I came into this week leading up to the BBQ with very low expectations. I guess because in my mind, I could count the number of people that I knew would be helping me on one hand and that would not be enough to get things running smoothly. The active cell group we had on Sunday was encouraging but small in number and I also didn't seem to have help from the other STAY leaders as they are out of action this weekend. How would I find enough people to help me with the BBQ?

But God seems come through when I least expect it. I always hoped for God to provide enough but He is doing more than that. Over 10 people have responded to my call and all I expected was for most to just turn up and help serve. But many have offered to provide food, come early and skip mass - all things which I thought I would struggle to get people to volunteer for. I really seem to underestimate at times the level of God's abundant generosity and how much people in STAY would be able to give. God even provided new people to come and help generously at just the right time.

Its coming to a stage where I have enough help and people are still volunteering to give up more than what I expect to give more of their time to help out. Its a nice problem to have as I've had to tell people that its not necessary to go that far though they are committed and so willing to give so much. I think I tend to put people and God in a box - that they can only be expected to do certain things within my definition. My definition needs to change and I'm so glad that the people in STAY are able to help me so.

So my sincere thanks to all that are helping with the BBQ, for the small and big ways. There's still quite some tasks for me to get ready like purchasing the meat and missing utensils but that is something as leader I have to do to lead by example. Please pray for Sunday - the BBQ and the Outreach. Feel free to invite your friends --- Sunday 26th - mass at 10:30am followed by a BBQ and music. God bless.

Write-off

By Jack Chui

Recently, I attended a birthday dinner of a friend who I've only known since the start of this year. I didn't know who would be at the party, but I was somewhat surprised to see a friend who wouldn't have known the birthday girl except for one encounter at my own birthday party...

I turned 30 recently and I'm really proud to have been blessed with so much time thus far. I used to not celebrate my birthday because it was no big deal and its just another day in the calendar - no different to another day. In the last few years though, I've come to realise that its my one opportunity in the year where I have an excuse to gather people together and celebrate a milestone which God has blessed me with.

I usually have several small celebrations where I can organise them for my birthday but being a 'big' one this year that won't ever come around again, a big party was in order to make the most of it. I have small gatherings for birthdays so that 'friendship circles' don't collide (think of the worlds colliding in Seinfeld). I wondered why I wanted to avoid these 'collisions' and I think its mostly because I was worried about what my different groups of friends would think of me because I also hang around with another group of friends. Such a dumb way of thinking --- I wanted to get over this fear by staging a big 30th!

My party went well. There were lots of people crammed into my humble abode and I see it as a great blessing to have so many people that want to come and celebrate with me. When I first came to Melbourne, I didn't know anyone - so much has changed over 5 years. Not all of them were close friends, some were more acquaintances but with enough respect to know that they weren't just there to make up the numbers.

From all reports everyone had a great time. I wouldn't say I had the greatest time because I didn't get to talk at any decent length or depth with anyone - mostly manning the door to welcome and then say goodbye for most of the night. Even so, I knew this would be okay because I threw this party for everyone else, and not really myself. Only I can bring together this set of people in one place as only I will ever have this set of friends. I just wanted to live out my chosenness/belovedness =)

Back to the start of this post, my two friends who I saw at the birthday dinner met each other for the first time at my party and there's a sense of pride that if it wasn't for me, such a possible romantic relationship between the two might not have existed. They were from completely different friendship circles and would not have thought it was possible between the two.

What this made me think of though was the idea of 'not writing people off'. There are certain people I meet which I would consider 'not a great use of time'. They offer no potential advantages or benefits to me and we just don't click so well. But if I 'write-off' these people then I could be missing out on some very fruitful friendships/relationships. Who knows?, through them, I could meet their other friends and my future partner could be one of them. Its easy to see this when I'm 'more' actively searching for a partner and wanting to open more doors than when I was just comfortable with my existing group of friends. It was good to see some fruit in that my two friends can share a more intimate friendship because I did not write either of them off.

First Post - Welcome!

Welcome to the STAY blog/website. This is my first time writing in a blog and I'm generally not a good writer. Though some say I write well, I'll say it can take some time for me to write it well. I hope to make up for it by the depth of my sharing.

We have created this as a way to share our young adults ministry with more people than we can reach physically through St. Augustine's Church. It will be a way for me and others in STAY to share their spiritual journeys and our moments in STAY in the hope that God will speak through our words to anyone who reads this blog.

As part of a city church, much of our member base consists of overseas students or workers who don't tend to be long term residents of Melbourne. As such, our members tend to come and go and the number of people that come to our regular meetings fluctuate. This blog is like an extension of STAY such that people that have come and been touched by STAY can still be a part of STAY through this website.

My hope for this blog is that I can share my thoughts freely and regularly so that God has the possibility to work through me to reach my simple aim of STAY --- "to bring God to young people". We have so much to offer and share, and now we have another avenue to do so. My sharings/reflections will be on a variety of topics and as is becoming my style - quite personal.

In His Love,

Jack