Pastors Depressed

Are pastors suppose to be depresses ? How can this be, they are our shepherds. Well, the truth is that pastors like any normal human also face depression at times. A recent survey in the US found that 80 % of pastors are discouraged and felt unqualified to be pastors. Demands on pastors are certainly increasing when many channels of communications are available to contact pastors when the church members are in need. Many pastors are certainly over worked and they do not take vacation leave. Like people in other vocations, vacation leave or sabbatical is important for pastors to relieve their stresses as well as to reflect on their walk with God. I remember about two years ago Pastor John Piper took a 6 months sabbatical to reflect on his life as well as his ministry.

In the Bible great prophet like Elijah was also depressed when Jezebel pursued him and tried to kill him. 1 King 19:2. Since, great people are affected we are no different. From an outsider, it seem depression is "something in the mind" only and there is nothing to it. But after having experienced a season of depression myself, I can say depression is not making up stories. It is a serious illness and if not treated promptly can have serious consequences.

There is no survey of this nature in Malaysia, so we do not know the extend of this problem. Beside, culturally people have negative perception of mental illnesses like depression and patients tend to hide such conditions. Perhaps this issue is not serious because there is no reports in the Christian communities here.

Click on the title of this post to read an article.

Watch a video about depression.

Alpha Parenting Course At Kuching

Today, the city of Kuching is honored to host the Alpha Parenting course at Good News Fellowship Church. Understand that Kuala Lumpur was the first city outside of the United Kingdom in hosting the Alpha Parenting Course. According to the National Director of Alpha Malaysia, Kuching is chosen because churches in Kuching are the most active in conducting the Alpha Marriage course, hence it is logical to encourage people here to continue with the newly launched Parenting course.

The main aim of this course is to teach parents how to bring up well adjusted and godly children. However, this course is opened to those who are interested regardless of their religion just like the Marriage course which has been attended by many non Christians who benefited for such course.

We in Kuching are indeed honored to have Micky and Sila here from the UK to conduct the Parenting course here. They are very busy and yet could find sometime to conduct this course here. On behalf of people in Kuching a big "Thank you".

About 160 people attended this one-day course. After this one-day course all participants also attended a dinner function at a local restaurant.

Click on the title of this post to the website relationship central

Watch a slide presentation

Home Mission Board

This morning Pastor Gramen, Chairman of Home Mission Board (HMB), and Pastor Daniel Kion, Co-ordinator of HMB came to our church to share with us the work the Board is doing.

HMB is an organization under the Sarawak Baptist Convention. The Convention takes care of about 27 Baptist churches through out Sarawak. The main objective is to spread the Gospel to the people in Sarawak especially in the interior of Sarawak by helping these people to improve their lives like helping them with their education, building them amendities and etc.

Our church like many other Baptist churches support the HMB by providing some financial support. But they also requires other resources like manpower to preach and build things for them.

Pastor Daniel shared one very encouraging testimony. HMB under the leadership of Pastor Daniel built a micro hydro system for Nanga Sepaya Longhouse at Sri Aman, the second division of Sarawak. The hydro is built with HMB own efforts and it was designed by themselves. All materials were purchased locally. A cable company donated about RM10,000( USD3,000) worth of cable. This 52 families Long house had never have any electricity for the past 30 years, and when the light came on for the first time many of the long house folks cried! Praise God that they had light eventually. Because of the love shown by members of HMB to these non believers, all the people in this long house came to accept the Lord! Hallelujah Praise God! The surrounding people near this long house has heard of this new hydro at Nanga Sepaya and they also requested HMB to build them a micro hydro, here the door is opened to HMB to spread the Good news. Due to lack of resources, HMB is working to help build more micro hydro in the interiors.

Our church is very encouraged and our leadership is looking forward to send a mission team into the interior before the end of this year. It is also our church mission to carry out the Great Commission.

For the benefit of foreign readers here(top) is a picture of a Long House.

Homosexuality: A New Calamity

John Piper commented that normalization of homosexuality is a new calamity in American as a number of states in the US has approved of same-sex marriage. We know homosexuality is a sin.

22 You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination. Leviticus 18:22

The trouble is that many people are accepting homosexuality as normal. Piper said the calamity is that people are celebrating it. He said "alongside its clearest explanation of the sin of homosexual intercourse (Romans 1:24-27) stands the indictment of the celebration of it,"

Sins not only affect homosexuals but also heterosexuals, what he is doing is helping the church to see the assault on the church. He is not the only one seeing homosexuality as sin of a nation, John MacArthur in my previous post also spoke about this issue.

This is an issue the church worldwide has to face as more countries are accepting homosexuality as normal. In Malaysia homosexuality is against the law, so people who are homosexuals are laying low to avoid the law.

To read John Piper's article click on the title of this post.

John MacArthur: USA Under Divine Judgement

John MacArthur said America is under divine judgement. What has this judgement got to do with Malaysia? But it appears that what he said also applies to Malaysia.

He said “Materialism, drunkard pleasure seeking, arrogant conceit, defiant sinfulness, moral perversion, and corrupt leadership… Do you not see [them] in America?”

Replace "America" with "Malaysia",and these seem to apply equally in Malaysia. If you know what the political, social, economic and religious climate of Malaysia you will see the similarities. Like politics, the Malaysian government is way off mark,leaders are less than truthful, many are in there for their own gains. People are ready to march in the streets to seek reforms in the election processes to be more transparent.

In terms of religion, the Christians are speaking out to protect their rights under the federal constitution. E.g the government prohibits Christians to use the word "Allah" in the Malay Bible and other restrictions on Christians.

Like MacArthur said, God called us to be holy that is "being separated from sinners". But people worship other gods rather the True God of the Bible. No doubt that God will judge our nation for the many sins it is doing.

One positive observation is that Christians of various denominations are coming together to pray for our nation as well as up holding godly members of the government when prayers rallies are held or in their respective churches.

As Christians we are called to be holy and this is what we should do on a personal level. If we have not been holy or close to God, this is the time to begin.

To read the article about MacArthur click on the title of this post.

Watch a 2009 video of MacArthur

Sunday Service - Bro. Kirk Weaver

This morning, our church had the honor of Bro.Kirk Weaver, Director, Family Time Training, Focus on the Family, USA to speak to us. Bro Kirk is here in Kuching to conduct a course for Focus on the Family. He is from Littleton, Colorado. ( To read more about his ministry click on the title of this post to his website).

The world is so small, just last week we had Pastor Christina Tan from Houston and today we have Bro.Kirk from Colorado.

Bro.Kirk sharing was timely because like in America people seem to be drifting away from God. His sharing was about building godly family. In fact, this is his ministry and this subject is close to his heart.

He shared stories in the Bible like David who knew God intimately, Solomon drifted away and Rehoboam worshiped idols. By the third generation people forgot about God. It is the same now therefore it is important to teach our children at home and do not let the Sunday school teachers bear all the burdens. Our young children are with us all the time, and we are the ones who have influence on them. If we want them to be godly, we have to teach them ourselves.

There are three types of people, 1) Christians, 2) Nominal Christians, 3) Non Christians. He used three cups of milk to illustrate how we should live as Christians and how we can bring up our children in godly ways. He added chocolate syrup(representing Jesus) to the first and second glass, put a wooden spoon representing Holy Spirit)each to first and second glass. He stirred the first glass which turned brown because the wooden spoon (Holy Spirit) has worked in this person. In case of the second glass, the chocolate sank into the bottom of the glass because this person has Jesus and Holy Spirit but does not act on their instructions. The third glass reminds white milk because he does not know God.

The moral of the story is that if we do not teach our children about God and help them to have a personal relation with Jesus, our children will be like the third glass ( white in colour). If we ourselves is like the first glass (brown in colour after the working of Holy Spirit) and we teach our children well, they are mostly likely to resemble us.

Watch a video of Bro.Kirk explaining this idea

Three Things

A friend of mine in Australia sent me an email entitled "Three Things", and I found it encouraging. I have made it into a slide show. To all of you who are reading this, may these messages encourage you and help you to be a little closer to God.

Please read this slide:

Threethings

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