Hope of the world

The local church is hopeless.


There is hope for the local church.

The local church is the hope of the world.


Was watching a sermon video by Pastor Bill Hybels, who said those statements and how God changed his view of the church over the years.

I grew up going to Sunday School with my brother. My mum would usually make a priority for us to go to church every Sunday. My dad was a non-Christian then. I still remember I would look forward to drop by the bakery next door to buy their yummy pastries, especially the sardine rolls. Wrong motivation, huh? I know ;).

My point is, some time after out-growing Sunday School, I followed my parents to the worship services. There was a point when there were some disagreements among the congregation about food; which they somehow couldn't reach upon an agreement or even to agree to disagree.

That, affected my view of the church as a young teen. I guess I was wondering why the adults who would preach and teach us kids on loving our neighbours was doing the exact opposite. Well, I wasn't totally adverse about churches after that, but the incident is evidently stuck in my mind.

Bringing us to the present...
There is a lot happening at All Saints' Cathedral. And I'm not talking about events and conferences here. I won't elaborate, but let's just say it's like deja vu. It absolutely breaks my heart to have family squabbles that goes public and global.

Thankfully, I'm more grounded in God's Word and His promises this time. I understand that we (across all demographics in the church) are still in the process of being made perfect, which pretty much explains our inevitable nature of making decisions that are followed by unpleasant consequences; making others wonder why we were so callous as so-called Christ followers. (Let me simplify that paragraph to Manglish - "Eh, why you so like that?")

Will All Saints' Cathedral survive the next 100 years? Well, if we take what Jesus said in Matthew 16:18 seriously:

"I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it."

Definitely.

So, I'll tell you what I'm going to do for this year. In spite of our weaknesses, short-comings, disappointments, failures and a lot of why you so like that? moments. Instead of focusing on fixing all the wrong beings in this family, I'm going to focus on Christ and serve Him wholeheartedly, as He has placed me here in this season and believe that the local church is the hope of the world. I'll let God do the pruning, mending and molding.

"Know that the LORD is God. It is he who made us, and we are his; we are his people, the sheep of his pasture." ~Psalm 100:3