Following God with Contentment

As our church continues to expand and there is a greater demand for online messages especially during the pandemic, we are grateful that our media ministry is prospering! Our co-workers keep working on increasing the number of views and exposure of our programs, such as “Following God” and “Mama’s Kitchen”. It is our heart to let more people receive the fragrance and nourishment of the Tree of Life from our church.

However, such development challenges one of our cultures we have been taking pride in – both Cantonese and Mandarin are spoken in church services and gatherings as well as among brothers and sisters. However, the online world is calling for precise and concise programs. The monolingual programs in either English or Chinese often receive a higher number of views. It is because, in reality, there are more monolingual people who speak either English or Mandarin.

How should we regard this emerging media ministry and mode of discipleship? We should follow God with contentment.

A while back, we were reading “Judges” in the Morning Devotion when we were reminded that many problems arise because man is not content with what God has given him. Take the tribe of Dan at the time for example; they neither made effort to possess land, nor were they content with the land God had allocated them. Instead, they went to rob others of their lands. This serves as a reminder to us that when we follow God in the online world, we rely not on our sight; not the programme language used, may it be one, two or even three; not making the program a speciality store or a department store, rather we are simply content with the lot from God.

For example, as Cantonese, we speak Cantonese. If needed, we can talk in Mandarin. However, we do not intentionally change the language we use just to gain a higher number of views because that is not our goal. If our programme can reach and bless more people, that is great. But the main thing is, we should be content with the lot from God!

Online social platforms strive to be simple and accessible. If God grants us many platforms, we shall be happy to operate many speciality stores and not insist on running just a department store. Media Communication and Online Discipleship, especially under the current influence of the pandemic, are new to us. We keep exploring and improving in this area while guarding our bottom line. It means that we are not to idolize it – we do not trade high AV effects for God and we do not make some unnatural and highly complicated productions.

In fact, God has created a bilingual and even multilingual yet integrated culture in our church. This is His unique leading to us. The Cantonese, Mandarin and English people are able to fellowship in their own languages and get along with each other and even during service gatherings. In this way, we build a community unrestricted by language. This is a major breakthrough in church life. We do not need to sacrifice this culture for the number of views. On the contrary, we should take this integrated culture and atmosphere to the online world!

Dear brothers and sisters, though the world is in turmoil today, we should embrace with contentment the lot from God wherever we are. We follow God by faith and not by sight and we live out the Tree of Life. He will surely bring us into a deeper rest.■[2021.02.21]