Dear BPCWA worshipper, In February 2021, BPCWA passed 35 years since her founding in 1986.  Much has occurred during these 35 years.  Many of our worshippers have shared with me snippets of stories about our church history.  Even people I’ve met from churches outside of the BP circle here know of some of the turmoils BPCWA has gone through.  BPCWA has had its share of nicknames.  I thought it would be important for our worshippers here to have an understanding of our background.  This is important also for those who are interested or considering taking up membership with us in the future.  It is part of knowing the family that you are part of.  I am sure that those who have been here long enough to have gone through the downs don’t want such days to return.  Some have come in more recent years, and have only seen the church in the recent stable and peaceful state that God has been merciful to be pleased to bless us with.   It is important for both groups to learn from our history so that we can together all reinforce the positives and not repeat the negatives.

Would our church history be considered a “Bible study”?  This study is not in a presentation format of a typical anniversary magazine, where we present glossy photographs of smiling babies, children, and adults in picture perfect-poses and saying only the “good stuff”.  It is not intended to track how long a ministry has/ has not been in existence.  It is not intended to provide fuel for gossip, nor is it intended to embarrass others.  This study is not going to be heavily focused just on timelines.   Instead, we will be looking at a more macro view of our history and from that highlight Biblical viewpoints.  This study is intended to help us apply Scriptural principles to actual events.  It is to apply the eyeglasses of our Christian faith to past events.  While we can study what the Bible teaches about the  church, it is different when these teachings are superimposed on a church’s history and events in it.  This is where we take you out of the classroom theories about the church and into the actual real world, a place where needs and emotions are involved, and the decisions that are made when the tests and trials come.  If we say that secular history is actually “His story” ie God’s story, then how much more when it comes to a church’s history?  The Church is God’s body, His witness, the place where God is worshipped.  God never fails.  And where there are failings in any church, it is all due to man’s failures.  So, when despite these failings and yet the church continues and stays faithful, it can only be attributed to God’s sovereign care, help, and preservation.  Through this, we must see the Hand of God at work.  So we are studying what the Bible says about the church as we study the church.  And when we do so, we must then realise that in our time, it is the charge that He entrusts to us to keep. 

Should we dig up our history since it’s past?  Since it’s already over, is there really a need to talk, much less teach, about it?  The fact is that history, whether pleasant or unpleasant, plays its part in shaping the people in the church, and to some extent, its ethos.  The Bible records both the good and the wrongs that occur.  The purpose is for learning from both. What we experience in our life often affects, moulds, and shapes us into what we are and how we think and respond.  Similarly, what one goes through in a church is what one comes to associate with the church and what one expects the church to be.  Some may yearn still for what used to be done in the “good old days”.  These emotions and expectations then become the pressures that form and exist within a church, some in subtler and some in more noticeable forms as the church goes through necessary changes that God leads it through.  Whether for a nation or a corporation, it is very important for a church to also not to lose sight of know how it started, how it was run, where it is at, and how it should move forward.     Those that went through each turmoil in the past never thought that there would be another, in another form.  There is no guarantee that the pressures that were faced in the past will not repeat themselves again in the future.  If it should do so, how should BPCWA respond when history tries to repeat itself?  Real problems do exist, and new ones can arise, and we cannot pretend that they don’t and won’t.  Will the congregation and the leaders respond in unity based on God’s Word?  What happens when they don’t?  Members can want to do the right thing – but the wrong leaders may refuse.  The right leaders may want to do the right thing – but they can end up being disliked by the members.  A leader who desires to please the people will buckle under pressure from the members and succumb.  A leader who wants to do right may face the unhappiness of the people who will be voting for him.  Satan knows that “. . . if a house be divided against itself, that house cannot stand.” (Mark 3:25)  For a church to thrive, we must “stand fast in one spirit, with one mind”.  It is however not a unity based on loyalty to a man, but “for the faith of the gospel” (Phil 1:27).  This is why it is important for the church at large to know and understand the biblical basis for such matters. 

Are we ready to learn?  As with any and all Bible study topics, the best that the church can do is to faithfully teach and pray that worshippers will want to learn.  The learning is really up to the hearers, and that is something that is outside of my control.  We can attend a Bible study with a preconceived mindset, ready to criticize each and every point brought up.  I will readily admit that this is not a perfect study, but I have attempted to search through available documentation to try as much as possible to reflect the issues objectively.  Only God can do a perfect history recap.  But this does not mean that we should not learn what we can in the light of His revealed will in His Word.  The purpose of this series is not for nostalgia, and definitely not for debate.  It is for learning, and I hope this will be the mindset of all who decide to come – to learn.  This study took many hours of research and combing through our archives.  If we want to leave the next generation a church that will not repeat the mistakes of the past and know what to do when similar attacks of Satan reoccur, then the only solution is that we must teach, and all must learn.  When other tests come, what will the next generation do?  Peace is fragile, and unity is precious.  This is our family history, and it is for the BPCWA family.                      

“That the generation to come might know them, even the children which should be born; who should arise and declare them to their children:  7 That they might set their hope in God, and not forget the works of God, but keep his commandments:”  Ps 78:6-7

Yours in our Lord’s service,

Pastor