Dear BPCWA worshipper, Today is our Annual Congregational Meeting, and members have received a copy of the reports distributed 2 weeks ago.  Within the handouts are reports containing updates on the ministries and activities in the church.  I thank God that most BPCWA worshippers are serving in one way or another in the church.  Behind the activities in these reports are many of you who have been diligently serving in both forefront and background roles, and even in areas not mentioned within these reports.  I thank God for the many who serve with the right understanding and spirit.  It is important for us at such a time as ACM to reflect upon how the church and Christians should think about service.  We should also be reminded and warned of incorrect practices and mindsets regarding service so that we can recognise and reject them, should they be introduced or come into our midst.  I also thank God for those who though not directly involved in these areas of service, serve in an important way – by praying for the ministries!  Without prayer support, these ministries would not have progressed in the Lord.

Service and the Christian.  There is an adage that many use, and that is we are “saved to serve”.  Sometimes, catchy phrases can be great, but at times they can also be misleading, or at least incomplete.   A catchphrase often will not very accurately reflect the Bible’s teaching about service, and this is no exception.  Rick Warren (of the “Purpose Driven Life” fame) popularised the idea, “We are not saved by serving, but we are saved for serving”.  Certainly, God says “We are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them” (Eph 2:10).  However, these good works are so that those whom God has predestinated are “conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren” (Ro 8:29) so that each Christian as “lively stones, are built up a spiritual house, an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ” (1Pe 2:5).  Do not misunderstand that I do not think that we should serve after being saved.  However, when we see such end purposes, we must be aware that we need to be holy, and our services must be spiritual to be acceptable to God.  It is much more than just being saved to serve. We also need to know that we need to serve acceptably before God.

Erroneous practices. Many churches have subscribed to the “saved to serve” catchphrase and push it aggressively without qualification.  While it is good to encourage the saved to serve, unqualified understandings and motivations can lead to erroneous practices. We must be careful not to fall into or expect the following.  1) Assign as much service as possible to as many people as possible.  While we wish to have all serve, we must be mindful that not all are ready and are in the right spiritual state to serve.  Moreover, different areas of service require differing spiritual qualifications and maturity.  Some even measure the church by how many people are serving.  Such a measure is not entirely wrong, but it can be dangerous.  This is because it can ignore the need for service personnel to meet the spiritual qualifications. Moreover, if we have an erroneous mindset, then it would follow in the minds of the people that a good church must let me serve and be involved in whatever I choose to volunteer in.  And if I am not appointed, the church is not practicing the maxim “saved to serve”.  2) Christians are given service so that they will keep attending the church.  Some also have the idea that because Christians are saved to serve, then the church should retain them by giving them service.  There is also the practice of attracting people to serve to get them to come to or remain in the church.  Such ones are assigned areas of service that will either attract them to stay or constrain them to be at their churches weekly and hence cannot leave to attend another church.  Yes, Christians are saved to serve, but the church must not appoint someone regardless of their spiritual condition and theological convictions.  While Christians are saved to serve, the church must not be modelled after the world’s mindset of “keep the people happy” and “use them or lose them”, thereby making them feel obligated and committed to their church.  The unspoken purpose that “everybody” does “something” so that they will have a sense of responsibility to keep coming is an unbiblical criterion.  Sadly, such carnal ideas seem more attractive to worshippers and leaders who value “doing something” more than following biblical models.  And “saved to serve” is the excuse used to push and perpetuate more unbiblical practices in appointing people to serve.  3)Saved to serve is more important than saved to be obedient. Serving is part of obedience.  But obedience is more than just service.  As mentioned earlier, we are called to be conformed to the image of Christ.  We have seen this even in Christian university students, where students feel empowered to make the change in their student-run parachurch organisations.  Even if they will receive sounder biblical teaching in another church, they still choose to remain with their organisations.  This is because they feel that even if they are compromising by remaining in an unsound group, they are empowered to serve.

Now, I hope no one will misquote this pastoral and say that “saved to serve” is unimportant.  No one should use it as an excuse to not serve, or say that God knows my heart, and that is good enough even if I do not serve.  Neither should we feel that as long as we serve, we are living out the maxim “saved to serve”.  As I mentioned initially, I am thankful that God has raised many to serve Him in so many ways around the church.  What should be the right response to the problems we have highlighted above?  We must learn to look at things from a biblical perspective.  And it is also important to teach the next generation so that we will not face a widespread problem in the future.  God willing, we will discuss this in next week’s pastoral.

Yours in our Lord’s service,
Pastor