Dear BPCWAians, It’s been more than a week since the first phase of restrictions on gatherings were announced and implemented. What has the week been like, and what lies ahead?

A look back at last week. 1Pet 2:5 Ye also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house, an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ. A church is not made up of bricks, but of the people within it. It has been painful for me not to be able to meet with our church family. When I went back to do the recording for the Friday fellowship, I opened the door to a silent hall. I did not hear clicks of the door opening, as people started coming in for fellowship. The church building is still there, but I missed our covenantal family. On Sunday, it was a strange feeling to not be able to look forward to the usual Worship Service, praising God together in church. I could not help but drive past the church in the evening at the close of the day, almost imagining how it was on most Sundays, with people chatting outside after returning from Nursing Home, before closing the day with a dinner together with the church family. When I first came to Perth, BPCWA was a church to me. Today, this church is truly my covenantal family – a family that I miss greatly during times like this. Like many of you, the heart yearns to be together in person again, assembled in His time.

Our challenges over the past week. (1) Livestream or pre-recording? Last Sunday, you would have streamed our Worship Services online. To make sure that everything would run smoothly on our first online worship, we decided to pre-record the video. By doing this, we could ensure that there would not be a bandwidth issue as we would be using YouTube’s infrastructure, which would be highly sufficient. We are beginning to trial livestreaming by using last Tuesday’s prayer meeting for a start. Thank God it seems fine.

(2) Usual interpretation for worship and social distancing measures. As you would have noticed as well, we had an English Service as well as a Chinese Service, instead of having interpretation. Our initial priority was to conduct it in a similar fashion to how we had been conducting our Combined Worship Services, with side by side interpretation. However, this would contravene the social distancing requirement. With this not being possible, we then considered having it dubbed. This meant having someone in an adjacent room interpreting into Mandarin on the fly and recording into a separate microphone simultaneously, while the worship and preaching was ongoing in the main sanctuary. Technically, this would prove challenging too, and time consuming to get the video ready. This option would have required a fair amount of work in syncing the visual with the audio and consolidating it together into a video. With limited time to respond and work on problems, we eventually decided on the technically simplest approach of having English and Chinese Services in separate recordings.

(3) Webpage setup. Recording the videos was one thing. Our church webpage also had to be updated to enable worshippers to access these videos. Multiple designs and redesigns of our online services page were made. The graphics had to be designed. Now that there were no hard copy bulletins nor hymnbooks, we had to make them accessible to viewers online too. I am thankful for the labour put in by His children in this respect. Technically, it may not be the best available, but I think that it is a very good effort, and I am confident that as you get familiar with it, you will find it easier and easier to use. Please do contact me or any of the Deacons if you need some guidance on this. Last Sunday, we also launched a Chinese webpage (accessible from the main bpcwa.org.au) as well. In addition to this being used as the home for the Chinese online meeting videos, this will be the repository for Chinese sermons and material. Do use our website to listen to our archived Bible studies at this time, and not waste any precious time.

God’s providential help. In this respect, I thank God for gifting His church with gifts and willing helpers for His work. In this transition, many worked behind the scenes – almost like taking a second night job after they finished their usual day jobs. We took our vows to consecrate ourselves to His service on Rededication Sunday, and God certainly put us to the test soon after that! In addition to that, the preparation of the Sunday bulletins also was not “business as usual”. Formats had to be changed. Personnel assignments revised. Timelines were shortened. But in all the challenges and changes, God always enabled and provided timely and willing helpers.

Ongoing changes. However, the work is not ended yet. If, as the government warns, this is going to be a long-drawn arrangement, much more work needs to be done in the technology arena. This includes the use of technology for us to have more interactive meetings and improved clarity of our video recordings as well. In addition, if more stringent measures are implemented which restrict even our Audio Visual helpers and pianists to come in, then we may need to have recordings done differently. We need much prayer and wisdom in this respect to continue to ensure that God’s sheep will be fed, and engagements with each other maintained during these months ahead. As God has been enabling us all this while, we know He will continue to do so for His sheep.

Eph 2:21 In whom all the building fitly framed together groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord:

Your part in all this. 1) All the work was ultimately for one key purpose – that God’s people would be able to worship and continue to know God better and still increase in our love for Him through the feeding of His Word. We can jump hoops to make all the learning available, but we cannot make you, who are alone in your own homes, tune in to listen and to benefit from it. Don’t do it simply because much work has gone into it, but because you, God’s child, want to continue growing spiritually. As shutdowns occur, you may have more and more time at home. Don’t waste that time. Don’t backslide. Don’t just dwell on the ever-increasing news reports. Don’t spend it on mindless social media or computer games. Discipline yourselves to use these resources to maintain your spiritual regime and discipline of learning God’s Word. 2) Today was also marked out as a day on our church calendars that we would have gone out for City Evangelism. This has been cancelled, in response to the government’s social distancing measures. However, now, more than ever, is a time to evangelise. Our church may not be gathering, but you are part of our church. And so the commission is to you now, to “Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature.” (Mk 16:15)

Don’t let up with your personal evangelism efforts at this time. The world out there needs the gospel to go through these hard times. You can’t bring them to church, but you can direct them to our online links.

Eph 5:16 Redeeming the time, because the days are evil.

Yours in our Lord’s service,

Pastor