Practicing Scriptural Holiness

Bishop’s Exhortation – August 2011

My dear Co-workers and Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

   It is with much joy and privilege for me to serve the Lord in leading the Chinese Methodist Church in Australia (CMCA) for the past nine months. I was able to visit different churches, preaching centres and preaching points. The dedication of our minsters and enthusiasm of our people really inspires me to give my best in labouring for the Lord in leading our Church. Such dedication and enthusiasm was also exhibited by all of you at our Pastors & Local Preachers Retreat in Sibu from 26^th to 29^th July.

           I am most thankful to the Lord for the opportunity to represent our Church for the World Methodist Council meeting (1^st to 3^rd August) and the World Methodist Conference (4^th to 8^th August) in Durban, South Africa. After the World Methodist Conference, my wife, Kim and I, we were also able to spend a week in Johannesburg, South Africa and in Lusaka, Zambia with our missionary, Rev. Dr. James Ha, and with the Director of SIM, East Asia, Dr. Stanley Ling. We were able to witness firsthand the wonderful ministries of SIM missionaries in a remote mission station in Mukinge, Zambia where there is a hospital and a primary and secondary school. It was most uplifting for us to listen to several testimonies of God working in the lives of some of the people we met in these places.

             In order for our Church to be alive and faithful to the Lord, we must remain focus and obedience to our Lord Jesus’ calling for us to reach out to this broken and sinful world. We, as God’s people, have been called to live a life of devout worship (individual and corporate) i.e. worship as being our lifestyle. And so, we must commit ourselves to spread the gospel of good news to the lost. In living out our lives as true disciples of Jesus Christ, we too need to commit ourselves to charitable services to the last and the least. For this is indeed Methodist emphasis, teaching us to spread scriptural holiness (personal and social holiness).

            As a very young Conference, we must lay this strong foundation so that the whole future of our Church will be solidly built on spreading scriptural holiness. To achieve that, we must work at building strong families, church and community through our devout life of worship so that indeed, we can and will make a difference in the community we live in. We must help our younger generation to catch the vision of spreading scriptural holiness. We are to pass on this teaching through discipling them. For all our pastors and leaders, let us live out our lives of scriptural holiness as an example for them to follow. And for everyone, we must faithfully participate in the footstep of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ, in obedience to his command to participate in fulfilling the Great Commission i.e. to be disciples and in going out to make disciples of all nations (Matthew 28:19-20).

 As we do that, my dear brothers and sisters, it is my prayer and hope that CMCA can and will be a Church that can truly make a difference in the community we live in!

Servant of the Lord,

James Kwang