On August 28, 1963, Martin Luther King delivered arguably the most poignant and powerful speech that changed the course of history in America. From the steps of Lincoln Memorial, Luther spoke with gritty determination and passion about his ‘dream today’ to see an end to racism and discrimination that plagued Negro Americans. His passion was amazing. His persistence was unwavering. His words were powerful and inspiring. I could see, feel and experience some of his passion for the persecuted Negro Americans. But as I listened to his speech, and tried to taste some of his passion, I began thinking about my Church. Where’s our passion for Christ? You see, this Gospel about Jesus Christ brings true life, eternal life in fact, and real hope. We live in a world that does not know the Lord Jesus, does not have real hope. Jesus says in John 14:6 “I am the Way, the Truth and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” No one can know God unless you know Jesus. This message is incredible and needs to be shared! So then, what is sapping our energy and our passion for Christ?

To give a bit of context, I help to lead the English congregation called Embrace English Fellowship in a small church called Melbourne Chinese Bible Church (MCBC) in West Footscray. Our vision is to proclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ to the Western suburbs, particularly to our friends, family and the wider community in the West. At the moment we are pastor-less as a Church and we run off lay-preachers and some guest preachers. Without a pastor we face tremendous challenges. I believe we have arrived at the most critical point in the history of MCBC in terms of direction and any potential growth. I believe there is so much potential because strategically, we are situated almost within walking distance from Victoria University, we are young, we are English speaking Asians within a pretty large community of Asians and we have a core group that love Jesus and His Word. God has blessed us with some really gifted and hard working leaders. They are a joy to work with and given the right leadership and training, could really thrive!

Our biggest problem is finding the right pastor who is culturally-sensitive, commands respect, is Gospel-focussed, godly and loving, and can teach and pioneer this church into the future (Titus 1, 1 Timothy 3).  Speaking of the right fit, I believe this person would need to be someone who is flexible, who can capitalise on the potential influx of university students at Victoria Uni, and has a passion for doing cross-cultural ministry and youth ministry. At this point I would ask for prayer for our leadership teams and our Deacons board, for prayers in wisdom in our search for the right Pastor to see shepherd the flock.

Given the search will take a while and the desperate shortage of Pastors already, even less attractive because we live in the West, the immediate but more controllable challenge we face is really equipping our leaders to teach the Bible well and understand how to do ministry. But the difficulty with this is that because we are small, much of the work falls on the shoulders of too few leaders, so they don’t have the capacity to keep being innovative with ministry, keep up the energy and keep their passion burning for Christ because they are already buried with administration and ministry already. So we need to keep an eye out for and begin training up the next generation of leaders.

From my two years of experience, I believe Connect helps to address this more controllable challenge. From what I have seen, it helps to equip the leaders we already have by training and guiding them with the right tools and right methods to run Bible Studies that meets them on their level, teach leaders about how to do mentoring, how to run a Youth Group, how to understand other religions, and generally how to think strategically about ministry as a deacon/lay leader/pastor. It gives leaders the rare opportunity to ‘feast’ on great Bible talks as well. One of the big encouragements for me was the fantastic time to meet together as Christians with different leaders at Asian churches who face the same issues to encourage each other, to network, and to point each other to Christ. We are running a combined Church Camp with another larger Asian church this year, spurned off the back of meeting and making new Christian friends/partners as a result of Connect. As a small church in the West, without much support, this type of encouragement, sharing of ideas and prayers definitely encouraged me over the past year.

So while I pray God provides us with a Pastor, and I believe He is good, that He will provide, I believe it’s equally important to train up the leaders we have now in ministry, how to think strategically about ministry, where to focus the resources so that we can truly burn for Christ and not burn out. I ask for your prayers for Melbourne Chinese Bible Church, that God will give us everything we need to do His work, for love, for wisdom, for growth in maturity and number and for a Pastor in the short to medium term because there are exciting times that lay ahead for the Gospel in the Western Suburbs.

Brian Luong is Leader of Embrace English Fellowship, Melbourne Chinese Bible Church (West Footscray).

This is the first of a series of monthly online articles that Connect Ministry intends to publish for the life and ministry of the churches in Melbourne.