Tag Great Commission

Capitalising on the Global Trends

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If we take a quick glance at the past global trends, we can easily traced the Hand of God behind each of these emergence of new technology that had enabled His word to spread exponentially.

Below are some of these past major breakthroughs of existing technologies:

  1. The invention of the first alphabet around 2000 BCE. That came in time for His word to be put in scripture.
  2. The arrival of the printing press around 1440 that allowed the Reformers led by Martin Luther, to place the bible into the hands of the people.
  3. The discovery of the electronic means of mass communication- radio and film in the late 1800s. This gave birth to the evangelical movement, allowing believers to use these mediums to spread His word.
  4. TV and satellite transmission were developed in the early 1900s. This was just when the charismatic movement begun and allowing all kinds of gospel television to spread around the world.

And today, we can observed how the emergence of the Internet in the mid 1990s has tremendously shaped our world into a global village; greatly accelerating the speed of globalisation through the easily-accessible exchange of information for economic or social reasons.

With the Internet, we’ve seen how businesses have adopted and leveraged on the Internet by further expanding their reach and operations across the globe.

Governments are also slowly realising that the old model of central governance is becoming almost impossible to lead a nation in this 21st century as the Internet has given more ‘power’ to the people th an ever before.

What about His Church? How have we capitalise on the opportunities of the current trend of globalisation? Are we still stuck in old ways?

Uniting the Church as one

Today’s globalised world has opened new doors of opportunities for churches within a nation and around the world to unite as a body to collaborate towards fulfilling the Great Commission.

No church, denomination or movement is the best or has the best strategy or method in accomplishing God’s work. As the saying goes, “Together everybody achieves more”. And may I add “faster” too.

But above the call of duty to fulfill the Great Commission, isn’t it the prayer of Jesus that His people may be one just as He and the Father are one? (c.f. John 17:20-24)

Hence, I believe that in this opportune era, we as the Church ought to make deliberate initiatives to walk in His heart beat as one body so that the whole world may know that we’re truly His disciples (c.f. John 13:34-35) as God is love.

And I think there’s no better way to spread the message when we become the message!

Don’t Let being in church Limit us in Being the Church

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This period of ‘stepping back’ (as shared in my previous entry) has allowed me to have a much needed detached view of being in a church.

For sure, I’m convinced that being the Church is not merely about doing life within the four walls of the church;  it goes beyond that.

Servanthood leadership as modelled by Christ, ought to be displayed not only in church, but more importantly, in the marketplace where it is most needed.

Hence, there is a pressing need for us, the Church to exercise our spiritual authority towards establishing His kingdom in this world that we live in.

The Great Commission: our responsibility

In the Great Commission (c.f. Matthew 28:18-20), Jesus has given the Church the mandate to influence and transform our world with His love and truth.

However, it is commonly misinterpreted that this mandate rests squarely on the shoulders of churches (as an organisation) or those working full-time in churches.

Make no mistake that the mandate is the responsibility of every Christ-follower; His people- the Church, and not the church.

And it is also our responsibility for each one of us to discover our specific role to which we are called to contribute and play our part in fulfilling the Great Commission.

The example of Kenny Low

Mr. Kenny Low is a fine example. He is a Christian who’s currently the principal and CEO of City College.

But prior to his present position, Kenny grew up thinking of serving God as a full-time pastor or a missionary. But God had other plans for him.

Along the way, Kenny discovered his gifting was inclined towards education and street dancing. That led him to start O School as a means to train and befriend other street dancers.

Later on, he enrolled into a postgraduate programme  and armed himself with a Master of Education. With that, he went on to set up City College as a private school to offer early school-leavers a second chance with their ‘O’ levels studies.

As most of school-leavers are from lower-income families, Kenny developed a sustainable and innovate way to help them by using profits generated from his dance school in providing financial assistance to those students.

For his efforts, Kenny was awarded the Schwab Social Entrepreneur of the Year Award in 2007 for his creativity in solving social problems among the youth in Singapore.

However, I’m confident that it won’t be long (or maybe he has started) before Kenny will set up schools in the region to reach out other needy youths.

Establishing His kingdom

Learning from Kenny, let’s recognise that God can move against conventional or traditional methods.

God can use us beyond the four walls of the church to establish His kingdom wherever we go.

The challenge or the opportunity for us as Christ-followers is to be strong and courageous in standing firm on His truth while bringing thea love and presence of God from the church into the marketplace.

“You, dear children, are from God and have overcome them, because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world.”

1 John 4:4

Let us not being in church limit us in being the Church.

With Authority Comes Great Responsibility

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We have heard the Great Commission from Matthew 28:18-20 being preached many times and often the final line, “Go and make disciples” is emphasized.

Without a doubt, that’s the mandate for Christians- to extend the frontiers of the kingdom through discipleship!

However, the problem of giving this charge is that we often overlook the process of getting there. And this process denotes that we need to be a true disciples ourselves first before becoming a disciple-maker.

Creating more value in discipleship

Discipleship is a process of reproducing more disciples. In doing so, we are reproducing more of ourselves and it is safe to say that a disciple can only get as strong as his mentor.

No offence to anyone but can a person with a highest education of PSLE be an educator for a university? Or can a person who doesn’t know how to swim coach others in swimming? Imagine the consequences.

High likely, the university students would not be adequately equipped and enter the workforce poorly informed and unable to perform to the market’s demands. In the case of swimming, chances are that those students would not be top swimmers or worse, some might even drown.

Similarly, if we truly want to participant in the Great Commission and make true disciples, then we should first resolute to be a credible disciple of Jesus as we embark on being a disciple-maker; one that walks the talk in obeying all of God’s commands in our lives before teaching others to do so.

Qualities for value-add

Albeit discipleship is a tall order,  we need not be perfect before we can start discipling others. Cos we can never be fully perfect, but we can work towards perfection in our obedience and faith in God.

In working towards being a disciple-maker for Christ,  we should exhibit some minimal qualities as a disciple below:

  • A unwavering passion for God, His Church and the lost
  • Good knowledge and understanding of His word
  • A healthy self-esteem in God to lead and serve
  • Having some basic counselling skills
  • A sound and balanced worldview 
  • Ever-learning and desiring to grow
  • Good basic inter-personal skills


Responsible discipleship

Discipleship is God’s business and is a serious business cos it concerns lives of people that God had redeemed. Their destiny and future are many of times shaped by what we teach (or don’t teach) on important areas such as marriage life or BGR matters, our careers, finances, ministry etc…

For that reason, I believe the responsibility rests on our shoulders as a disciple of Jesus to develop and train ourselves fully towards being a relevant and value-added disciple-maker in our lifetime.

Let’s aim to be a ‘springboard’ and a platform high enough for others to take their growth to the next level. If not, we will become a ‘stumbling block’ or a ‘glass ceiling’ in stunning their potential and growth.