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Building rapport in 2016 and vision for 2017

Rapport in 2016: First off, I am always thankful for allowing me to serve this community in Boston UBF. I love you all dearly in my heart. My human limitations are obvious before you all. You overlooked them for Christ’s sake. As a result, God strengthened my faith and I became even more energetic in your service. I am thrilled to serve our community all the more. I see some human limitations on and off in the community, but these provides occasion to display the power of the light of the gospel in our hearts. I am not looking for a perfect community. If it were so, I won’t be here in the first place. Community living is on the top of my list. We are together in it, and no one can break us apart.  Our standing is clearly on the eternal bonding of God’s love by obedience to his unchanging word in the Scripture. 

    I would like to mention a few thing we implemented in 2016.  First, our theme for this year was humility based on Philippines 2:3b. During the course of the year we were able to define humility by prayer. It is our understanding that it takes a good deal of humility for us to pray. A proud heart cannot pray. Our prayer life is the measure of our relationship with God. We studied Jesus’ teaching on prayer through a workshop in our summer conference. We learned that our prayer is centered on God. We direct our prayer as worship of God in the first place, then all other things fall in place. We see the evidences of prayer in our small groups meetings in the community. There is really no substitute for prayer in a community living. Secondly, we addressed an aspect of our freedom in Christ through a special workshop on “Freedom in Christ” during Easter season. We are forgiven, but that was not enough, now we need to be free from all sorts of bondages in our former life. This was such a liberating thought for us. We realized that we were under the bondage of many mystical powers like ancestor worship or even the power of horoscopes. We need to release ourselves from such a bondage, then we can experience true freedom and enjoy the power of God working in us daily. Thirdly, this year Philippines and Exodus Bible study were life-giving. We learned that our suffering in Christ has meaning. There is joy unspeakable in suffering for Christ. Normally we want to avoid suffering, but by doing so we are also avoiding personal joy. We cannot afford to lose this joy. Exodus study has been a source of joy for us every week.  I confess that the level of my understanding of the Scripture in Exodus is skin deep. So I totally rely on the Holy Spirit to teach myself. To make Christ centered Bible study out of Exodus and make it relevant to us today was chilling. I hope you evaluate Exodus study personally and see how that part of the Scripture is relevant to you. We will continue Exodus study to the end in some form, if not in this year early next year. 

    I find 2 other events worth mentioning in 2016. This year we have established the Board of Elders in our community for the first time. This is a significant accomplishment. We are a community of God and therefore our community deserves good care. Our elders are not made in heaven, they are ordinary just like any of us in the community. We elected them for a term of 2 years, but God choose them to serve our community. They are there to listen, and pray for us. This is their service to the Lord on our behalf. We love them and respect them as our elders. 

Another significant event is Young Professional Fellowship officially established on Dec 3, 2016. The goal of this Fellowship is to encourage them without expecting anything. As a community we want to tell them that we have their back. They are perfect seven of them: Musa Kikka (Master of Law at Harvard), Omoeke Dickson (Master of Law at Harvard), Eunice Grace Oh (Master of Public Health, Kennedy School of Administration at Harvard), Allan Blanchard (MIT graduate), Andrew Zhang (Ph. D, Yale), and Esther M. Zhang (Pharm D), and Jay Hue (PhD engineering studies, UMass Lowell). Initially they will meet regularly once a month at Harvard. This is our version of “Harvard 7.”

Vision of 2017:  I propose a healthy church as our theme for 2017 based on Acts 4:32. Following this theme we want to explore what a healthy church looks like to us through the study of the book of Acts this year. As were the First Century believers, we want to define healthy church by unity in the Holy Spirit. Roll up your sleeves and get ready for unity of the church of God. As we know well, unity is a mature Christian theme. In 2017, we want to be grown up believers, who can serve the global community.  By global community, I mean, serve others, including the “Gentiles” of our time. The center-focal point of our life and ministry is no longer about us, but of Christ.

Our main prayer topic for 2017:

A healthy church in spirit with one heart and mind through obedience.