The Cutting Edge

Over the week we have just seen and celebrated the world conquering feat of Nicole David, the new “Ladies World Champion” for squash. The whole nation was so excited that finally we now have a ‘World Champion’ in our midst.

It was heart warming to even see the Prime Minister taking time off to give her a personal call and a personal letter of commendation for her towering achievement. We have seen her path to victory over the course of this year. She has been winning all the national open ladies squash tournaments throughout the world.

The most outstanding thing is that her journey was not one that was easy. In fact it spanned through a period of 17 hard years since the age of 5 years till today. It was her life journey on the quest to excellence. There is the need to make great sacrifices which we know little about. It was a journey of equipping and training, the need to know the basics, the grounding on techniques and the constant practices that honed her to be what she is today.

In the secular she is truly a conqueror. She has conquered and won all the battles on the squash courts in the world. She has also become an overcomer of all the challengers who came her way. She has truly fought her good fight and would need to continue fighting so as to remain as the world’s supreme in the Ladies Squash sport.

All these has pointed out to us that we the locals and Asians are not at all inferior to our western counterparts. We are capable to excel and become world champions and icons as well.

How does all this apply to us in the Church?

The church in Asia has come of age. The fact is that the churches in Asia are now the fastest growing and are also the mega Churches. We have also come a long way since the western missionaries came and evangelized the pagan world of Asia. Praise God for the gospel that was brought by our western missionary brothers. For without them, we would not have our salvation and we would not be where we are today.

The West is now looking back to us for directions. They are looking at the ways that we have planted churches, trained our people and sent out workers. They are also looking at our methods and success in rural and urban church planting.

The biggest churches are now in Asia where mega Churches are something that is normal. Throughout Asia, we see churches that have congregations of tens of thousands irrespective of whether the countries are rich economically or not. The move of God is on and it will not abate. The churches in Asia must take Asia for the Lord. The western face has now become irrelevant as we the Asian ministers have all become of age.

We cannot just remain as ‘coming of age’ but we need to move on to become champions for the Lord, nationally and globally. We need to become World Christians and World Churches. Just like Nicole needed to get grounded in the basics and then keep in continuous practice to be honed into a world champion, we the Christian ministers and Churches must also do the same.

The world is waiting for us to bring salvation to it. The westerners are no more effective because of the political, cultural and linguistic barriers. Our own Jerusalem and Samaria are crying out for the gospel. We need to get out of this grasshopper attitude and rise up to become World Champions for the LORD.

Rom 10:14; How then shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher?

John Lee