The leader of worship team gave a brief and powerful lesson from the story of Obed and
Edom. He dedicated our heart and mind and our day programme to the Lord in the form of
prayer which was followed by mass praise and worship. Just before the last song was sang a
mass surrendering to God was being held.
Day offerings was dedicated to the Lord by Anointed Elder T Roumuan. Moving onto the
next programme Dorcas Quartet present a special song about Evangelism. Pastor G
Suankhanhau introduce our day speaker Rev S Nengzakhup and his family and welcome all
those first timer present here in the Church.
Our day Speaker Rev S Nengzakhup occupied the stage to take his precious time, first of all
he thank the lord almighty for such an opportunity to be here, he also mentions our pastors
for their kind heartedness. To break the ice he says that none of us here could be his friend
because all who are presented here is much younger to him. Since our time is limited he will
talk on certain topic block by block which the congregation shall further unfold into pieces at
home, he advice. Talking about NECTAR(North Eastern Centre for Training and Research),
during covid time it went down to stagnation however by the grace of God now, they are
happy to announce the future programme they have which will take place on June on this
year about Cross cultural training for the missionary. While he requested to remember in
prayers, he reported some of their works in different countries. In 1987 when he was about
to join IEM he was ask why he wanted to join, His personal answer was Bible translation and
literacy development but till today none of this he didn’t have the time to work on it
however God give him such an opportunity to work with “The word for the world Bible
translator” form South Africa, here in Delhi for 10 year. He translated the Bible in more than
7 different languages with no Bible in their own language that includes Bugun, Tutsa, Tagin
tribe from Arunachal. Dye\Daiye tribe from Myanmar, Kharam(Meitei) tribe from Manipur
and Sakachep tribe from the border of Meghalaya and Assam. This would gave him eternal
peace and it will be more than enough if he was told in heaven that because of his work
someone can be here in the paradise of God, he said. All these were the works of NECTAR.
Before he dive deeper into his speech he called upon his wife to read a chosen Bible verse
from the book of Deuteronomy 1:1-8.
Rev. Khup told us that his topic would be associated with missions. In Deuteronomy 1:6 it
says ‘……..you have stayed long enough…..’ and reading under it we can see that what God
had said to the Israelite, to go and take possession of the land that he had swore to give
their ancestor. This are the two main heads that he intended to focus, he added. With the
blessing from the Lord the Ebcc have participated in different mission work and setup bases
in different parts of the country. Are we going to satisfied with all this? Is this really taking
possession of the land? what if God says we are stuck here for too long? Maybe it’s a high
time to move onto the next step, the more difficult and unpleasant step. We are so much
comfortable with it now. Maybe be it’s the time we fought a war, he said while urging us to
re-read and rethink at home. Comparing to today style of preparing meat, Our forefather
knows only two style of cooking meat, boiling and simple cooking(porridge). Now a days we
can find even Kentucky style of frying chicken likewise it is important to look thing outside of
the church than focusing only for the gain of ourself, we tend to look what’s inside the box
but not outside of the box. Being Christian is not only going to church and coming back or
having a yearly conference to make budget and target etc, it is thought provoking that we
might have been content and satisfied after all these were done. Although we might not
want to hear but the Lord our god want us to move from this place as from Deuteronomy
1:6. When Moses leaded out the Israelite from Egypt, they were supposed to travel for
11days but they travel for 40 long years, stuck in the wilderness and not moving forward to
the promise land. He said, sometimes I think ‘Tradition’ is a building blocked for us because
its a course of action that made us unchanging from the old ways of doing things rather than
looking the outside world and not considering why are we Christian and functioning as a
church? Should we say what or who is church? As for me, he said it is ‘who’ because ‘what’ is
used to a non-living things while who is refer to a living thing i.e Human being. So what really
is the purpose of being Christian? as a means of earning livelihood? To be economically
stable? Or just for the sake of getting a job? or Etc2 are we Christian just to pray and ask the
Lord for his blessing?. Are we not Christian to expand our land, but not like those expansion
we have seen in our local land or like the ongoing battle between Russia and Ukraine. It is
rather expanding in the form of spreading to the people who haven’t heard about the
gospel. People in our locality or our neighbour in the same apartment is a good example.
Such is the reason, what work did we do as a Christian and after being born again? It is
important to ask ourself about the contribution we had given. Have we risen the amount?
Or how many missionary have we supported so far? Dear breather, there is an extra mile
that we need to take. Let us fulfil what we’ve promise and let us not be satisfied with what
we’ve done earlier. Lets take a leap on to another level for the kingdom of God. Our speaker
after appealing to make a new vow he continued his speech by saying, Missionary work is
like a relay race, in this present generation it is totally depending on us because we are
holding that stick in our hands which means that if we don’t stand and work for the mission
it will eventually collapse and wither away, so let us join our hands together in order to pass
onto the generation to come. He again stated that missionary work is non-negotiable, God
knows everything within us so it is our duty to give all in all to whatever he desire from us.
The next point being, missionary work is like playing football during olden time, during our
time he said the one to kick the ball up high in the sky is considered as skillfull but the
winner is the one who score the ball inside the opponent goal. Likewise missionary work is
not about how high is our budget, How many vehicle have we possesed, how many church
have we setup, etc all this will not lead us to heaven nor does it catches the lost soul. For the
last he said, in this world the works of setan and his strategy comprise of things that is more
easier, enjoyable, pleasant, delicate and marvellous. God doesn’t care about our worldly
possession or talents. It’s about hitting the target he said, and with this he end his sermon
with a prayer.
Moving onto the next item, T Dongkhansiam gave short brief about the day programme,
from his words we know that this mission Sunday was only for the local church alone
initiated by the TBMC. He call out the TBMC members while introducing about the pledge
card to help the missionary, the card was dedicated by Pastor G Suankhanhau. It was given
out to the people one by one at the same time the leader explained minutely to the mass for
sometimes. Last song for the day was led by the worship team and closing prayer by Elder H
Kamsuanthang.
