Sunday Worship Service | 02 February 2025 | 10:00 AM
The worship service commenced with a reading of the Bible from the Book of Psalms 13:5-6 by the worship leader, followed by the Praise & Worship service. The offertory was dedicated by Upa H Kamsuanthang, concluding the segment.
The Pastoral Prayer for the month of February was overseen by Pastor Lamkhanthang.
Following this, the special guest of the day, Rev S Nengzakhup gave the sermon of the day. Before beginning, he gave a brief introduction of his family. He spoke about NECTAR, an organization established by him in February of 2002. “North-East Centre for Training and Research” is the full form.
The organization mainly focuses on training individuals before they begin their journey of witnessing for Christ. He opined how sending people out without a formal/proper training is not very modish. Even nurses and doctors are trained thoroughly before they can do their jobs. And not only modish, but somewhat lackadaisical. Sometimes, without meaning to, we can bring harm to people, innocently and ignorantly. To elucidate, we humans come from different cultural backgrounds, different upbringing. So when we go to witness for God, we have to be careful that these differences of ours don’t become hindrances to our witnessing. We should be sensitive, as well as respectful of the other parties cultures. Are there certain foods they can’t, or don’t eat? Then we should be careful not to bring it up unmindfully. In order to witness in a more inoffensive way if you will was the motivation behind starting NECTAR, to train before sending.
Furthermore, in 2006, TESOL, “Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages”. With a TESOL certificate, one can get a visa, one can even renew a visa, and become an English teacher wherever they go. Combining cross-cultural training and TESOL training, roughly 700 individuals have graduated from NECTAR. The majority of those have gone to do ministerial work, some have gone back to their respective churches, and others to different states of the country.
About 70 of the NECTAR graduates are working in SIM, “Serving in Missions”, in various continents. “Worldwide Evangelization for Christ”, or WEC for short has about 60 NECTAR graduates working across continents. Vice versa, any available candidates can be sent to Nectar for training. Here, Rev Khup encouraged the congregants to aid in any way they can, whether it be monetary, or by sending individuals. He iterates that it is not an absolute thing that must be done, but if they want to help, and don’t know how, this is one way to do so.
Rev Khup announced an upcoming seminary on Feb 8, 2-6pm, to be held by Central EBCC in their church. He invited any who wants to come. The topic is on “The Church and Mission in the 21st century”. With this, he went into his sermon, basing it off of Matthew 6:19-21. Reading the passage, he began the sermon with a prayer. He said that when opening a bank account, certain details are necessary, like our personal information.
However, to open an account in heaven, this is not required. Heaven won’t ask for your ID, or address, but rather, your willingness to give yourself to Christ, and to accept Him in your life. Things that cannot be said or given to others, when you give to Christ, i.e. your whole self, you will then be registered in Heaven. Having Christ, accepting Him is the utmost important ‘detail’ needed to open your heavenly account. The question asked is not if you are a pastor, or in a church department, but whether you are in God’s department first and foremost. Have you opened your account in Heaven yet? In order to fully utilize the facilities of a bank, one must give the necessary information, deposit the money.
In a similar way, to open your heavenly bank account, you must first be born-again. Some believe that getting baptized automatically gets you into heaven. It is rather a way to document the ones who will go to heaven. The baptism in and of itself won’t get you there directly. If you are born-again you have opened the account in heaven. But are you content with just having the account, or will you make an effort to put deposits into it? With no activity, the account can freeze, so make sure there are deposits made. One thing to note here, is that earthly banks are perishable, but not the one in Heaven. Be rich in the right way, in a good way.
There are various ways one can deposit in Heaven. One is through prayer. They may not be answered right away, but they are heard all the same, and it gets deposited in the account. Another way is the traditional monetary way, through charity works. Whether you go out to witness, pray, or give alms, then level of work is the same, the commitment is what matters. The treasures that await the child of God will far outweigh any trouble, inconvenience, or persecution we may face. We can serve the Lord wholeheartedly, knowing that God is the One keeping score, and His reward will be abundantly gracious. With that Rev Khup concluded his sermon.
The Praise & Worship team sang the final hymn, and Upa B Langkham gave the benediction, closing the worship service.
