MESSAGE FROM DR WILSON LIM

FOUNDATIONS FOR GREATNESS

They listened with awe as Jesus painted a graphic picture in their minds. In their minds, they began to imagine a man busily building his big house. This man took great efforts to dig deep until he reached rock.

Then he established the house foundations upon the rock from which he built the rest of the house. One day, a huge flash flood came and a torrent of rushing water smashed against the house. Yet it stood firm because it was well built (Luke 6:48)

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Video Message from Ps Simon Eng

The same principles apply when we are building God’s church. The foundations that we build into the lives of our members and into the very character of the church will have immense effect on the strength and stability of the church for the long haul. Foundations are not seen and easily forgotten in the busyness of building the house of God. For the costs of building firm foundations can be great and can easily be compromised. As many engineers and builders know.



Building strong and bibical churches

I have seen churches built with immense speed and seemed to grow big, yet its foundations were weak. Sooner or later, these churches collapse under spiritual onslaughts that come its way. The same can occur for individuals.

Hence it is critical that we continue to build our churches in a strong and biblical fashion. It takes great wisdom and determination to bring together the many facets of biblical truth and implement it into the life of the church. When a church has the right foundations, it will surely grow to fulfil its destiny that God intended. For our churches to multiply across Oceania and even beyond, we need the right foundations in all our churches.

The key to building strong foundations

May I encourage all of us to join our hearts together to build strong foundations into our lives and the life of our churches. There are a number of key areas we must focus on:

• Building our lives around Christ and upon His Word.
• Anchoring upon God’s mission for His Church to fulfil the Great Commission.
• Building with love for one another and establishing a life-giving community.
• Developing godly leadership at every level for every sphere of ministry.

And just as we had learnt in our recent Oceania Convention, let us learn how to contextualise ourselves in order that we may be relevant to the society we are in and to the new groups we seek to reach. I sense that God is stirring for us to better contextualise and be effective, not only in bringing the Gospel, but in building churches where the multitudes can be nurtured.

Can I encourage every leader and every member to learn the art of listening and contemplation. It is when we listen to one another more effectively, that we can understand the different perspectives.

Only then can we begin to make the adjustments for different groups of people. When we build the right foundations into the life of the church, this will come more easily and we will be able to encompass larger groups of people.

From a fellow foundation-builder,

Dr. Wilson Lim
Chairman of Hope Oceania churches