by James Long, SAMS Associate Missionary to Indonesia
One old theologian used to describe ministry as “watching God work,” and that comes awfully close to the nub of it. The Lord is not only the wind in our sails, but also the hand on our rudder. He sends us where he wants and when he wants, and on this recent mission I felt that old familiar sense that I was being carried along according to his purposes.
I spent the end of January in Bali at the school I had seen go from an old ruin into a beautiful seminary. The seminary aims to draw students from every Island of Indonesia, then send them back to minister all across the archipelago. Dean Stevanus had asked me to teach church planting, something I had never taught before. With much help from the Holy Spirit I focused, not on human strategies, but upon the patterns found in Acts. The invisible purposes of God were powerfully on my mind, as I considered how many miracles had been made manifest in the planting of Providence Anglican Church in Pluit, Karawaci, and Canggu. With the Pluit congregation being the only one to survive the pandemic fully intact, the point is pressed home that God’s ways are unsearchable. He is sovereign and our role is simply to do what he gives us to do with the gifts he gives, and with the time and energy he allots. The results are up to him. I knew these students were likely to face similar challenges, and that they need to see that from the biblical perspective that faithfulness is success.
The following week I spent at St. Paul’s seminary in Bandung. Bandung is home to the Sundanese, the most unreached people group of Indonesia. St. Paul’s draws mainly local people and has provided ministers for the churches planted in its region, and beyond. I was assigned three courses to teach in one week, and once more the Spirit guided, and the work was blessed. Not only students but staff and parishioners from the local Anglican churches came to participate. My lectures never went over time because the public prayers from directly across the street from St. Paul’s rang out at six o’clock each evening and were so loud that class had to come to an end!
Sundays were filled with preaching engagements and other days I was running from meeting to meeting, but the highlight was my final day in Indonesia when I met with the son of one of the members of our congregation. I was invited to share the good news about Jesus with him, and together with a small group gathered in my hotel lobby, we went from Genesis to Revelation. This teenage boy’s face was receptive, and the miracle only God can do, appeared to be done for him as he prayed to embrace Jesus as Savior and King. What a privilege to be able to share Christ in Indonesia!
“Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.” (Eph. 3:20-21)