2020.10.10/11
From the Pastor’s Desk: Pastor Mark Liu

Oct 10-11, 2020
From the Pastor’s Desk: Pastor Mark LiuHello all,

Happy Thanksgiving.

This year’s thanksgiving has a different meaning to me. Starting from April this year, I joined the Pastoral Team of RCAC, looking after the Putonghua Ministry. To many of us, this year’s thanksgiving is also very different. Because of the pandemic, the way of life has been changed. We cannot come back to church worship with other brothers and sisters, let alone all the church activities have been moved online. One of the Pastors mentioned that, everything is Zoom. “Zoom! Zoom! Zoom!” has become the mode of RCAC carrying out the activities. To those brothers and sisters who will participate the baptismal ceremony later today, they will go through a very different ceremony, something which RCAC has never done before.

In April this year, I officially became one of the pastors at RCAC. That day, due to the pandemic, there were not many people in the office. I sat there alone, quietly starting my new role. When a sister called me Pastor Mark, I was caught by surprise. However, the sister reminded me that I need to realize this noble call, because I was called by God to become His servant to carry out His Ministry. Yes, I didn’t think too seriously about the meaning behind this identity at first. May the Lord have mercy on me.

In the past six months, under God’s Guidance, Putonghua Ministry has carried out various ministries in an orderly manner. Last week, September 27, we started using Zoom to worship with brothers and sisters. On that day, we were able to meet with brothers and sisters whom we had not seen for a long time, and I was moved. Among them, my sister also participated in worship from Boston. I was very grateful.

Due to the pandemic, even though majority of the programs are conducted through the Internet, this did not affect the participation of brothers and sisters. We started different cell group activities in the past September. The gatherings are conducted with the Bible Study. The difference is that instead of doing the Bible Study live, I would record the contents of the Bible study first. By doing so, groups can meet at the time selected by the group members. This provides flexibility for the gatherings. Praise the Lord.

Having the flexibility, however, does not mean that we can choose to worship whatever time we like. Bearing in mind that setting up a dedicated time to worship God continues to be important. Though the content is now provided online, we need to prepare ourselves, without any distraction and disturbance, to worship God. There is nothing more important than submitting ourselves to God through the worship. Indeed, the pandemic has enabled brothers and sisters to watch the content online. But we need to arrange our life so that the time set for worshipping God does not change.

May God bless you all, and may God bless RCAC.

His servant,

Pastor Mark