Watershed Moments

A watershed moment is "a moment in time where everything changes. A point in time when nothing will ever be the same as before" (Wikianswer). Something important happened that it became a turning point. Accepting Jesus Christ as ones personal savior is an example of a watershed moment for Christians. The birth of a child can be a significant watershed moment. Getting a promotion, graduating, and being diagnosed with a disease can also be a watershed moment. Some watershed moments are less dramatic in its manifestation. It can happen discreetly and exists only in the minds of the individuals but still, the impact changes lives. Sometime it can be as simple as hearing words of wisdom from a friend or crossing path with certain individuals.

I strongly believe that churches should be in the business of facilitating watershed moments. However, the reality is, not everyone who attend a church organized activity will experience a watershed moment. Therefore our goal and prayer should not be for hoards of people to come to an event but it should be that God will bring those who need to experience watershed moments to a church event. The church in turn should not look at the numbers as point of evaluation on a program. It can be misleading to say that a program is successful if the measure is only in the number of attendees.

That said, invoking the work of the holy spirit is essential without whom the desired outcome will not come to fruition. A program can be successful in spiritual sense only if it is orchestrated by the Lord himself.

Self service

Aviva recently rolled out an advertisement for it's new online insurance quotation service. The message was that it's convenient and potential customers don't even need to speak to anybody. Has impersonal and indirect electronic communication systems like email, SMS, chats instead of direct and life conversation became the preferred means of connecting with other people now? It probably is and it is disturbing to me. My recent experience of trying to find people to man the 'tim pemerhati' or 'care ministry team' is an example. The job is at the very least to inform people under their care of upcoming events. But more importantly, they are to befriend and show compassion and attention to the happening in each others' life. I had several people who responded that they are willing to do the email n SMS stuff but they are not willing to do the more direct face to face or life phone contacts.

Why is this happening? The digital age to some degree is the culprit. However, it is true also that human being are becoming segmented and self sufficient increasingly. We like to build walls of protection. What are we trying to protect? Our resources, our time, our own self, our privacy and many more. We are afraid that others instead, will put demand on us. We believe that we don't need anybody and vice versa, others should not have need of us. It is a sad state of affair when such attitude is found within the body of Christ since the world is supposed to know who we are by our love for one another.