Ministry Is About People - The Series

September will be upon us in less than three days, for both my Eastern and Western hemisphere-dwelling readers. As I enter the second quarter of my ministry apprenticeship here, one lesson seems to be distancing itself from the ocean of character and skill building experiences I have been having here and it is that ministry is about people. It seems like no matter what books or articles I read, what Bible lessons I prepare, or who I meet up with, God keeps taking me back to this short, four-word principle. There seems to be quite a few excellent, just-as-valid answers to the question, "What is ministry about?" and when I took a brief poll of my friends who were currently online, I received all of the following answers:

Love
Jesus =)
The spreading of the gospel
Serving God and his people
Carrying out love
Sharing a passion
People

That last one was by my co-leader Jenny, who claims to have given her response because she was, "well-trained by Owen Seto and Jesus".

Anyway, I am becoming firmly convinced that from all my experiences thus far in ministry, the fact that ministry is about people is meant to be the overarching theme of the year, the persistent motif of my present education, the one thing for me to take away if I've learned anything whatsoever this year. Now it's so short, but it's quite a packed statement! And that's why over the next few weeks as I try to make up for the overall lack of updates in this blog I will be expounding this big idea.

As for how I am doing? The answer is, just wonderful! There are so many things to give thanks to God for right now. Here's just a few:

~I'm thankful for the love and support of my New York friends, four of whom recently came to visit me.

~I'm continually thankful for my brothers and sisters at GracePoint. I'm thankful because no relationship in this life brings more joy than one of gospel partnership; as I teach and learn and pray alongside my friends here, I find that I am becoming best friends with some of these people here that I just met seven months ago. I can share a thousand drinks or go on a thousand road trips with someone but not feel as close as another person with whom I've labored hard for the kingdom.

~I'm thankful for my family; my mom and my dad and my brother, who's constantly facebooking me to share about ministry and faith.

~I'm thankful to Mark and Amanda Hing, who visited NYC recently and called up my family to let them know that I've been prospering here and then came back and gave me my first "I <3 NY" shirt!

~I'm thankful for God's goodness in allowing me to see his work. Recently my landlady's daughter Cynthia has been interested in coming to church and has been going to Easy English Cafe Church at GracePoint! I'm also thankful for Simon and Steph Wong's faithful ministry with that group and the way God is using it to reach the people of Burwood

Some Prayer Points:
~Please pray for my landlady (whom I just call, "Ah mah") and her daughter Cynthia. Though they've recently become interested in Christianity, they will be returning to Taiwan at the end of September for five months. Pray that God will grow the gospel seed in their hearts and that in the next few weeks I can faithfully water it.

~Please pray for GracePoint church and the upcoming months as we seek to move to our new building in Lidcombe. Pray that the move will be smooth and that through it God will open up many doors for the gospel to be preached and for Jesus to reign among the hearts of our people.

~Please pray for the GracePoint full-time workers who recently came back from a conference called "ENGAGE". The point of the conference was to excite and encourage God's people in the work force to do good in the name of Jesus and to reach society for Jesus by their radical, counter-cultural living and loving. Pray that our workers would apply the things they learned to their lives and their occupation. Pray that our people would understand that ministry is for every sphere of life and that the declaration of God's riches in Jesus does not cease on midnight Monday morning.

In Christ's service,
-Dan Shih