Partnering with Kay Poh Road Baptist Church
Samuel Ho, who was one of our interns from July to November, shares about the experience Pastor Oliver and some of the interns had to speak at Kay Poh Road Baptist Church's youth camp.
From 13-15 December 2021, Pastor Oliver, Rolland, and I had the great pleasure of serving our brothers and sisters in Christ from Kay Poh Road Baptist Church (KPRBC) at their in-person youth camp held at their church building in River Valley. The theme for the camp was “Living in the New Normal” and Pastor Andrew Goh from KPRBC invited us to share God’s Word with the youth across three days.
In light of the camp theme, we thought it would be helpful to share with the youth the glorious truths found in Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, and encourage them to continue to live in light of these unchanging truths, albeit in different ways in midst of this pandemic. New normal, same glorious truths to continue to live by.
On Day 1, Rolland led an interactive session, reminding us all of the gospel as explained in Ephesians 2:1-10 – that we were all once dead in our trespasses and sin, but God being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive in Christ and raised us up with Him and seated us with Him in the heavenly places, that He might have an eternity to show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. Rolland reminded us that our salvation is by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone.
From the first day, we were already really encouraged by the responses of the youth, who actively participated in the session, were willing to answer questions when called upon, thought hard about the reflection questions at the end, and very actively took notes throughout the session. After the session, we had the opportunity to chat more with Pastor Andrew over lunch to learn more about the church and the work being done there.
On Day 2, I led a session on Ephesians 4:1-16. The talk was split up into several breakout group sessions for the youths to work out some of the details in the passage for themselves in their small groups. Drawing from Ephesians 1-3, I hoped to help the youths see how gloriously special the body of Christ is and how wonderful the spiritual unity that we now have is. And that in response, the manner to walk that is worthy of this great calling as one united body of Christ is to maintain the unity by bearing with each other in love and to continue to grow the body by speaking the truth in love to each other.
Again, it was encouraging to see the youths engaged in the breakout sessions as they read the Bible carefully and thought about what it meant for their lives.
Pastor Oliver rounded up the sessions on Day 3 by teaching from Ephesians 4:17-5:2. He reminded the youths of what we had thought about over the previous two days and urged them to see that if we are in Christ, we are to live in accord with our new identity in Christ and to walk in love as beloved children of God, putting off our old selves and putting on our new selves.
Our prayer for the youths is that, through our sharing, God’s Word might continue to bear fruit in their lives, that they might walk in a manner worthy of the great calling to which they have been called. It is also our hope that the gospel was made clear to those who have not yet placed their trust in the Lord Jesus, and that by God’s grace and mercy, they might come to saving faith.
But the blessings were not one-way! We too, were greatly blessed through this partnership. Personally, I was very grateful for the opportunity that I was given to put what I had been learning about handling the Bible and teaching it well into practice. It being a youth camp also challenged me to think hard about how to teach God’s Word in a way that would be engaging and relevant for the youth, while remaining faithful to the text. There certainly was temptation to be relatable and engaging to the youth at the cost of faithfulness to His Word. Through this event, I caught a glimpse of the beauty of gospel partnerships with other churches – not only how it could be a great blessing to those involved, but also how it plays a part in our obedience to Christ’s command to make disciples of all nations. As one pastor and Christian author puts it: “The Great Commission is Bigger Than Your Church…Because each of our churches is engaged in a mission that is bigger than any of them, we should proactively partner with other churches in order to fulfill it.”
I’ll leave you with some reflections Pastor Ollie had on this gospel partnership:
"It was good having our interns co-teach at this Kay Poh Road Baptist Church Youth Camp! I was encouraged by their faithfulness to the Word and their ability to communicate it well.
One means of advancing the work of the gospel is by raising young people to teach, serve and love the church and being willing to send them out to do the same at other local churches.
When we think of gospel partnerships, we should think in terms of local churches – helping to strengthen them or to plant new churches or to reach the lost and bring them into these churches."
Let us be open to and be looking out for more of these opportunities for gospel partnerships, whether in big or small capacities – not for our glory, but for His, for the advancement of His kingdom.