It’s been 14 years and six months since I’ve served God in the UK. Serving this much more will probably take me to retirement, so I’ve been focusing on looking back on the past years and thinking about my future plans as well. Thankfully, the first half of my ministry was filled with God’s endless grace, whereby He richly blessed our church. We used to worship in Wimbledon and Central London, but had to merge the two into Central London in the fall of my first year since we didn’t have that many Christians joining us. But last April, we established Wimbledon GVC as we had before, thanks to God who increased our numbers.

Our church has definitely been led in accordance with Jesus’ prayer in John chapter 17, where he prayed for his disciples and the future church before ascending to heaven. Jesus first prayed that they would become holy through God’s Word. Then Jesus prayed for them to be one, as God and Jesus were one. During my early years in London, I preached a lot about holiness, moral cleanliness and devoting ourselves to worshipping God. Then I preached about forgiveness and spiritual authority, to help our congregation become one. Since these are difficult topics I experienced a lot of tension when I preached, but thanks to God’s guidance I was able to preach His message directly. And our beloved congregation accepted and obeyed the message, despite my directness of speech, which has thankfully built the DNA of our church that exists today.

Thinking about where our church should head in 2023 with the last half of my ministry in mind, I recalled Jesus’ last prayer for his disciples: “so that the world may believe that you have sent me” (John 17:21), “to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me” (John 17:23). Through these verses we can see how the church can be influential in this world. At first, God called his people to build up a holy community that is devoted to God and each other, like the Holy Trinity – once that is done, God sends the church out and allows it to be a powerful community that can influence the world.

So this year, I would like to take practical steps to accomplish the vision that God has given us, which I have shared several times within our church. I pray that God will allow us to participate in making these wishes come true, “for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose” (Philippians 2:13). I would like to continue to build our field meetings (i.e. small group meetings with people from the same major/occupation), to help our congregation learn what they need to prepare to be able to conquer the world. I would also like to start building a Multicultural Church, to facilitate Diaspora Mission, which I believe is the most important way of achieving mission in large cities. I also plan to reach out to other diaspora church leaders and start to work together.

“God, thank you for your grace to date, which has protected and nurtured us so far. We pray that you will continue to bless us in this way, but also bless us further so that we may go out and serve the world together with you.”