Moving With Christ… 2021 and Beyond
As we step into the last four months of 2021, there will be a lot of movement. Beginning next week in September, we will be gathering again for in-person worship services in JW and City. On October 10th, CNL City will worship for the last time @51MR. On the 17th of October, we will all worship the LORD for the first time in Jurong West as One Church. In all this movement, let me say this - if Jesus is who He is, then let’s learn to move with Him as One Body.
In a few weeks time, we’ll be entering a historic moment in our journey as members of CNL. For the first time since we purchased a piece of land in Jurong West and built a worship hall together with Victory Family Centre, we will be coming together as One Church in Gek Poh Ville.
The fact is, we have always been One Church, not two Churches. We have always been One CNL but with two manifestations. CNL in the City and CNL in Jurong West. So then what’s the big deal about this move? This moment is historic because for the first time we will not just be One Church, but we will be learning to move as His One Body.
What makes us CNL?
For many years, we have been practicing our life and faith in CNL as CNL Jurong West or CNL City Centre. Even though we have never questioned our identity as One Church, we have developed two different personalities, two different spiritual cultures. For of us have drawn our sense of stability and identity from the fact that we are CNL City or CNL JW.
Furthermore, the CNL that we have always known, is a CNL with many congregations. For a long time now, we sometimes identify ourselves as the Chinese congregation in JW or Chinese in the City. Or maybe we are the English congregation in JW or the Tamil congregation in JW or English in the City? Or just as the Young Adults in the City… yes, we believe we are One Church, but we live and operate and see ourselves within our congregational or communal identities.
As we come into this historic moment, these identities will be challenged and we will be compelled to consider - what makes us CNLers?
Is our idea of CNL Past, holding us back from being CNL?
There are some amongst us who have been in CNL for a long time. We don’t remember CNL with two centres or many congregations. We remember CNL as a group of close-knit people worshipping at Orchard Hotel in the early 2000s. For those of us who can remember that far, CNL is linked by a sense of what God did for us in past. We all remember the “power and glory” days at Henderson Industrial Park.
But even for us, and perhaps especially for us - we too must be ready for change. As we step into this historic moment, the one thing that can hold us back from our future, is our inability to let go of the past. In the same we can remember work and life pre-Pandemic, but also sense that we cannot go back to the pre-Pandemic life, so the CNL that we knew before whilst good and praiseworthy cannot be our future. We have a future prepared for by the Lord Himself. And this is what must be central for us. To prepare for the new generation of CNLers, we ourselves must be that new generation now.
Jesus must be the Centre of our Lives
Change is never easy. Even though we know change is needed and change is good, we disdain the uncertainty that comes with change. Not knowing is our greatest fear, matched only by the fear of knowing what happens to people who are ignorant and without knowledge. But there is a difference for the people who knows the One who holds the future. The One who holds all our tomorrows.
Jesus is the same yesterday, today and forever. Pre Pandemic or Post Pandemic, old CNL or new CNL, his heart and purpose for us has not changed. He desires for us to experience Him as the Centre of New Life; He desires for us to know Him as a Community devoted to New Life; He desires for us to serve Him as a Catalyst of New Life.
Friends of CNL and CNL Family, change is upon us… but the true change that is required of us is to learn to move as His One Body. Jesus is the Bread of Life and the Centre of New Life, if we truly believe He is who He is, let me invite you to commit yourself afresh stay connected to Christ - to grow together in Christ and move together with Him as His Body.