Unity

Dear Brothers & Sisters of NLC, peace be with you.

Last week on my birthday, my friend, Wan Chung (允中) presented me a gift of a calligraphy that he wrote: “同心而共济,终始如一“. This is not easy to translate. Based on his context, I think it roughly means “Unity of hearts and hands is what it takes to succeed”. These words were part of a Song Dynasty (宋朝) essay written by the famous Chinese poet, (欧阳修) Ouyang Xiu.

I appreciate my friend’s birthday gift and I was curious about the origins and contexts of these words. So I did a bit of research in the internet.

(欧阳修) Ouyang Xiu wrote this to reflect upon the challenge of governing a troubled nation in the 11th Century. And he came to the conclusion that unity of the peoples in a nation was of primary importance. But how to achieve unity? I don’t know if he found the answer.

But God’s Word has the answer. The Apostle Paul in Philippians 2:1-2 wrote: “Therefore if there is any encouragement in Christ, if there is any consolation of love, if there is any fellowship of the Spirit, if any affection and compassion, make my joy complete by being of the same mind, maintaining the same love, united in spirit, intent on one purpose.”

For NLC, what is this “one purpose”?

Our church leadership has just presented in recent eAGM a vision going forward. The vision is “Building generations of a CHRIST-like FAMILY, FAITH is realized through LIFE empowered by the MISSION.”

This vision is a statement of the “one purpose” to fulfill as a united people of God in NLC. This is how we want our future NLC community to look like. This will be our aspiration going forward.

To achieve this, let us start to roll up our sleeves to work hard, to be united in love, in fellowship and in spirit.

May the Lord grant us the strength and the endurance to achieve this “one purpose”. Amen.