We have used this phrase “satisfied customers” quite a lot in the first year after we left our previous fellowship to do church planting.

It is a simple notion that new customers look to see if you have existing satisfied customers. That’s how to grow a business. That is the ethos we wanted to have in our home cleaning business, and it is reflected in the company’s slogan, homes like our own.

Similarly, when attracting people to Jesus and gathering people into our new fellowship, will they not look for satisfied customers too? A member of our Young Professionals care (small) group recently spoke up perhaps not in the exactly the same words but in the same spirit, saying, “It’s going to be hard to attract people to Jesus and to New Life Vineyard if they cannot see that you are satisfied customers!”

And so here is our challenge, in the first place to testify that we are satisfied customers and then to be able to see that the followers of Christ in our fellowship are also satisfied customers.

Is it hedging when we say, “Wait till you see the other fellow?” Unfortunately, you often hear this response when a boy gets badly beaten up in a fight, bloody nose and all, and in a brave voice he tells the dad, “Wait till you see the other guy!” But we believe that it is valid to tell ourselves and others in the fellowship that, “If you think you are in a bad shape, wait till you see the other fellow who is without Christ.” You are so worse off without Christ!

As good pastors we may say as well that, “Just because other people (especially unbelievers) look successful and all put together, don’t think that they have no problems.” People put on masks to cover up their real situation. And we may also say, “Wait till you get to heaven.” You will have all of eternity to rejoice, after realizing that the sufferings cannot be compared with the glory revealed in you.

Are we satisfied customers? Aren’t we “happy” to be planting this church? It’s really not that we are fudging a plain answer. We’ll do that in a while, but Lye Heng came across a recent testimony of Rick Warren, the author of The Purpose Driven Life, which is pertinent to our answer. We quote an extract from the testimony below:

Life is a series of problems. Either you are in one now, you’re just coming out of one or you’re getting ready to go into another one. The reason for this is that God is more interested in your character than your comfort. God is more interested in making your life holy than He is in making your life happy. We can be reasonably happy here on earth, but that’s not the goal of life. The goal is to grow in character, in Christ-likeness.

This past year has been the greatest year of my life but also the toughest, with my wife, Kay, getting cancer. I used to think that life was hills and valleys – you go through a dark time, then you got to the mountaintop, back and forth. I don’t believe that anymore. Rather than life being hills and valleys, I believe that it’s kind of like two rails on a railroad track, and at all times you have something good and something bad in your life.

No matter how good things are in your life, there is always something bad that needs to be worked on. And no matter how bad things are in your life, there is always something good you can thank God for. You can focus on your purposes, or you can focus on your problems. If you focus on your problems, you’re going into self-centeredness, “which is my problem, my issues, my pain.”

But one of the easiest ways to get rid of pain is to get your focus off yourself and onto God and others.

We discovered quickly that in spite of the prayers of hundreds of thousands of people, God was not going to heal Kay or make it easy for her. It has been very difficult for her, and yet God has strengthened her character, given her a ministry of helping other people, given her a testimony, drawn her closer to Him and to people…You have to learn to deal with both the good and the bad of life.

Actually, sometimes learning to deal with the good is harder. For instance, this past year, all of a sudden, when the book sold 15 million copies, it made me instantly very wealthy. It also brought a lot of notoriety that I had never had to deal with before.

Okay, are we satisfied customers? We can really say that, “It has been great and fulfilling for the both of us. You will be fulfilled too and, we would whole-heartedly invite you to join us in this adventure and journey.” But as the testimony of Rick Warren would suggest, please don’t imagine that it is because only good things are happening in our lives and fellowship.

With this church plant the purpose of my life has shifted. Where once I only lived for my family and close friends, and attempted to be a “good” Christian, my life is now consciously driven by a need to fulfill God’s purpose in whatever I say or do. It’s about touching lives for Christ and helping others as much as I can. And to leave behind what I call “footprints” that would guide and encourage others in the faith. My heart’s desire and passion for the fellowship is to build a place you can call, “home”.

If you know Lye Heng, he has a somewhat different personality, but he has similar feelings. He sees that he is really doing things that are significant, and making a difference in people’s lives. He has the faith to pray, and exercise kingdom authority for God’s grace and love to be made manifest (evident) in the fellowship and in newcomers’ lives. He fervently believes that we have been called to demonstrate the wholeness of God, God’s righteous nature and also His love and grace. He knows and he know and he knows that our Father knows our humanity. Therefore, despite the ever presence of brokenness, emptiness and even despair, our message will be full of hope: that God will deliver the needy who cry out! More than that (for 2 Corinthians 9 has been a wonderful source of guidance): God will provide sufficiently for each one of us so that you give out of your fullness, grace for grace as it were. And through Jesus, how much more will God’s abundant provision of grace and the gift of righteousness reign in our lives? (Romans 5:17)

There is so much to share about how God has provided for us and blessed us individually and as a fellowship. Confidentiality does not allow us to share some details. But with our own eyes we have seen brokenness mended, characters developed and spiritual growth. Our prayers were answered over and over again in mundane (real life) areas such as, favor when dealing with customers (and getting sales), employers, banks and creditors. Sita and her husband, Narayan (our friends at Econ) responded to our ministry by accepting Jesus, and she has said her eye sight has improved with our prayers for healing!

In our own case, we have personally experienced God’s provision time and time again and we are learning again and again that He is our all-sufficient source and portion. For instance, we remember crying with joy over Sabrina’s acceptance to read Law at the NUS. Within a matter days, we effortlessly transferred Samuel to ACS Barker Road School (contrast with the rebuff the year before with Sam’s former principal at Maris Stella). Prayers practically sustained Shawn during his student exchange stint at the University of Sheffield about this time last year and when he encountered difficulties with some of his courses there. You may know that on 8th January 2005, we were sent to plant a new fellowship, and Lye Heng’s journal on the 10th asks the rhetorical question, “Where does my help comes from?” He was a little concerned… Within a few days, a lovely person outside of our fellowship sent a generous love gift for the fellowship in the mail, and she said she had felt God prompting her to do that. We had never felt God so close before, and the gift assured us again that God is our portion, and He would take care of the fellowship. In the same journal entry, Lye Heng had also asked how would we put together a worship team and where to get our equipment from? When looking at our worship team recently, Lye Heng had said, “I am so proud of all of you.” He feels that they are so sweet in their offering to serve. They make sweet music and it is really good. Lye Heng says, “I can also feel God’s pleasure in this and it makes me want to cry!” It is a blessing for us because these guys and gals tangibly represent something which our God (the One over our “impossible” situations) has once again made possible.

We are witnesses to the wholeness of God working in our lives and the fellowship. Yes, we are satisfied customers!