Embracing the challenge, this is a new message and vision God has brought to the co-workers at LCMM.  This is a message that is often not preached, however, essential and should be shared in the churches. 

The Chinese churches has a strong traditional influence, and due to this reason, many controversial topics such as the same sex marriage, and other issues discussed in our seminar today are often not brought up at the pulpit.  As a result, many believers, young adults are confused on these controversial issues, which render them vulnerable before their teachers and peers.  This dangerous phenomenon ¡V the lack of preparation for the controversial topics, has transcended beyond the current generation to the following generation and the ones to come.  This is a wake-up call for the Chinese churches, that we can no longer shut our doors and discuss only the ¡§spiritual¡¨ things or the Bible, instead, Jesus challenges us to ¡§let the light shine through¡¨.  Many pastors/church leaders are afraid to discuss these controversial topics, many of them don¡¦t want to be mistaken as offensive, or maybe there is a lack of knowledge or burden.  Hence, this is the purpose of the seminar today, to share and broaden this vision to the Los Angeles area.

Since the 19^th century, under the new school of theology, societal care is regarded as a horizontal outreach arm of the church.  In the Evangelical school of theology, the emphasis is on the vertical reach that is on knowing and believing in God, which is crucial in our belief, however, we can not ignore the needs of the people as well as the society as a whole.

In the book of Genesis, God has given us 2 commandments, the commandment of the gospel ¡V vertical reach, for people to believe in God through Jesus Christ, and the other commandment of our cultural surrounding  - horizontal reach.  When God created Adam, he had him in charge over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground.  In verse Genesis 2:15, God also ¡§placed him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it .¡¨  Which means that one does not simply believe in God, but there is a call of duty for all of us to take care of our immediate surrounding, to care and tend our environment and to be responsible for the all the living creations.  Adding these two together, one can see the commandments for the churches as manifested ultimately by Jesus Christ, that is to love God and to love people. 

One of the ministry of LCMM is to remind the Chinese churches about the important commandment of societal care.  In this seminar today, I am prompted to share with you two important reminders:

1. The importance of the spiritual battle: This is the challenge we face everyday.  Often times, we rather bury our heads in the sand and pretend that we see no evil and hear no evil ¡V this is a sad phenomenon in many of our churches, we have forgotten the valuable lessons of learning from our past failures.  We can not seek an escape route in fighting a spiritual battle, even if we were to escape today, there will still be tomorrow and the next generation to come.  Now is the time for the churches to standup and embrace the challenges of our society. 
2. The Apologetics: Apologetics focuses on the faith, belief, the understanding of God the trinity and the understanding of our responsibility as Christians.  Apologetics also touches upon the topics we discussed in the seminar today - the problem in our society, controversial topics, and how to prepare the believers in defending our faith in the midst of relativism that permeates our society today.

All the authors of the New and Old testaments are Jewish except Luke, who is a Gentile.  He has placed several emphases in the gospel which we should take note of:

1. What to believe: Luke is a physician, a person with great depth of knowledge and a scientist with the exceptional gift of linguistics especially in Greek.  His smooth writing in the Greek language tops any other writings in the gospels.  God uses his beautiful writings to further aid in the completeness of the other gospels.

2. How to live: Luke talked about many ethical issues, how to live our lives in a responsible manner to God, to others, and to our society.  

My prayer is that God will bless LCMM, as we are in the beginning stage of promoting the movement of societal care, we sincerely need the prayer support of the local churches as well as the support to broaden our outreach ministry.  In the Bible, God¡¦s servants are often instructed to ¡§be strong and courageous¡¨, this is seen as Moses cheered on Joshua when he was about to cross the Jordan River and entering the land of Canaan, as Paul encourages Timothy to be a mature man in Christ, and as Paul encourages the Corinthian churches to stand firm in the truth.  This is the vision which started from the Taiwan region, and we pray that it¡¦s not a mere organizational slogan, but it¡¦s a movement that will spread through all the Chinese churches and to empower them.  This empowerment will be beyond the mere physical strength and will be a strong determination from the heart of every churches as it is written in 1 Cor 15:58 ¡§therefore, my dear brothers, stand firm.  Let nothing move you.  Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord.¡¨  Having the strong determination from the heart is what prevents us from wavering in the storms, since many people have physical will power, but are weak in spiritual and belief, hence, Paul reminds the Corinthian church to stand firm.

3. LCMM needs support from the Chinese churches and it not only calls for individual part-time commitment, but also full-time commitment from the believers.  As we broaden our vision to the works ahead, putting aside our spare time might not be enough, and we pray that God will move people to commit to this movement as a full-time ministry, for this is a worthy cause.  In addition to the commitment of man power, we also pray for the financial and material support from the Chinese churches, and that many of them will be moved to place LCMM as one of their missions outreach budget.  For this is a positive step forward for the churches.

In the past few years, I have preached about the dual-profession roles of a Christian, which is a call for all the believers, for they serve God at church as well as at their own work place.  God calls few people to full-time ministry, and pairing with the ¡§dual-profession¡¨ believers, God¡¦s ministry is greatly blessed.  There is a book call ¡§the King and the Priest¡¨ ¡V the priest symbolizes full-time ministry worker, the king symbolizes the believers in the church, lay-leaders.  This same truth applies to all of us, that the kings and the priests shall join their hands, hearts, and mind to accomplish God¡¦s work.

Author: Pastor Wang, came to Christ at age 11 after the crusade of Pastor Song.  At age 15 he was called to be a full-time minister.  He is in charge of the Great commission center, a proponent of the traditional marriage.  In 2005, he started the movement of praying for the U.S. to turn toward God.