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FRANCIS FONG’S TESTIMONY (3)

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　 O What Is Man that You Are Mindful of Him

Date: 22.8.04 (during the visit of The Hong Kong Christian Chinese Orchestra)

Time: 8.45am

Venue: Perth Chinese Christian Church (Main Church), Western Australia (PCCC)

Service Language: English

INTRODUCTION

In November 1979, a young new believer who has just finished his final year of university exam, first stepped into a Chinese Church at Beaufort Street and learned this song: “Shen ai shi ren…..” (John 3:16).  A week or two later, he re-arranged that piece of music for Chinese flute (dizi) solo and started his life-long journey of music ministry.  Surely, that young man is no longer young now.  He’s got quite a bit a grey hair in his sideburns, and he is now standing here to share his testimony with you.  That Chinese Church at Beaufort Street is what you are all attending now – the Perth Chinese Christian Church.

MAIN TEXT

As I look back into my 25 years of music ministry, there are lots of things to thank God for. Amongst all, perhaps the most relevant to you now is the work of The Hong Kong Christian Chinese Orchestra – the HKCCO; and today, I would like to share with you what God has taught me through serving in the orchestra.  As a music person, I would like to use a verse of the theme song of the concert on Tuesday to share with you.  It’s taken from Psalm No.8, and verse 4 says, “What is man, that you are mindful of him?”

If King David just wrote “what is man!” and stopped there, our lives would be a tragedy.  Thank God that he continued to write, “that you are mindful of him.”  God’s love is revealed in this latter half of the sentence.  “O what is man that you are mindful of him”! O what is Francis Fong that you are mindful of him!  I’m only an ordinary person, with average IQ and ability.  Sometimes, I joke my friends, saying that while others’ brains are working on 10 Megabyte broadband, my brain only uses a 56K modem.  Yet, God is mindful of me.  I have the privilege to be God’s instrument in His music ministry.  He has given me a rough but extremely interesting and diverse professional career so far.  Even during the most difficult times of my life, as what the author of the ‘Footprints’ has written, God has not just walked with me, He actually carried me through.

Since PCCC is doing fundraising at the moment, I would like to share my experience in the area of attitude towards money.  When doing God’s work, there is a danger that our eyes are not on Jesus, but on money.  No, God’s work is never short of money.  If it’s God’s will, God will provide.  In HKCCO, I don’t like to hear members saying that there is no money for a particular ministry work.  I only want to know whether it is God’s will to do that task or not.  Of all the concerts we put on, including ‘the Journey of Life’ concert at the HK City Hall, we did not charge a single cent for entrance.  We depended only on freewill offering.  Yet, we always had surplus for those concerts.  In our trip to Sydney, God provided us with sponsorship from an organisation called the Christian Mission to the Buddhists in Norway.  We didn’t ask anybody at that time - only on one occassion, I was just casually mentioning to their President that we wanted to go to Sydney for the Biennual Conference of the World Association for Chinese Church Music.  Out of my surprise, he asked whether we would like any sponsorship for the project.  Even before we asked God, God had already provided us with all we need!  Of all our overseas trips, this time coming to Perth is the most blessed, and the hospitality given by you have been most heartening.  On behalf of our members, I want to say ‘thank you’ to the brothers and sisters here, who have treated them so well.  1.6 Million sounds a lot of money.  Yet, I would encourage you to read the book by Dr Robert Schuller called ‘Move Ahead with Possibility Thinking’.  In his book, he shared with us how God led him, with only five hundred US dollars in his hands, built the monumental Crystal Cathedral in California.  Remember the song ‘Turn your eyes upon Jesus’? ‘Turn you eyes upon Jesus, Look full in His wonderful face; And the things of earth will grow strangely dim in the light of His glory and grace’!  Turn your eyes upon Jesus, don’t just look at the dollars and cents.

Even in this fundrasing concert, money is never an issue to me.  For sure, I pray for the provision of money, but I’m more concerned about the revival that is generated through the involvement in this project, be it singing in the choir, or helping in the minutest way in the logistics part of it.  That’s why I have included so many people who have never sung in a choir before - some of them, adults and children, could not even sing in tune when they first came for audition.  By the grace of the Lord I have not turned away even one of them.  Now you saw in the concert that these people who had never tasted the fruits of music ministry were so blessed in the concert.  They became much closer to God.  They put down their grudges against one another.  They break the barrier between churches, between races and between choirs, and sang together in one heart and one soul to praise God.  All this cannot be bought by money.  Yet, all this is a sign of revival.  Once people are revived, they will show their gratitude to God by offering more.  God will then shower a lot more blessings onto them so that they can in turn offer more, too.  This is a positive feedback cycle.  Therefore, do not focus on how many dollars and cents the concert raises, look at the spiritual flame it ignites, and look at how many lives have been changed.  Most often, a big revival movement only starts with a sparkle. Chairman Mao likes to borrow this traditional Chinese saying ‘xing xing zhi huo, ke yi liao yuan’ – a single spark can start a prairie fire.  Spiritually speaking, it cannot be truer.  How much can we raise from a fundraising concert?  From my experience, just from the ticket sales, a concert can never raise much.  Some even ended up with a deficit!  It’s not how much we raise that matters, it’s how much the Chinese churches in Perth can be revived through this music ministry that is most important.  A revival will bring more people to church, a revival will bring people closer to God, and ultimately, a revival will bring in offerings over and above what we ask for.  This is the idea of “xing xing zhi huo”.  Always remember to sing praises.  Praise God!  When all the glory and honour be unto God, when God is pleased with our songs of praise, wouldn’t God bless His own Church by giving us more?  What is that mere 1.6 million to Him!  Nothing!  I heard a brother saying that for such meaningul work, even if the church puts in money, it’s worth it.  Pray that we can be that sparkle in the prairie, or that little stone thrown to a pond that creates the ripples.

I believe that God’s minsitry’s main purpose is to train workers, to keep them closer to Him. The task itself is only secondary.  ‘O what is man?’  If I were not taking up the call to establish the HKCCO, would our almighty God stop there?  If I were not accepting the invitation to work for the concert, would there be no money to build the church?  My ego would very much like me to say ‘yes’.  But the Holy Spirit says ‘No’.  No matter how, His will be done on earth as it is in heaven!  The only difference it makes is that I would not get the blessings for serving Him – somebody else would.  O, what is man?  Sometimes we see ourselves as big as the sky!  God’s church will be built with or without this concert.  So, you might ask, “What’s the point of us doing that much work?” It’s all because God is mindful of us.  He gives us the privilege to offer.  He gives us the opportunity to take pride in the whole process.  He gives us the joy to be able to sit in the new church and be able to proudly say, “I have contributed to this new church.  This is my home.”

I was so touched by the performance of the Combined Choir and the Children’s Choir.  Jim McKinnon, the conductor of the Perth Christian Choir, told me that I did wonders with the Combined Choir.  He said that it usually took 6 months to train such an inexperienced choir, but I did it in a very short period of time.  Some of you, after reading my biography, might think that this is only a piece of cake to me.  Frankly speaking, just because I have over 20 years of choral conducting experience I know very well that one cannot train tone-deaf people to sing in pitch just by a few rehearsals.  Do you agree that the children sang beautifully in the concert?  Yet, up to the very last rehearsal they were not singing that well.  Some of them still sang out of tune.  Don’t be cheated by my seemingly confident conducting that night.  I was really worried about the children’s performance.  I didn’t have enough faith.  It was the Holy Spirit who worked wonders.  O what is man!  I could have never achieved that without the Holy Spirit working.  I did not make it, but God did.  The same happened to my composition ‘Hammers & Nails’, too.  As far as my own erhu part was concerned, my playing was one of the worst I’ve ever had.  Yet, the feedback I have from the audience was that they were most moved by that piece of music.  I was told that there was standing ovation in the audience.  Again, it showed that even though I failed, God never did.  The scripture says, “Not by power or by might, but by the Holy Spirit.”  This was very much revealed on Tuesday night.  For the glory of His own name, God blessed the music, and He blessed all those who listened to the music, and He was definitely mindful of me and mindful of every one there.

CONCLUSION

Working in the music ministry is no easier job than working in any other ministry.  As soon as you start to achieve something, Satan is not going to give you a peaceful time.  Satan was frustrated by the work of the HKCCO.  He took me away from the orchestra thinking that the orchestra would collapse - without knowing that it was all part of God’s plan.  God had a task waiting for the orchestra, Betsy and I to do in here. Then, knowing that the orchestra was coming to Perth, Satan attacked our brother Enrio’s eyes.  Yet, God cured our brother, and the other night he was singing “was blind, but now I see”!  Then Satan got even more frustrated and, this time, he tried to take away our brother Ah Chung’s and Leslie Chiu’s lives in a car accident in the freeway.  However, God would not let him take away any of our lives.  Life is in the hands of God, not Satan’s.  Both of them were untouched and our brother Ah Chung was happily playing his sheng, serving God here this morning.