CHC pastoral supervisor Ong Weiren and his mission team witnessed the restorative power of the Holy Spirit first-hand during recent mission trip to Taiwan.
Watching the hand of God move among His people is probably the greatest reward a missionary can receive. That was what Ong Weiren, a pastoral supervisor at City Harvest Church and his members witnessed in Taiwan recently.
The team of 22 members was in Fire Harvest Church in Taichung from 23 to 25 June to conduct a church camp. Fire Harvest Church is part of CHC’s The Harvest Network and Weiren has been working with its senior pastor, Lin Bo Xiong and an elder in the church, Li Lihua, since 2019.
Pastoral supervisor Ong Wei Ren (right) with Pastor Lin Bo Xiang (left) and Elder Li Lihua of Fire Harvest Church
“Elder Lihua is the founder of the church,” Weiren explains. “She spotted Bo Xiong when he was preaching onstage as the student preacher at the 2015 SOT (School of Theology) graduation service and decided to hand the church to him.”
Pastor Bo Xiong took over the church around 2016, while Elder Lihua continued to play an important leadership role in the church.
As with many churches, Covid left a deep impact on Fire Harvest Church. Fewer than half of its members returned to church when they resumed in-person church services. To make things worse, the key leaders did not return to serve— including the worship team. This affected the morale of the church and it struggled to survive.
After some discussion and prayer, Weiren, Pastor Bo Xiong and Elder Lihua decided that it was a good time for the CHC team to conduct a church camp in June this year. Before their trip, Weiren and the mission team entered into prayer for Fire Harvest Church and for the camp, asking the Holy Spirit to do the work that only He could and wanted to do.
WITNESSING THE POWER OF THE HOLY SPIRIT
Their prayers were answered: the Holy Spirit moved powerfully during the camp. At one session, Weiren got the church members to wash each other’s feet. He specifically invited them to approach those whom they wanted to reconcile with. What they did not realise was that the many deeply seated problems in the relationships among the church members was the root problem of the church’s decline.
At that point, the Holy Spirit started to heal the broken relationships in the church.
The Holy Spirit moved the heart of Pastor Lihua’s daughter, who reconciled with her mother
Elder Lihua’s third daughter is the key worship leader in the church. She had a bad falling out with her mother and they had not been speaking with each other for the last three years, even though they lived in the same house. Since that disagreement, both Elder Lihua and her daughter stopped serving—a move that weakened the church greatly.
At that camp session, Elder Lihua’s daughter approached her and washed her feet. They embraced and cried in each other’s arms for a long time. Following their example, the other church members started seeking out those with whom they had offended or were offended by and washed their feet. The whole hall was filled with an atmosphere of forgiveness and reconciliation.
God’s work was not done. At the final session of the camp, Weiren felt that the Holy Spirit wanted him to pray and minister for Elder Lihua. He gathered up all his courage to ask her to come forward during the altar call. He said prophetically that she had been deeply hurt and prayed for God to heal her broken heart.
After the altar call, Elder Lihua opened up her heart and shared with the church her past hurts. She told them that her heart was hardened and closed towards the Lord because of several reasons, one of which was her broken relationship with her third daughter. Another reason was that her second son and his wife had been trying to conceive for nine years but to no avail. And just a few days before the camp, her eldest son divorced his wife.
Elder Lihua shared that when Weiren prayed for her, the Holy Spirit healed her of every pain and disappointment in her heart and the joy of the Lord returned.
As the church listened to her sharing, their hearts started to open and soon, the whole church rallied together in unity and love.
After the church camp, the Singapore mission team learned that all the church members had returned to attend Fire Harvest Church’s service on site. The key leaders returned to serve, and the full worship team was now leading the church to worship God.
“From a church that is struggling, they became a church heading towards revival,” Weiren says. “That is the power of the Holy Spirit. With one touch, He healed a severely broken heart. With one touch, He healed a three year break in a relationship. With one touch, He restored a struggling church to complete health.”
