Like-Hearted Synergoi

From Hospitality to Synergy

In November 2008, Rev. Timothy Lau, Chairman of the Seminary’s Board of Trustees, expressed his intention to present my name as a candidate for the Presidency. From then on, I began to reflect on how I could be the President and how I could lead the Seminary according to God’s will. A week before I was interviewed by the Board of Trustees, several strong concepts had emerged. They included theologia, hospitality, synergy and crossover, all with the underlying desire that the Seminary would do its best to meet the needs of the church and the world. I integrated these ideas into a prospectus to present to the Board. In the year that followed, I began sharing my views with the seminary community on different occasions, such as the President’s Council, the faculty retreat and the morning chapel. I feel strongly that what I shared was the result of God’s enlightenment and guidance and firmly believe these principles must be implemented step by step.

Since the beginning of 2009, the Seminary’s steps toward renewal and reformation have gained momentum. God has strengthened the biblical studies faculty team, enabling the Seminary to focus more on nurturing students’ theologia. In the past year, the seminary community has been committed to cultivating the spirit of Jesus Christ and to demonstrating genuine Christian hospitality. It is evident that the spirit of hospitality has begun to thrive as the faculty has united with one mind and heart, as new teachers have added new energy and fresh ideas and as students and staff have begun to catch the spirit of hospitality.

As the new calendar year of 2010 approached, I decided that January was the right time to enter an exciting new stage — a stage in which we began to practice synergy. In December last year, I began paying visits to each of our teachers, seeking to understand their major and minor research areas and to listen as they shared their visions for the churches and society. As I heard them, I began to see how together we could begin practicing interdisciplinary crossover. I needed to discover what the different subjects at the Seminary share in common to see how they could be merged. I find the notion of crossover important to the growth of the Seminary because its goal is to overcome the segregation of subjects in order to avoid the fragmentation of theological knowledge that often occurs in theological education. As we begin to complement one another, we can serve the churches and address the needs of society more effectively. I feel strongly that if our teachers develop synergy, they will bless students, bless the Seminary and bless the churches as never before.

The Importance of Synergy: An Experience Engraved on My Heart

On January 1, 2010, the New Year’s Day, I joined our teachers in a soccer game against the Hong Kong Veteran National Football Team. That day I was extremely happy, thinking that after the game, we would joyfully begin a whole new chapter at the Seminary.

I had played for about 20 minutes on the pitch, finding myself in good form and running with ease. However, I decided to take a break to reserve some energy for the last section of the game and also to give others a chance to play. Resting beside the pitch, I chatted cheerfully and joked with others, never imagining that the old physical problem which had been bothering me for the last five years would suddenly crop up. I began to feel dizzy and even lost consciousness for over ten seconds. In the hospital, the doctor explained to me that I had had an irregular heart beat. As I thought about the incident, it dawned on me how my irregular heart beat illustrated the principle of synergy. Whenever the atrium and the ventricle operate in disharmony, it is hard for the blood to reach the brain, resulting in a state of shock.

I consider this crisis experience to be God’s wonderful act of protection. I also consider my physical condition to be a dramatic reminder of the importance of harmony not only in the body but also in the Seminary. On the one hand, God allowed me to understand the nature of my physical problem, teaching me to cherish my body more and get the proper medical treatment. On the other hand, God allowed my physical crisis to occur just when I was about to begin promoting the practice of synergy within the Seminary community. Before my medical crisis, I never imagined that my body would illustrate the importance of synergy. Now I humbly declare that the importance of synergy has been deeply engraved on my heart.

Synergoi: Workers Acting in Concert with God and Men

Following my personal physical crisis, I felt the need to probe deeply into the practice of synergy, allowing scriptures to enlighten me. I did a close reading of I Corinthians 3:1-9. From the context, we can see that the Corinthians regard themselves as mature (2:6) while Paul considers them to still be babies (3:1). While they regard themselves as wise, Paul warns them they still lack wisdom. He challenges them to consider themselves fools in order to gain true wisdom (3:18). Some consider themselves spiritually mature men, but Paul insists they continue to live according to the flesh and not the spirit because they are jealous, always quarreling among themselves (3:3). One brags, “I follow Paul,” and another, “I follow Apollos,” (3:4). Obviously they like to boast that they are followers of a certain well-known apostle. As a result of their pride and petty rivalry, each insists on walking alone down his or her limited path missing the joy of walking together in harmony down God’s glorious avenue.

Paul handles the problem in two ways. First, he points out that he and Apollos are merely deacons and reminds them that they both have instructed them to believe in Christ Jesus according to the task that God has assigned them (3:5). Paul goes on to remind them that deacons are servants. They are waiters standing by the table, ready to serve the food prepared by the master. Neither Paul nor Apollos chooses the food to be served. It is God Himself who has selected and prepared the food.

Second, Paul uses the metaphor of a farmer’s field in which some workers plant the seeds while others water them (3:6-8). Paul is quick to add, “so neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow.” (3:7) He points out that the one who plants and the one who waters are “one in the work,” working together to ensure that the plants grow to maturity. As fellow laborers for God (synergoi), they must work together in harmony under His guidance (3.9a).

These examples from Paul demonstrate the synergy between God and men. Synergos, the root word for synergy, means God doing His work through the hard labor of His servants. Paul is saying that the church is a field owned by God alone. The successful cultivation of this field depends on sunshine, rain and nourishment, all rich provisions from God and not from any apostle. Clearly once the church is separated from God, she will become a barren wasteland. However, the church needs gardeners, those who plant and those who water. The gardeners must always act according to the master’s instruction if there is to be a good harvest. Since these Christ’s co-laborers are “under God,” they are accountable solely to God. They must follow God’s direction without being swayed by other people’s opinions and comments. They must do their best and remain bonded together with God for either triumph or shame as each offers his work faithfully to God (cf. 4:1-5).

No Dissecting the Field No Segregation from the World

The metaphor of the field allows Paul to express his strong convictions and warn the Corinthian Church against destructive conflicts. He projects a picture of harmony that leaves no room for ego among Christians. Paul’s description of the Corinthian church can be seen as an accurate portrait of today’s churches which develop such a loyalty to certain leaders that they find themselves embroiled in a crisis of “human politics.” One result of “human politics” is a personality conflict which leads to idle gossip and a tendency to belittle one another. This prevents ministerial leaders from having a good division of labor and prohibits co-workers from working together in harmony as they cultivate the field. Instead, each establishes a little kingdom, insisting things be done in a certain way. Neither side wants the other side to intrude into his or her territory nor to share what he or she has. As a result, God’s field becomes divided into small, individual little patches.

Paul summons churches to remember the ultimate source of their calling and mission and to remember that God’s work and men’s work must be carefully balanced. On the one hand, God has dominion over the success or failure of a community, since His acts transcend human capability. On the other hand, God expects churches to respond to His summon and to do their best to live out their calling in the world. Churches must trust God’s faithfulness to bring about the ultimate success; meanwhile, they should continue to do their own work at the practical level, faithfully planting and watering without falling into petty rivalry.

In the mean time, we should keep ourselves under God, listening to His instructions and resisting the glittering fairy tale of personal success. Churches must neither blindly follow cultural trends nor pursue their own ideas and ways but always develop their evangelistic ministry according to the ways of God. The result will be that they will not regard success as their ultimate objective, will not equate church ministry with the techniques of church growth, will not exalt human labor above God’s call and His work, and will not disallow God to act in their midst.

However, the church must not go too far in the opposite direction. It must never reach an impasse so that it ends up in a corner, and feeling completely powerless. This is a kind of false piety which claims to emphasize God’s work in ministry but uses this as an excuse to shirk its own responsibility in the world. The church should never presume that God will plant and water while humans take no responsibility.

Then too we have to beware of a mentality that segregates the church from the world. Churches should not retreat into a kind of spiritual escapism, waiting for the rapture. Neither should they bury their heads in the sand nor build fortresses in the side of a mountain, in an attempt to make themselves impregnable to the world. Instead, churches should constantly seek new ways to be the salt and the light of society; ministers of churches should constantly seek to maintain a balanced, holistic vision.

The Synergy of the Faculty Team Can Produce the Driving Force

With all this in mind, the Seminary must also reflect upon its orientation in theological education and decide what needs to be taught and how it must be taught. The teachers in the Seminary must reaffirm their task of planting and watering as they seek God’s guidance.

Besides being engaged in theological teaching, doing research and nurturing students’ theologia, our teachers should keep abreast of the current social situation, seek to grasp the complexity of social problems, probe to understand the human soul and its spiritual needs and always be aware of the field under cultivation. If theological education does not help students understand and face their society and culture, a seminary will produce ministers who are powerless to meet social challenges and unprepared to help their churches grow in a healthy way. The Seminary needs to pay attention to some of the important domains in today’s world, such as the problem of poverty, the ecological crisis, issues in medical ethics, the problems of families, the needs of young people and those of the elderly, the challenges of New Age ethics, and the ideology of post-modernism.

In order to fulfill its mission, the Seminary must abide by God’s calling and act according to God’s leadership. The synergy among members of the faculty team is of vital importance. The faculty team is HKBTS’s engine. The synergy achieved through interdisciplinary teaching and learning can be a driving force as our Seminary seeks to serve the churches with all of our heart and as our Seminary seeks to meet the challenges of the world.

Pray That God Will Grant Us a New Heart

In my hospital days, I prayed that God would grant me a new heart so that my atrium and my ventricle could have synergy, enabling the blood to flow to the brain, organs and other bodily parts. Throughout this experience, my heart was cheered on by God, enabling me to be open to His instructions: to be pure-hearted, relying more on God and harboring no distracting thoughts. Moreover, I felt led to pray that God would guide our teachers and staff, giving them new hearts, empowering them to be effective fellow laborers working harmoniously in God’s field. I asked that they be of the same mind as they serve God at the Seminary, complementing one another and becoming synergoi with the same mind. Together, we are committed to turning over a new leaf at HKBTS. Thank God for His grace so that as the days gone by, I see that God has prepared a team of synergoi, who have the same mind to dedicate ourselves for the Seminary. They are full of energy and God-given power, since they have come to recognize that they are fellow-workers sharing a call by God. This all makes my heart content so that I feel lighthearted and joyful.

Jun 2010