A Calling Revealed by Christine Lai

Christine Lai

When my Pastor first suggested I attend a Monday-Friday , 9 am- 9.30 pm Evangelism Explosion (EE) clinic, I really did not have the heart for it. I had already graduated from the normal 13 weeks EE course offered in our church 2 years ago, had volunteered as trainer ever since and was involved in weekly visitations outside church.

In my human mind, I could not conceive of any good reason why I should attend another (and such an exhaustive ) session, re-learning stuff I had already learnt before.

By the end of the first day, I was repenting of my negative spirit, duly convicted in the heart. For as I sat in the class, I found out it was much more than technical lessons. The message was clear : EE is not simply a tool to win souls, over and above that it is to train soul winners.

Actually my head already knew that but up till now, the impact has never really hit my heart. Now I thought back to how I had trained 2 people who signed up for EE the year before in my church. One of my trainees had gone on to become a trainer himself this year, and his trainee will be graduating at the end of this semester.

In terms of training soul-winners, that makes me a “grandma” of 2 generations! That was the first truth that hit me with a wham; for somehow I had never quite looked at it that way before. I think of how my trainee turned trainer and his trainee would (hopefully) turn trainer to some other trainee and each one of them would continue to go on to train others to win souls and make disciples….and my heart bursts with absolute joy to recognize the spiritual multiplication that would not have been possible if not for EE in my life.

The 5 days were not a breeze, but God’s strength sustained, inspired and motivated me to last the mile. And I learnt – yes, you can still teach an old dog new tricks! The materials we worked on was exactly the same, but I gained new perspectives, new ideas, new insights from the team of teachers, who, bless their hearts, gave of themselves with so much love, patience and counsel.

I soon realized how and what things I had done wrong all this while and the things I could have done better. What a humbling experience it was; knowing I still had a lot to learn. But it was the final day’s session that really hit me hard. When the teacher exhorted that we had to first build castles-in-the-air before grounding them into the foundation, it suddenly dawned upon me ……… here it is – my calling.

For so long I had been asking of God, what is Your will ? I had been running around getting myself involved in all sorts of activities , doing all the right things with all the right zeal , willing heart and everything. But I was short on the one thing that mattered – the passion. I recall Pastor telling me I will know my calling when I feel the burden. And that final day as I sat in EE class, I suddenly felt the burden … God had brought me to this point to reveal to me this was IT.

He would use me to reach out through EE to make disciples, win souls, and fulfill the Great Commission to take the Gospel to the ends of the world. The morning the clinic was due to start, during my quiet time with the Lord, He had shown me a mountain which I was refusing to climb. But His voice had said, My child, come. He had taken me by the hand and together we had started to climb, through dark forests in the midst of howling storms and wind, even as He reassured me the view from the top of that mountain will far surpass the beauty of the flowers blooming in the comfortable valley below.

On the final day of the clinic, I knew what He meant. What a revelation, at a time , in a way that I least expected ; I am so excited. Truly His ways are not my ways, His thoughts are not my thoughts; for the second time in class, my heart stood still in awe of Him, at a God who never fails, never leaves nor forsakes those who seek after Him with all their heart, mind and soul, no matter how long it takes. I once read a book by Wayne Cordeiro entitled The Dream Releasers; people whom I would liken to catalysts because they stir up a reaction in others.

I thank God He brought me to this EE clinic. I thank God for the host church FGT , the teachers, the trainers and prayer partners behind it all – surely you are my dream releaser, for you have released a dream inside me, which I never even knew I had……



Christine worships and serves the Lord at Glad Tidings Assembly of God in Petaling Jaya. She teaches young children and is herself a mother of teenagers.