Contributed by Adeline Ting • Jan 23, 2024

“Leaving people better than we found them”. This should be fairly easy, or so I thought.

In the secular world, I am in academia. So, I was confident that what I do should basically leave my students better than when they started. They graduate with a scroll of degree, equipped with knowledge and skills to join the workforce, and the research students have greater research outputs that definitely put them in a position better than when they started. So that’s one checkbox ticked. Then I thought about the staff I’m leading. They all have great professional growth and some even exceed their KPI. Another easy tick.

But, the questions from the sermon weighed heavily on me. Who will turn up at your funeral? Who will miss you, and what will they say about you? This caused me to pause and do an honest self-check. Will my students and fellow workers turn up at my funeral along with my family and friends? What kind of person am I to others, really? Have I really been an effective charger to others as their educator, supervisor, mentor, leader?

And then it got me thinking too, of my serving in this writing team (Engagers). As a team, we work quietly behind the scenes to craft the sermon summary, write a reflection piece, and develop application questions that help drive home the message of the week. A small team of 7 writers over 52 weeks, taking turns to do this week in and week out. Have we been charging up others with our writings? Will we be missed if one day the team no longer writes?

The truth is that it is pretty exhausting to be a charger to people. It is not merely a tick to the checkbox. In all honesty, it takes a lot of time, energy, encouragement (at times admonishment), and prayer. There are countless deeds that go into moulding a person into better versions of themselves, or in creating opportunities and changing circumstances so that people are better than when we found them. It is basically investing in people and relationships. Charging up others, very often, is born out of necessity or obligation as mandated by responsibilities. But very often, these efforts go above and beyond necessity (or the call of duty), and this is where special bonds are developed. And these meaningful relationships are fruits of the labour that transform lives and will last through time.

I would humbly like to think the same of the writing that we do weekly. It is no easy task to summarise a sermon summary that at times comes only in the form of bullet points. Saturday nights are brainstorming sessions with Pastor-in-charge and a fellow team member, and then it is off to writing. The summary, reflection and questions are up and ready the next day. We pray for each other for spirit-guided writing, as many of us would attest, it is simply not possible to complete the writing without being charged up by the Holy Spirit. We rely on the Holy Spirit to charge us up, so we can charge up others through our writing.

I guess the truth is that, at the end of the day, I don’t really want to keep a tab on who turns up at my funeral, or who will miss me, or what they will say about me. It is the here and now that matters. I pray that I continue to be a great charger to others no matter the circumstances or consequences. I aim to live every day in humble repentance and in knowing that I need God in my life. This will remind me to plug in to the Holy Spirit to charge myself up every day, so then only can I charge up others and impact relationships positively. I cannot control what others think or say about me, but I guess as long as I am doing it right by God, I am good. I’ve made peace with myself, telling myself that it is fine if I only have a small group of people turning up for my funeral for I know these are genuine relationships with people who accept me warts and all. And I am thankful too that here and now, I am in a team that can still write to help charge up others.

I get it. I’ll continue to invest my ‘gold’ in people, so that I can leave them better than when found.