In late 2003, when we were talking to Gordon Cheng about coming to work at Matthias Media, I remember asking him casually about how many of our resources he had used in his many years of ministry up to that point.
“Oh, not many”, Gordon replied with his usual unembarrassed chuckle. “When I lead a Bible study, I just tend to open up a passage, ask a question and we go from there.”
That wasn’t exactly the answer we were looking for at the time! Perhaps we were hoping for someone who had used every Bible study in the Matthias Media catalogue—someone who did his quiet times out of the Two Ways to Live manual.
But that wasn’t Gordon. He wasn’t much into programmes and structures and manuals and booklets; he preferred just to sit down with people, read the Bible with them, and pray that God would do his work through his word.
As things turned out, this was one of the many excellent attributes Gordon brought to his work at Matthias Media because isn’t that exactly the kind of person you would want to be writing Bible studies and resources for ministry? That is, you’d want the kind of person who sees Bible studies and ministry resources as convenient helps and tools for the real work—work which is personal and relational and dependent upon God in prayer.
That’s Gordon, and it’s one of the many things we will miss about him. (By the time you read this, Gordon will have finished his time with us.) Gordon’s convictions about the power and sufficiency of God’s word, and its central place in all Christian ministry, are most clearly illustrated in Six Steps to Encouragement (SSTE), the DVD-based training course he authored in 2004, along with an accompanying book, Encouragement: How words change lives.
In some ways, SSTE is to the rest of Matthias Media’s resources as the sower is to the rest of Jesus’ parables: it explains their rationale and purpose. In six short, straightforward sessions, SSTE shows how all Christian ministry essentially consists of the prayerful speaking of God’s word by one person to another. That’s how all of us came to be Christian, and that’s how all of us keep growing as Christians—by speaking the truth of God to each other.
What Gordon does really cleverly in the course (and in the companion book Encouragement: How words change lives) is not only show that this everyday ministry of personal encouragement is the essence and basis of all Christian ministry and growth, but that it’s something all of us can do in our own way. He takes the participant through six simple steps that give basic knowledge, skills and confidence in sharing God’s word with others—whether you are a parent reading the Bible with your children, friends reading the Bible together for mutual benefit, or a friend dropping a note of encouragement to another friend.
This is captured in the motto or summary of SSTE: God’s word changes us; through us, it can change others too.
This lies at the heart of what we’re on about at Matthias Media, and it explains why we produce the resources we do. We want to help and enable all Christians to share the truth of God’s word with others (whether Christian or non-Christian) in a myriad of different ways and contexts: in small groups, one-to-one, at home, in church, at work or over the back fence.
Gordon, in his inimitable way, has helped us do this over the past five years, and for that, we are very grateful to God. Perhaps the most fitting way to say farewell is to say that it is very obvious to all of us that God’s word has changed Gordon. Through him, it has changed us as well.
