to The Josh Link.

Someone asked me, "What am I?" An apostle? A prophet? An evangelist? A pastor? A teacher?

Over the years, I have been trying to define my ministry in the Lord. I came to the Lord in 1977. Since then, I had been involved in youth ministry, children ministry (junior church and children’s choir), worship ministry and youth choir (1978-1985); home cell ministry and worship ministry (1986-1987); church-planting and missionary to Japan and Taiwan (1987-1990); pastoral ministry in a local church (1990-1991); community and mercy ministries (drug rehabilitation centres; street-kids’ homes; vocational schools; physiotherapy centres; orphanages; elderly homes) in Vietnam (1991-1995) and USA (1995-1996); marketplace ministries (1997-1999); multimedia and movie productions (1999-2001); construction and rebuilding ministry (2002-2005), and tent-making ministry in Japan (2005-present).

While serving as a missionary to Japan in 1987, I asked the Lord about my specific function in the Body of Christ. I was told that I would be a joint (link). The Biblical text given to me was Ephesians 4:11-16:

And He Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ; that we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting, but, speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him Who is the Head-- Christ-- from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share, causes growth of the Body for the edifying of itself in love.

Since 1991, I have been networking with many types of ministries and people groups. Every ministry is important to the Lord, letting nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit, but in lowliness of mind letting each esteem others better than himself (Phil 2:3). Whenever someone put precedence and supremacy of his ministry above others, I can smell the rat almost instantaneously because I was one previously. The brain is not more important than the eyes and vice versa. All parts of the Body of Christ are precious to the Lord.

Just as there are many apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers, there will be many joints or links. I am just one of them. As such, I have chosen to call my website "thejoshlink".

I am a joint, not a string. We are all eagles, once unclean but now cleaned by the blood of Christ - once a sinner but now a saint. As eagles, we need no strings attached, to hold us down or to tie others up. But as eagles, we need to stay LINKED to other eagles, for healthy relationships to be built up and for effective communication to flow.

I earnestly hope that through this website, we are able to communicate the love of God in His power and riches and wisdom, and strength and honour and glory and blessing (Rev 5:12).

Shalom,
Joshua Ong