Back to Basics: CAMACOP

Worshipping the Lord in the same church, Christian And Missionary Alliance Churches of the Philippines (CAMACOP), for the past 45 years, I can recognise its logo miles away. In fact, I can name what those four symbols mean. The Fourfold Gospels they are called.  

Through all these years, however, I never found out how those symbols were birthed. I had assumed they have everything to do with my faith walk and that they are, and will always be, the basics of our church.  

Then one recent Sunday, our guest preacher, Pastor Sam Carino, focused on that logo. He spoke of the vision of A.B. Simpson, who founded CAMACOP in 1887. 

He left out the many teeny details about the founder’s inspiring work, but one thing is crystal clear: it is a story of grace. And that the central theme of the logo is what we should uphold: 

Christ is sufficient. 

This theme A.B. Simpson lived and carried to his grave. His epitaph?  “Not I but Christ.”  His wife Margaret’s? “Jesus only.” He likewise encapsulated this theme in a hymn (it never fails to move me) he himself wrote. The first stanza and chorus read like the nucleus:   

Jesus only is our message,

Jesus all our theme shall be;

We will lift up Jesus ever,

Jesus only will we see.

Jesus only, Jesus ever,

Jesus all in all we sing,

Savior, Sanctifier, and Healer,

Glorious Lord and coming King

Those of us who attended the worship service that morning were fed with a most meaningful message—the core, the basic pillar that holds our faith together and up. 

It was made more meaningful when Pastor Popoy, our young interim pastor, sang "Jesus Only" with heart and soul.