Malaysian churches – Page 3

Category: Malaysian churches

Update on the New Covenant Church, Petaling Jaya

17 September 2012 blogpastor 4 Comments

It was a good time of catching up with the founder of The New Covenant Church, Pastor Peter Sze. It’s been some time since I wrote about the church that I have tracked since it opened its doors almost 3 years ago. Here are some interesting and amazing facts about the new church in Petaling Jaya.

It is the fastest growing church in Malaysia. Starting with a few families and some friends it has multiplied and having maxed out their previous sanctuary, they recently expanded and leased a whole third floor besides the floor they were at.

Despite its size there are no full time pastors or administrative staff. Everyone chips in as they best can, including the pastor, who holds a busy managing director’s post in a Malaysian multi-national company.

The pastor was a Methodist lay leader who has “been there, done that” in every charismatic wave from spiritual gifts, church growth, worship, to prayer warfare, and missions and cell group system, etc. What finally liberated and gained a permanent grip of him was the message of grace which he first heard from Joseph Prince’s tapes. They ran with the message but at the same time made it uniquely theirs.

There is no personality cult and the pastor is a level headed, humble, unassuming and wise leader who also welcomes and allows others with gifts and maturity to help in the task of serving God’s Word and His people. He has built a strong team of preachers and teachers of grace.

He is discerning and wary of doing church the way he used to, having seen the futile and frustrating fruit of human-reliant efforts. So he observes the motions of grace and life in the congregation and facilitates their expressions, rather than imitate whatever is currently popular in the conference circuit, or merely adopt best practices of bigger churches. “Want to” instead of “have to” is one such sign of such movements of grace within the church. The church is growing naturally and organically and at a pace that does not become a yoke of burden.

The church does not teach tithing and believes that it is part of the Old Covenant but believes that new covenant giving comes out of gratitude and overflowing life and the amount given should be as a person decides in his own heart. There are no offering bags passed around but there are boxes located at different parts of the facility for those who wish to give.

They teach the Bible systematically in their services working through books of the Bible or topical themes and highlighting and explaining how the texts point to Christ, the new covenant and the grace of God.

They have informally networked with many other “grace-based” churches in Malaysia and are helping a network of churches in Jakarta, in addition to their partnership with Cambodia’s Barnabas Mam’s church planting movement.

You can read my other reports on the new covenant church in these links:

Jun 2010 report

Jan 2011 report

April 2011 report

DUMC raid: it’s about what’s right for the marginalized

15 August 2011 blogpastor 2 Comments

Shock at DUMC raid by Jais

Already there had been issues that had risen in the recent decade with rights of Muslim converts to Christianity to change their designation on their ID, the Alkitab issue, and the accompanying bomb blast at a Kuala Lumpur church. Last week, with shock I read that the Damansara Utama Methodist Church(DUMC) was raided by 20-30 Selangor Islamic Affairs Department (Jais) officers. Just June, last year, I had been at the Petaling Jaya megachurch. The church’s community arm, Harapan Komuniti was holding a dinner event to thank its donors, leaders, volunteers and the beneficiaries of the NGO that assists the poor and the needy, including women, children, and victims of HIV/AIDS and natural disasters, regardless of race or religion. Most governments would be happy to see volunteer organizations raise funds and mobilize volunteers to help needy citizens. But reportedly, having received a complaint, the religious officers had gone to the Aug 3 event at 9.45pm to check if there were Muslims present which is not allowed under the Syariah Criminal Enactment (Selangor) 1995.

The Singapore way

Without patronising or saying that we have a better way of managing such matters in Singapore, or that I endorse it, inter religious harmony legislation has been accompanied by comprehensive pre-emptive monitoring of the relations between the religions. It is common knowledge among pastors of megachurches and mullahs of popular mosques that in their audience there may be plainclothes intelligence officers taping and listening for speeches that may incite inter-religious trouble. Complaints from the public are followed through judiciously. Phone calls and appointments have been made to give caution. Hands have been slapped before, public warnings have been issued, but never an intrusion of such expression nor proportion.

Searching for political capital instead of the capital’s marginalized

When the politicians came into the picture to squeeze some capital out of it, the issue seemed to have developed a life of its own . It is certainly fascinating for a Singaporean like me to follow the ongoing news reports, though for a Malaysian it would probably be viewed with consternation and frustration. To have an idea of how different parasites are feeding off this situation, read Wyngman’s obsevations in his blog post of how six “blinded” parties “see” the raid: The DUMC raid: are we forgetting someone?

He concludes with a poignant appeal for everyone to focus on the real issue, and he is right:

In a word, the politically motivated see only what they want to see. But what they can’t see is that segment which they must be most responsible for i.e. the least of ‘the people’. I’m talking about the homeless, the AIDS victim, the drug addict, the retarded, the orphan, the widow, the handi-capped i.e. the very people for whom the DUMC dinner was thrown – who sees them? Only, it seems, DUMC and Harapan Komuniti.

The drug addicts and homeless are those which society doesn’t enjoy seeing, so all the more reason why our leaders must take a good hard look at how they came to be. The orphans are the ones for whom GE13 will make hardly a whiff of difference, so it’s critical that voters make a difference at GE13 bearing these children in mind. The handicapped are the ones who will continue to suffer after the media shit’s been cleaned (off the fans and the surrounding ‘areas’), so we need to bring them to the top of our political priorities lest it makes our talk of justice and a ‘high-income society’ full of shit.

A Muslim cleric who sees more clearly

Blogger James Lim in a blogpost cited a report by the Malaysian Insider that Dr Mohd Asri Zainul Abidin, an influential Muslim cleric and former Perlis mufti said it was not a sin for Muslims to receive aid from non-Muslims and questioned the efficiency of the distribution of zakat(alms) to the poor. He is reported to have said:

“Where have all our wang zakat (alms) gone? Collections of hundreds of millions of ringgit are announced every year,” said Asri in an essay sent to The Malaysian Insider today.

“Is it not enough to help the poor get out of their poverty without them having to ask others for help?” he questioned.

“Why is there so much red tape blocking the poor from getting alms? There is so much red tape just to get even RM100 to RM200. This is despite the zakat offices looking opulent, the high salaries for officers and bosses, and advanced equipment,” Asri lamented.

“Is the high cost meant only to find donors, but without sufficient willpower to find suitable recipients?” he asked.

“It is the right of anyone to help whomever they want. As long as rules and laws are followed, one can help another regardless of race or religion,” said Asri.

“There are many questions that Muslims must ask themselves before blaming others,” said Asri.

True religion

The tragic fact is that after all have been said and done about this issue, people are going to assert that they are in the right and others are wrong, and the marginalized will continue to be the neglected marginalized. But it’s not about who is in the right, but it’s all about what’s the right, compassionate thing that Malaysian society are going to do about the marginalized. Will all currently interested parties step in to contribute their abundant gifts of energy, time and money to help them?

Only they asked us to remember the poor, the very thing I was eager to do. (Galatians 1:10)

Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to9 keep oneself unstained from the world.(James 1:27)

Durians, Texans, and the River of Life

20 April 2011 blogpastor 2 Comments

Durian downloads

On Thursday, my wife joined me and we were brought by two couples Alex and Karen, and Leonard and Carmen to a seafood joint near Sungei Way Methodist Church. Aileen Lee was with us. We had our fill of crabs and prawn and shellfish. We enjoyed the meal and the fellowship. After all I have been having a lot of Indian food and chicken rice before that. We shared about how each husband proposed to their wives, and the most romantic was the one done at Eiffel’s Tower. How to top that? Only one thing can top that: a durian feast. Off we went to SS2. In Petaling Jaya, there are all these section this, and section that, to identify locations. Why is it SS and not just S, nobody knows. Maybe it’s sub-section for SS. Anyway the durian feast was great: firstfruits of the season. In a few weeks, we will see a tsunami of durians in Singapore. Maybe by May the seventh, to celebrate a new merdeka. Like the wedding at Cana, we started with the low grade(XO) – yes, I was surprised too! – to higher grade, Jantan – to even higher grade, Kunyit. Why these names when they could name their fruit after their Prime Ministers? Like, have you tried the Mahathir? Hmmm, bitter sweet? Anyway, we could not continue so we rolled over into the car and left. Next time, we’ll go for maotsetong.

The Texans

On Friday night, and Saturday we attended a healing seminar by Roger Sapp and his sidekick from Texas. He taught us how we can appropriate healing because of the finished work of Jesus on the cross. He’s been doing this for decades. He trained us in praying for the sick in a relaxed way, and to be patient and persistent in our faith. Watching him work at close quarters was enlightening and he was spouting out knowledge and tips while he prayed for different individuals. Like a live demonstration. Pain and aches and healings from restricted movements were the easiest to observe and to be encouraged about. Others were less obvious and waits to be manifested and proven. It was also a red lettered day for me at the seminar as I received from Kung a 180-G external hard disk of messages of different gospel preachers like Andrew Wommack, Paul White, tNCC preachers, etc. Well it looks like the Lord has a spiritual program arranged for my sabbatical.

The River of Life Sanctuary

On Sunday, a brother by the name of Teoh, picked my wife and I from the Bible College of Malaysia and brought us to the River of Life Sanctuary, a church founded by Pastor Ang Siew Khim and her husband, Ang Chui Cheng. They ministered with great impact in a few of our church meetings and camps in the area of inner healing and deliverance and prophecy. We were blessed by Mrs Ang’s ministry, but have been out of contact for over a decade. Since I was in Petaling Jaya, I felt compelled to visit, and was glad I did.

Many middle aged

They are both in their seventies and looked healthy and well. They were slower but the grace of God was evident on them. She hardly aged and I told her so. Pastor Ang Chui Cheng led in worship. They say he was a great worship leader in Full Gospel Assembly, KL, during their revival days, and as he led us, I could see why. It was one of those “oldies” kind of worship, where you could sing every song, because most were songs from the last two decades. The age group of the majority seems to be in their mid-40’s, 50’s and 60’s, so I am sure there were no complaints, and I could hear people around me singing. Quite enjoyable. The guest speaker was Christina Ang, an Indian lady married to Dr Paul Ang, and she preached a message titled, Launch Out Into the Deep. Want to use my net, Lord. Want to use my net.

To do justly

Pastor Ang told me that the church did quite a bit of work with illegal migrants from Myanmar. They in fact offered their church premises as a UN refugees registration center and about 3,000 Myanmese without papers signed up over a short period. Many of the children of these refugees form the bulk of their children ministry.

After the service, we were served lunch, and we met a Datuk Paul Low, who is the President of Transparency International, Malaysia. It struck me that the political and economic malaise that is Malaysia has given rise to Christians who are unafraid to speak out in the public square. Transparency International publishes an annual corruption index based on polls of significant organization executives. Each nation is put on a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being the least corrupt. For the last two years Malaysia has been hovering between 4 and 5. Singapore is about 9.

Aileen and Christine

Aileen Lee was in church with us. She was from our church in Singapore but now lived and worked in Petaling Jaya. She drove us around and was a gracious host to us. She brought us to her home and my wife and I relaxed in a hydrotherapy tub(stop imagining things, will ya). In the evening we met with Christine her daughter whom we had not seen for many years. This law graduate from the University of Manchester, had decided to turn down an offer to work in a legal department of a firm in Singapore, and to work in Malaysia, with the goal of starting her own business one day. It seems to climb the corporate ladder, Malaysians prefer Singapore. But to do business, Kuala Lumpur is preferred. She has matured, and she has a goal, and she attends SIB KL – I was happy to see both their stability.

We had been spoilt with wonderful restaurant food by our tNCC hosts, so this time round they treated us to a coffee shop spread near their home. It looked popular with all the tables and chairs on the streets in the open air, crowded with people even before dark. Was I hungry or was the food just plain tastier than Singapore fare?, I wondered. Sedap. To cool down and stand on the edge of gluttony cliff, we had Taiwanese iced desserts. This would be the second time I had felt bloated and rounded as I laid my head to rest that night.