EPISCOPAL ADDRESS

1. Greetings and Thanksgiving

i. Greetings to all delegates and guests 
Warmest greetings in the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ! May the grace and peace of God be with you, your families and the ministries that you have left behind these few days!
 
I also welcome all of you on behalf of the Methodist Church in Malaysia (MCM) to this 9th Session of the General Conference (GC) of our church. Whether you are a delegate or a fraternal guest from one of our sister Methodist Churches, I pray that God will bless you richly in your conferencing with us here in Kota Kinabalu. May you be a real blessing to this conference also!

ii. Thanksgiving 
The Apostle Paul in most of his letters move immediately from greetings to thanksgiving! For example, in Philippians (1:3-6) he begins with ‘I thank my God every time I remember you. In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now, being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.’

From the perspective of the bishop’s office, there are indeed many things that we should thank God for. Allow me briefly to list some of the most significant without going into the details.
 
• For the unity that we have seen within the Council of Presidents (COP) and in the work of the General Conference Executive Committee (GCEC) and experienced in various programmes, especially in the Methodist Prayer Convention, MPC07.
• For the growing signs of renewal in spirituality, ministry and mission throughout the whole Methodist Church, including the increasing emphasis on prayer and the continuing numerical growth of the church.
• For the abundant material and financial resources God has given to our church, and the growing opportunities to share these with others in much greater need through our various ministries and overseas missions.
• For making us one of the largest three Protestant churches in this country, and challenging us to begin to take seriously our nation-wide responsibilities.
• For releasing through the Methodist Church many men and women for ministries throughout the country outside our own church.

On a personal level, I want to thank God for His grace and strength sufficient to do all that He has put into my hands to do over the past four years. I am deeply grateful to the Presidents, the GC Officers, and all GCEC members for the support they have given me in my work. I thank all those in the MCM at large for all the love, acceptance, welcome, and support they have showered upon my family and me. All these have contributed wonderfully to make my work a privilege and joy. Praise the Lord and Thank You to all of you!

I take this opportunity to say to all gathered here that where I have failed to do what is required of me, or where I have failed to be a true servant to you, to the church or to Christ, or where I have wronged you in any way, I ask for your forgiveness and forbearance. Please bear with me—God has not given up on me yet!

2. The National Context Today
Coming to the main body of my address, allow me to begin with the context in which the MCM is located. I will therefore start with some reflections on our national situation today.

i. Malaysia Today - The Social, Political and Economic Context
We just celebrated the 51st Anniversary of Merdeka two weeks ago—or, should we be celebrating it today!?We thank God for the many blessings that He has poured upon our nation. But at the same time, we cannot forget that we live in difficult and very challenging times.
 
Every one in this country can see that racial tensions have remained high, and in some areas have deteriorated. To this can be added the growing restrictions on religious freedom and the inter-religious problems, especially between Muslim and non-Muslim communities. Corruption has become increasingly widespread. One need only think of the comments by Tun Haniff, a former IGP, on alleged corruption in the Police and ACA, and the Lingam Video! Malaysia has shown no improvement on the Transparency International Corruption Perception Index over the past ten years, and our ranking has actually declined relative to other countries in the same period. The poor management of the economy has also meant that our economic competitiveness is relatively weak. As a result, FDIs have dropped.

Crime rates have gone up, and drug addiction has reached dangerous proportions with an estimate of 1.2 million addicts today. As for our education standards, we appear to be going into a tailspin, with our universities dropping out of world rankings over the last decade or so. Finally, the March elections result, which was good for the country in terms of it being a wake-up call to those entrenched in their arrogance of power, also brought further political and economic instability. For all the hype about ‘Malaysia Boleh,’ what appears closer to the truth is ‘Malaysia Tak Boleh’!
 
ii. The Malaysian Church in the Nation
This is the context in which the church finds itself in our nation. How has the church responded in general? I believe it would be true to say that the church has tended to focus on evangelism and church growth, and the pastoral care of members. Over the past 30-40 years, the growth of the church has clearly outstripped population growth rate. In 1970, Christians formed 5.4% (0.58 million; from World Christian Encyclopaedia [2001]) of the country’s population. By 2001, Government population census figures show that there are 9.1% (2.13 million) Christians. Both the World Christian Encyclopaedia (2001) and Operation World (2001) put the Methodists (14.6% & 11.9% respectively) as being the second largest church after the Roman Catholics in the country. At the same time, we should note that the Methodists are not the fastest growing.

Over the last 20 years or so, the Malaysian church has begun giving serious attention to overseas missions. Much of our efforts, though, are still given to ‘short term’ missions, rather than long-term commitments as expatriate missionaries living in recipient countries and learning their languages and cultures for greater usefulness. A good deal of attention also has been given to social concerns programmes. Malaysian churches of all denominations together run 462 ‘mission schools.’ But they are largely tightly controlled by the government, hence their effectiveness for ‘mission’ has been largely curtailed.

To sum up, it would be fair to say that the church as a whole has focused largely on evangelistic and pastoral issues, with some social concerns programmes within our country and, increasingly, missions overseas. In general, she has not responded actively to the social, political and cultural shifts that have overtaken us in the last few decades. This has resulted in the church being not as relevant to the society as it should be.

The Malaysian church has rarely addressed seriously the question of whether we have definite social responsibilities to our nation and, if we do, what these are! Since we have not wrestled with the church’s position and responsibility in our society, our pastoral and discipling processes largely remain at the individual and spiritual levels which usually fail to relate to our calling and commitment as Christians within the wider Malaysian society. The church is called to be ‘salt’ and ‘light.’ But any objective analysis will have to conclude that the Malaysian church has not been a major force for transformation in our society since Merdeka!

If the church is to be truly ‘salt’ and ‘light’ to this nation, she will have to be reengineered drastically! She will need to continue to be faithful in its evangelistic and church planting work. Indeed, if anything, we should intensify our efforts because there is still so much to be done. Further, in our pastoral and discipling ministries, we need to recover the goal of Wesley and the early Methodists, with their strong emphases on both personal and social holiness. This will ensure that the work of teaching and Christian formation of our churches will not be merely individualised and spiritualised, but will adequately prepare our members to live faithfully today. This will inevitably lead us to address crucial questions concerning the church’s responsibility to the world and socio-political transformation in our nation. That is when the real hard questions will emerge! That is also when they must be confronted, if the church is to know genuine revival and true faithfulness in our witness to Christ in the midst of the harsh realities of Malaysia in the 21st century!

God has blessed the work of the Malaysian church much in the past few decades. Nevertheless, it must be said that we have not yet seen the sort of renewal in the church that leads to both a powerful surge in the evangelistic growth of the church and the church becoming God’s instrument of social transformation in the nation. This must be the sort of revival that we must seek, if we believe in the totality of the New Testament’s teaching on Christian witness and discipleship. Indeed, can we be satisfied with anything less as Methodists?

What then should we do? We cannot answer the question for other Christians in the country. But we are responsible before God to answer it for ourselves as we meet at this 9th Session of our General Conference of the MCM.

3. The Methodist Church in Malaysia, 2004-2008
Before we proceed to answer the question raised above, we will take a brief summary look at the work and ministry of our church over the past few years.

i. Statistics
The complete set of statistics, up to the end of 2007, with breakdown for each Annual Conference (AC), including the Sengoi Mission Conference, is given in Appendix A attached herewith. The following is a summary:

This shows that the total confirmed membership is 105,193. If we include baptised children, we have 164,410. However there are two other figures that are not included here. On our records we have another 22,973 who are baptised, over 16 years old but not confirmed. Further there are some children from Methodist homes that are not baptised. (The estimates given by World Christian Encyclopaedia [2001] and Operation World [2001] are 230,000 and 210,000. These include what are roughly called ‘affiliates’.)

One matter that requires comment is the gross shortage of pastors faced by our church as a whole. The present ratio of 1 minister for every 229 members is seriously on the low side. This must be reversed if the church is to move ahead to deal adequately with the many challenges before us.

ii. An Overview of the Ministry and Work of MCM
We come now to the work and the various outreach activities of the church. The following is not an exhaustive summary but is intended to provide us with an overview of what the MCM has been doing in the past quadrennium.

a. Evangelism and Church Planting 
The various ACs have been active in evangelism and church planting. Since we started collating the figures, the adult membership figures have gone from 97,509 for 2005 to 105,193 for 2007. There may be some problems with the figures (they exaggerate our growth rate) but they are in line with other evidences pointing to the continuing growth of the church. For example, the following is the number of preaching points that have been established over the past four years: CAC, 9; SCAC, 2; SPAC, 5; TAC, 6; and TRAC, 1. These do not include work done by SIAC and PMS, much of which is in the rural areas and in the villages, and also new congregations in other languages using existing buildings in the urban areas.

b. New Church Sanctuaries (including those which have undergone major renovations) and Other Buildings 
The number of new churches built totals 54. The following is the breakdown:
 

There have also been a substantial number of buildings put up for Christian education and for social outreach ministries, including one for medical work.

The total amount of money spent on this easily adds up to some RM150-200 million. Further, there are a number of multi-million projects which are already in process but not yet completed, or in the pipeline. When the total sum is added up, the amount would be staggering. Some of the buildings are clearly necessary and the amounts spent are relatively modest. But it would be wise for us to step back and prayerfully reflect on whether some of our buildings are really necessary and whether the amounts are not too exorbitant! The danger is that we may be giving too much priority to ornate buildings in our church, and forget that ministry and mission must always take priority over buildings in our financial commitments.

c. Social Outreach
The church continues to play an active and expanding role in social concerns ministries. These include orphanages, homes for children with special needs, hostels for teenagers, half-way houses for ex-prisoners, outreaches to Indonesian and Filipino maids, thrift shops to aid the poor, home for old folks, medical services, dialysis centres for kidney patients, centres for the physically handicapped and outreach to street people and the homeless. I should perhaps mention one in particular, the Beautiful Gate Foundation. This was started by the CAC and has now become registered as a public charity. It now runs seven centres for the disabled in Kepong, Petaling Jaya (two), Klang, Mambau (Seremban), Batu Berendam (Melaka) and Kampar. This centre, as well as many of our other social concerns projects, has increasingly received public support and recognition. We need to ask God for grace to continue and to expand our work on all these fronts.

d. Missions
Missions awareness in planting and supporting churches overseas began some 20 years ago. In the past 10 years, it has greatly intensified. Today, almost every AC has major programmes overseas. Our churches are now involved in missions in the following places: Bangladesh, Cambodia, China, India, Myanmar, Nepal, Thailand, Vietnam and North Africa. The types of ministries include church planting, discipling, financial support for local ministries, theological training and education at secondary and tertiary levels.

SCAC is setting the pace for all the others. Under their AC, they have now 28 fulltime missionaries working overseas. TRAC and TAC also have respectively 21 and 10 missionaries working overseas, but these are sent out by the local churches. But even with ‘short-term’ outreach, substantial work is being done by our churches. The CAC has two large church plants in Myanmar (Wan Hong and Nanban) and Northern Thailand, both with some 3000 members each. Schools have been started in both areas, with the school in Wan Hong having 1300 students! This is one area which will certainly see growth in the coming decade and it is therefore imperative that the MCM give serious thought to how our work in this area can be better coordinated for greater effectiveness and with less duplication.

We also should note that many of the churches are also involved actively in ministry to migrant workers in this country. For example, TRAC has started 10 services in various languages and different churches, just for migrant workers in the country. Other ACs are similarly involved.

e. Methodist Women
The Methodist Women is the group that focuses on the ministry to women in our churches. They have a thriving membership of 8954 from all the ACs:

They have their own special training and leadership programmes. They are also actively involved and/or participate in the CCM, National Council of Women’s Organisation (NCWO), Asian Church Women’s Conference of the CCA, World Federation of Methodist and Uniting
Church Women (WFM-UCW) and the World Chinese Women Mission Conference of CCOWE. The women in our church are clearly taking the initiative to minister to other women. But one concern that I would like to raise is whether they are at present structured to reach those who are working women, and especially those who are younger and with families.

f. Youth Ministry
One estimate for our country puts those currently in the 15-34 age bracket at 9.75 million (42.5% of the population). All our conferences are making special efforts to reach this group, both in evangelism and discipleship. SCAC has a purposebuilt MY Centre to cater to young people where they can have activities ranging from bible studies and tuition classes to table tennis and basketball. They are seeking to reach 1000 youths in the Sibu area, irrespective of race or religion. Also different conferences are now making special efforts to reach out and disciple university students from their churches
or who study near their churches. As an example, SPAC has one church, Kingfisher Park Methodist Church, which has a very large student population of 300 during the academic year of the Universiti Malaysia Sabah in Kota Kinabalu.
 
Despite the above efforts, it needs to be said that most of our churches are having an uphill battle when it comes to youth work. Numbers in many youth groups have declined relative to church membership. Over the years, the GCYC have been responsible for coordinating the work amongst youths. However, it does appear that we need to do a thorough rethink about how we can revitalise our youth ministry. Further, the introduction of the Youth Act by the government has also meant that the MCM has to decide whether to work with the government on youth issues in our country (which would require us to register with the government under the Youth Act) or to opt out.

Given the above, the COP, together with the GCEC, has set up a Task Force to look into the whole matter of youth ministry. Specifically the Task Force was asked to look into two matters. The first is whether we should register under the Youth Act and, if so, what that would imply for the way we organise our youths. The second is to look into how youth ministries in our churches can be revitalised in face of the challenges of the 21st century.

g. A Prayer Movement for the MCM
Increasingly, we have been reminded afresh that the ministry of the whole church has to be undergirded by prayer. Different ACs have emphasised it to different extent and in different ways. SIAC has been having an annual prayer conference for the whole AC since 2005. TRAC has been running a ‘School for Intercessors’ since 2006. 10% of its members are in prayer groups, with a special prayer network operating among the youths. In SCAC, 95% of all local churches meet every Thursday evening for prayer. The goal is to have 20% of the total membership participating every week. Perhaps TAC is most energetic in this area. They have been having annual prayer conference for a number of years now. This year they had about 1000 people coming together for 3 days, including about 150 children.
 
The most memorable of our prayer events must certainly be our Prayer Convention, MPC07, held on 31 Aug-2 Sept last year, for which 3950 persons were registered. This was the first time that members of all our 6 ACs, from all over the country, have come together to worship and to pray together. The sight of almost 10,500 members gathered together for the climactic Sunday Service was a powerful inspiration to all present. Let us continue to seek God together so that a prayer movement will sweep across the whole church and country, so that revival and holiness will spread through our land.

h. Education and Schools
The following is a list of all colleges and schools run by the MCM:

In sum, we have a total of 75 schools (both primary and secondary) under government control, 5 private schools (secondary) and 2 colleges. Generally, the schools that have been under government control have not been in the best of shape, given the government’s reluctance to provide capital funding for property development and upkeep, as well as other problems. Where there have been strong school boards and adequate funding provided, the schools have been able to keep up with the best in the country. These include ACS Sibu, MBS Kuala Lumpur, MBS Penang, ACS Ipoh and MGS Ipoh. Clearly we need to rethink the position of our schools that are under government control. The church must never allow itself to be forced into a position wherein we end up giving to students in our schools a poorer quality of education than they deserve. Either we have our schools brought up to proper standards in all aspects or we should seriously consider closing them.

But on the private schools and colleges front, the church has been making real progress. For example, Wesley Methodist School in Kuala Lumpur is one of the most affordable and most sought after private schools. This year we had 700 applicants for the 180 places available for Form 1. And both Methodist Pilley Institute and Methodist College have been making real progress into pre-university and tertiary education. Much more efforts therefore should be put into our private institutions to develop them into centres of education excellence in the nation.
 
But I cannot leave this section without one further comment. Over the last few years, I have had the privilege of visiting some of the mission outreaches of the SPAC within Sabah itself. Serious efforts are being made to plant churches among the indigenous peoples in the state. Side by side with the work of evangelism, our people are also starting schools in places where even the government authorities would not go. The latest is the inauguration of the church and school in January this year in Serudong Laut, which is 3 hours by river boat from Tawau. There in the midst of nowhere, a church and secondary school have been started. I think of the schools that the missionaries started over 100 years ago, and of how these eventually became premier institutions in the country and powerful agents of change. And then I begin to understand a bit more the words of the prophet Zechariah (4:10), ‘Who despises the day of small things?’
 
j. Finance and Administration, and Other Miscellanies 

GC finances: Concerning GC finances, it is good to note that the problem of the growing deficit has effectively been resolved.

Sengoi Mission Conference (PMS) Endowment: The AEC (P Malaysia) has also moved to top up the PMS Endowment Fund to RM 5 million so that they can now look forward to a degree of financial independence. But when this is finalised, stringent conditions will need to be emplaced so that the capital will not be touched under any circumstances.

SIAC Finances: I am happy to report that the SIAC leadership over the past quadrennium has worked hard towards financial independence after all these years. They need all the encouragement and help that we can offer to them, as they will need another four years to complete what they began. Nevertheless, they should be warmly congratulated on their hard work.

Disaster Relief Funds:
Tsunami Relief (2005)
Funds collected     RM 1,149,300
Funds disbursed    RM 1,080,945 

Sichuan Relief (2008)
Funds collected     RM 235,000
Disbursement        Ongoing 

Myanmar Relief (2008)
Funds collected     RM 283,761
Disbursement        Ongoing

19th World Methodist Conference, Seoul, 20-24 July, 2006: The MCM was represented at this conference by 26 official delegates, plus 4 observers. It was a good learning and exposure experience for all who went.
 
2nd Asian Methodist Council (AMC) General Assembly, Johor Baru, Malaysia, 24-27 June 2008: The MCM was represented by 22 participants from the various ACs. The Bishop of the MCM was elected to Chairmanship of the AMC. The GCEC further nominated Mr. John Ling, SCAC, to be the lay representative from our church to the AMC Executive Committee.
 
iii. Summary Comments
The above outline of the ministry of the MCM tells us that there is much for which we can be thankful. There are clearly many signs of spiritual life and growth, and much more besides. At the same time, there are many areas wherein we need to do some hard rethinking and diligently seek God for true wisdom, in order to face the many challenges before us.
 
4. The Way Forward
Where do we go from here? In the last part of my address, I would like to list down some long-term goals that we should be working towards, and some specific objectives for the next quadrennium. These proposals do not come from me alone. A number of these things have already been discussed at different times by the COP, GCEC or with different groups within the church. Some of the things that I am raising will need to be worked through and fleshed out by all of us in our deliberations on the papers on the last two days of our GC.

i. Long Term Goals
First, we need to ask ourselves what are our long-term goals as a church. The GCEC has proposed that we take up Wesley’s stated goal for the Methodist Movement as our theme for the next quadrennium. In the original version, Wesley’s goal is ‘To reform the nation and, in particular, the church; and to spread scriptural holiness over the land.’ This has been abbreviated as ‘Spreading scriptural holiness, transforming the nation.’ What does this imply in detail?

a. A Road-Map for the MCM
The GCEC decided that, as part of our General Conference this year, we will take a serious and comprehensive look at the question of what is the role of the Methodist Church in our present context. We need to be clear as to what our role or agenda as a church is within our present day national and international context. With this in mind it was decided that we should set aside some time to work at drawing up a clear agenda or ‘road-map’ for the MCM for the next 20 years. This will then enable the whole church to work together in a more united and coordinated fashion, for the advancement of God’s purposes.

The four papers to be discussed deal with the following:
• Evangelism and Church Planting
• Discipleship
• Church and Society
• Missions
 
Since we will be discussing these in detail, I will not elaborate on this further. The papers will be the basis for the delegates to take to the study sessions. Out of this process, it is hope that we will begin to draw up a road-map for the whole church for the next 20 years. The aim of this exercise is to help us answer the question raised in Section 2 earlier: How can we be truly the church in our nation and bear witness to Christ today? And what would it mean to put into practice Wesley’s stated goal in our time?
 
Clearly the above cannot be effectively discussed without dealing with the place of a prayer movement in the life of our church. The goal before us clearly is how we can work with God for a revival of the church that leads to more effective evangelism and missions, deeper discipleship, and serious engagement of the gospel with the world in which we live.
 
b. Doubling the Number of Ministers within the Next 12 Years
The above leads to a second long-term concern, which is the shortage of ministers in the MCM. The reasons for the shortage are too complex to discuss here, although some of these will be looked at briefly below. But can we set as one of our goals the doubling of the number of full-time ministers in the whole MCM within the next 12 years, i.e. by 2020? But for this to happen, we will need diligently to work at removing human obstacles and changing mind-sets, and also persistent prayer.
 
c. Revamping Our Educational Ministry
A third long-term goal, which is related to our social responsibility in our nation, is to revamp our work in education. Here we need to start with a fundamental assumption—that either we ensure that our schools are maintained at real levels of excellence (within their respective contexts) or we should close them. It does the witness of the church no good when some of our schools are run down, termite-infested and ramshackle! We should never maintain schools in the name of Christ, if these are really second-rate or third-rate schools. This will require us to do some fundamental rethinking and take drastic action where that is needed. In real terms, it means:

(1) Schools under government control: We should do whatever it is possible to maintain their Christian character, and make them amongst the best within the existing system. For those schools wherein these two goals are not achievable, we should close them and channel their resources elsewhere.

(2) Private Schools: We should set up a string of private schools throughout the country, including Sabah and Sarawak, under the Wesley Methodist School brand name. Through these we should strive for the Christian character and educational excellence for which our schools were known in an earlier generation (before the Aziz Report), and use them as the agents of change in the lives of individuals and of our nation.

(3) A Methodist University College: Both Pilley Institute and MCKL have the same aspiration. It would appear that this is a most desirable goal in terms of our education ministry. If indeed, after seeking God, we believe it to be His leading, then we should pursue this earnestly to make it a reality within the next 5-10 years.

ii. Specific Goals for the Next Quadrennium, 2008-2012
In addition to the above longer-term goals, the following is a list of specific goals which we should strive to accomplish within the next quadrennium. 

a. Our Conferences
(1) Work with SIAC to enable them to accomplish the goal of full financial independence for their normal operating expenses. 

(2) Work with the SPAC to enable them to become a full Annual Conference in 4 years, or at the latest in 8. 

(3) Work with PMS to help them move forward so that the eventual transition to a Provisional Conference can be a realistic goal. 

b. The Book of Discipline
The DRC has put in a lot of hard work over the last four years. We are grateful to them for their commitment and contribution. But there are things within the Discipline which requires more thorough and painstaking work. These include especially the need for us to rethink the way the church is structured and run. At present there are simply too many meetings and too much bureaucracy. We need to cut through all the bureaucracy to improve efficiency without losing the built-in checks and balances. A second major area concerns the ministry. The present structures and provisions discourage many from coming into the ministry for a variety of reasons. How do we loosen these up so that many will not find the provisions so daunting that they are discouraged from entering the ministry?
 
For us to do a proper and thorough job, we do need to have someone working full-time on it over a year or two and supported and advised by a small committee. This must also be given priority.

c. A Methodist Book of Services and a Catechism
Presently there is no unified set of services that we use for worship, etc. There is the set of services in the Discipline which is used by some and for ordinations. Further different pastors and ACs are using different liturgical orders for baptism, Communion, funerals and various other functions. All these can be very confusing, and is leading to growing divergences within the MCM. The longer term negative consequences can be very serious. It would be good if we can have something that we can all be happy with and officially approved by the GC. This can also serve as a powerful means for unity as the MCM!
 
There is also need for a good Catechism book which will serve as a membership manual for all new members and for the instruction of the young within our churches. It should consist of studies of the following:
 
(1) The Apostles’ Creed (our beliefs)
(2) The Ten Commandments (our ethics)
(3) The Lord’s Prayer (our worship and spirituality)
(4) Methodist distinctives (the great strengths of our tradition that mark us out from other Christian traditions) 

Properly done, it will serve as a study book
for all members as well.

d. Coordinating Our Missions Ministries
Attention was drawn to the fact that, whilst much is being done in overseas missions, there is no overall coordination among the ACs. The time has come for us to seriously ask whether we need to do something about this state of affairs. Do we need a central body to coordinate the work so as to reduce duplication and increase synergy? It is hoped that the discussion on the paper on missions at this GC will lead to a resolution of this matter.

e. Some Identifiable Marks of Revival and New Life
I would like to suggest that we work as a church towards some specific marks of revival and renewal within the church. These include:
 
(1) A growing prayer movement within the church which will encompass more and more of the members.

(2) An increasing number of members belonging to small groups through which adequate pastoral oversight can be maintained over them. This is a call to return to Wesley’s pastoral genius in the use of class meetings in his time.

(3) A doubling of the numbers of those offering themselves for training for ministry.

(4) A youth movement through which the Holy Spirit will sweep many young people into the Kingdom of God, set many on fire for Christ and call many into full-time ministry and missions. We should note that over the past three hundred years, often great movements of God began with young people in their late teens and early 20s. This is true of the 18th century Methodist revival, the great Protestant missionary movements in UK and USA in the 19th and 20th century, the work of John Sung and the Bethel Band in China in the late 1920s and 30s, the ministry of Sadhu Sundar Singh of India., etc.

5. Conclusion
I have attempted here to share with you what God has laid upon my heart over the past four years. I am deeply concerned about the critical times that we live in. At the same time I also believe that God has called us to live precisely at such a time as this, and not at any other time in history. Moreover, as Paul reminds us in Eph 3:20, God ‘is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us’!

For those who have eyes to see, God has been doing many new things in the midst of the MCM over the last 10-20 years. If we would cooperate with God, He will do a far deeper and long-lasting work within our church. When that happens, the MCM will invariably impact other churches in this land. And then together, the church can become a powerful agent for the transformation of this nation. May God grant that we will all be found faithful in doing what He calls us to do!