Methodist Youth Convention
01 Dec 2013

Rise Up Young Methodist

Source/Author: By Michael William

“Rise Up Young Methodist” or “Bangkitlah Pemuda-pemudi Methodist” was organized by the General Conference Youth Council this year. This long overdue conference was a gathering of youth from all the Annual Conferences in Malaysia. A total of 315 participants ranging from various ethnicities and languages met from the 2nd to the 5th of November 2013 at the Port Dickson Methodist Centre. We had the Tamils, the Ibans, the Sengoi, the Chinese, the English speaking, the Mandarin speaking, the Iban speaking, the Tamil speaking, the Sengoi speaking, teenagers and young adults congregating and worshipping our Lord together for the first time in many years. The variety was truly indeed the richness of the Methodist Church in Malaysia.

The theme – Rise Up Young Methodist was a call that the GCYC put across all our MYF members to rise above themselves, to grow in the Lord and be a blessing in our country, Malaysia. We also wanted our young Methodist to know each other from all the conferences. In knowing, we hope that fellowships and friendships could be built and thus, together we could be a light for our church and nation.

Program
We had various series of talks and activities throughout the conference. In the early mornings, Bishop Dr. Ong Hwai Teik and Rev. Herbert John shared on the theme talks. Bishop Ong called on the MYFs to follow the example of Daniel in making wise and difficult decisions for the Lord in the midst of being a minority in this country. Rev. Herbert focused on the New Testament - on Jesus and the Holy Spirit in bringing out the message for our youth to rise up.

We also had two plenary sessions at nights
focusing on the call to “Spread Scripture Holiness, Transforming the Nation”. These sessions were led by Rev. Philip Siew. His passion and energy for the young people were well received.

The theme talks and the plenary sessions
were the only formal sessions at the confer
ence conducted by the traditional speaker/audience method. The rest of the activities were led by the youth themselves. In the later part of the mornings, the participants joined together in different small groups discussing issues of our country and our church. One highlight of the conference was the Methodist Youth Congress - a round table meeting where youth from all the Annual Conferences were given the opportunity to share their dreams for our church and their plans to fulfil these dreams. The Methodist Youth are really passionate for the Lord, church and country. Michael William, the Executive Youth Director of the General Conference then made the plea for the Annual Conference Youth to be initiated, to be willing to live radically for the Lord, to be informative and also to be innovative in ministering amongst the new generation of youth.

We
also had organized theme building games and combined prayer meetings. These were led by the youth from various Annual conferences. It was very exciting to see that the youth led these meetings without much supervision from the organizing committees.

One of the encouraging features was the
participation of the Sengoi youth. There were 20 youth from 3 districts. Many of our youth have never interacted and heard the heart and cries of this group of people. It was really a joy to hear them voicing up their heart for the gospel and also seeing them pray and worship the Lord.

Each Annual Conference also had separate
group meetings. Being in their own AC groups, they were given opportunities to share with their own members about lessons learnt and suggested follow up from this conference.

Looking to the Future
It is exciting to see the potential that this conference has given to all the participants. New friendships have been formed and everyone has had the opportunity to hear the cries and dreams of all the participants for our fellowships and churches. For once the call for a unified voice can now be realized as the participants have had to the chance to hear and deliberate the call to rise up together. Hopefully these young Methodists would grow to love each other and work together in strengthening and expanding the kingdom of God in Malaysia.