Cover Story
01 Mar 2014

Keeping our eyes on the MCM Roadmap....

Source/Author: By Bishop Dr. Ong Hwai Teik

We as a Methodist Family in Malaysia continue to ask the questions - 

  • What does it take to be a Church after God’s own heart in a season such as this in the global context of our generation?
  • What does a living and authentic Church of Jesus Christ look like today - especially when we are experiencing the erosion of religious rights and the growing pangs of persecution of being a religious minority in our own land?

While we do not wish to promote the “sacred-secular” division, we must also “disentangle” the temporal from the eternal. We as God’s people called Methodist, must never lose sight of the eternal plan of God for the Church as revealed through His apostle Paul, who declared in Ephesians 3:8-11: Though I am the least deserving of all God’s people, he graciously gave me the privilege of telling the Gentiles about the endless treasures available to them in Christ. 9 I was chosen to explain to everyone this mysterious plan that God, the Creator of all things, had kept secret from the beginning. 10 God’s purpose in all this was to use the church to display his wisdom in its rich variety to all the unseen rulers and authorities in the heavenly places. 11 This was his eternal plan, which he carried out through Christ Jesus our Lord.

As such we must not give in to the temptation of being too trapped by our own political and social predispositions and views, and to the current prevailing and powerful stream of
events – so that we lose sight of the fact that God is still unshaka bly
in charge of history, and that He is sovereignly above all of humankind’s transient affairs.

We remain on course with this Road Map for the Methodist Church in Malaysia which was launched by the General Conference Executive Council during our 125th Anniversary on the 12 August 2010 at the Chinese Methodist Church, Kuala Lum
pur. The GCEC team had started work on formulating this Road Map in 2008 under the Episcopal leadership of Bishop Emeritus Hwa Yung. We thank the many who have prayed, gave input and worked on making this Road Map possible.

It
was the intention of the General Conference to have this Road Map guide us as a Methodist Church together for the next 10 to 20 years, with periodic reviews and updating taking place as necessary – consonant with the leading of the Holy Spirit, and new and changing contexts. We affirm the truth that Scripture is unchangeable, but culture is not – even as we seek to remain faithful and relevant.

The Ro
ad Map seeks to help our members and churches to be an authentic and living Church after God’s own heart, empowered by the Holy Spirit to be a living witness to the salvation message in the Lord Jesus Christ. This is reflected in the 4 key areas which follow that of the very first authentic and living Church of mainly found in Acts 2:42-47.

  • Evangelism and church planting: they were not living in a siege community – but were related to the world so that “the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved”. It is a shame that some of our churches have not had a single convert for years! But it is a joy that all our 6 Annual Conferences have made strategic plans and established goals to plant churches in the 2013-2016 quadrennium.

  • Discipleship: they were a worshipping community that was inseparably linked to the apostles’ teaching. A living Church is an apostolic Church that lives by absolute and holy discipleship – so that such genuine hearts will more easily encounter the presence and visitation of the living and holy God in their midst, filling worshippers “with awe.” Our prayer movement has been strengthened with the 3rd Methodist Prayer Conventions organized for 2014, and the establishment of the Methodist Intercessors Gathering which brings together praying together by intercessors at the GC level in a regular, systematic and more coordinated way.

  • Church and Society: they were a caring and generous people of God that were effective “salt and light” for the Lord – “giving to anyone as he had need” – not only within but without the body. They had a tender social conscience; we too must be salt that preserves our society from decay, and light that brings enormous good to our total nation, especially at this time in the history and life of Malaysia. One key area we are “redigging” is the well of education, dug by our Methodist missionary forefathers, so that we can contribute to nation building today by healing the soul of our nation by nourishing spirituality, build character, supply academic and vocational excellence among the young.

  • Cross-cultural Missions: this same Church in Jerusalem then “scattered”, triggered by persecution under Saul (Acts 8:1-4), crossing geographical and cultural boundaries as they brought the Gospel to peoples and places beyond Jerusalem. The missions work in our Methodist Family has grown substantially and we have adopted a common missions ground (in Asia) at the General Conference level for this quadrennium. For the first time our Council of Missions was able to host a mission training school for the key pastors and lay leaders of The Upper and Lower Methodist Church in Myanmar in October 2013.

May the Holy Spirit continue to guide, deepen and strengthen us as we seek to be a Methodist Church that is after God's own heart, a living and authentic Church that

• identifies and incarnates the life and way of Jesus, the eternal Lord of the Church;
• lives in true and genuine community as a demonstrably holy and beautiful bride of Christ, breaking free by the Holy Spirit and a willing heart from “enculturated blockages”; and
• transforms “secular” space and touches lost people.

All for the greater glory of God the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit!

Together in His kingdom, by His grace

Bishop Ong Hwai Teik

19 January 2014
The Methodist Church in Malaysia

The new Introduction of the newly reprint of the MCM Roadmap.

Note:
Copies of the Road Map can be obtained at The Methodist Church in Malaysia.