On the whole, all the sessions were good but unfortunately, due to lack of time we (the delegates) were unable to explore further. That is one of the observations we would like to make here.

Bro. Moses’ sessions have given us much to think about especially challenges for church to consider. Bro. Abel Cheah’s ‘Date the Mate’ has surely caught much attention. The challenge for us at Tamil Annual Conference, the Tamil churches, is how best we can do something similar given the cultural and traditional background that at times can also be the baggage that holds us back. But TAC is cognizant of the need of our young people to find the right partners or spouse. In fact, on a lighter but similar note, we have started in establishing a database of unmarried people and we will try this “Date a Mate” method very cautiously. We also understand that DUMC’s social evening can also be a model that we can learn from. However, for all these to happen, truly TAC needs a paradigm shift. And the question that we ask ourselves is how disruptive are we prepared to be innovative in our ministries and that is something we have to further explore.

Bishop’s point about Scott T.Brown’s quote that ‘Healthy families’ makes healthy church’ have been observed and we expand it further to say ‘Healthy individuals make healthy marriages and healthy marriages make healthy parents which make healthy families and therefore healthy churches’.
 

By Mr Guna David
Conference Associate Lay Leader