The recent Tamil National Conference was a breakthrough for the Tamil Church in Malaysia as it managed to inspire the delegates to look beyond their individual churches to the Kingdom. This was brought home by speaker Rev. Mohan C. Lazarus whose message centred on the burden of churches to build God’s Kingdom, and the power and authority that result from the unity of churches. The evangelist from India cited an example in India when many churches once banded together to pray against the tabling of a law against proselytising. He said as a result of their united prayers, the law was withdrawn.
On Kingdom building, Rev. Mohan said a “Kingdom-conscious” perception would remove all fear and rivalry from churches and bring the right kind of oneness in the Church of Christ.
Rev. David Mohan was the other speaker at the two-day conference, which saw a turnout of some 600 delegates from 145 Tamil congregations throughout Malaysia. The pastor of a 15,000-member church in India spoke on leadership succession, challenging the delegates to “raise your tomorrow team today”.
He urged delegates to identify and train successors now and gave four key qualities to look for in potential leaders – faithfulness, availability, submission and teachability.
The conference was organised by the NECF Malaysia Tamil Commission. Earlier in his opening address, commission chairman Rev. Eu Hong Seng stressed the urgency to work in unity to empower the Tamil churches by “leaning on each other and sharing their resources”.
NECF Secretary-General Rev. Wong Kim Kong took this point further in his closing address when he challenged the pastors and leaders to work together so that the Tamil ministry in the country could grow. Spurred by the impact of the conference, the commission members have unanimously agreed to organise another national conference next year. They are also on the lookout to appoint a full-time coordinator for the Tamil Commission. To add impetus to the Tamil ministry, NECF has also appointed Rev. Simon Chandran as a member of the NECF Council so that views and concerns of the Tamil Church can be directly expressed to the council.
Participants responding to the altar call at one of the night rallies.
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