Friday, February 13, 2015

Paradigm Shift

The battle cry of an evangelizing church has always been driven by Matthew 28:19-20. Years ago, this passion had motivated many from the West to bring the Good News to China and many other parts of the world. Since the late twentieth century, church growth in the West has progressively declined and even stagnated. Not only did they have difficulty in winning the lost, the practising christian generations were also fast losing the generations that follow in keeping their faith.

Those who attended the recent Family Ministry Conference at FGA in Kuchai Lama, Kuala Lumpur from 20 - 22 January 2015 could sense a shift in the battle cry to win back the lost particularly the missing generations. The key speaker quoting from Deuteronomy 6:1-2 took pain to reiterate that family ministry in keeping the faith from one generation to the next intact is NOT just one of the church ministries. Rather, family ministry is the PREEMINENT ministry of the church.

 
One man in Singapore by the name of Jason Wong is deeply convinced of the importance of parental involvement in maintaining the health of the family. As one of the Workshop speakers, he told how he managed to convince the Singapore government to adopt the "Dads for Life Movement" in 2009.  This movement's fundamental aim is to re-ignite the passion and involvement of fathers in the children's lives.

Understandably, many things compete for the dad's priority: job, entertainment, sports, television, new technology gadgets........... It is critical that dads make it clear to their children that they are the priority, that the most important investment is in them and that all the other "stuff" get only the leftovers. This awareness is a good start to win back the lost generation.


 
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The four days plus were not just spent on listening to talks alone. With a bit of help from our new found taxi driver friend, we explored many places to hunt for delicious food.
 
Selfie with our Senior Pastor, Renny Khoo.
We also bumped into individual whom we did not expect to meet.

At Pavilion, Bukit Bintang