On February 13, Alpha Malaysia had our first event for the year – a church leaders’ forum titled ‘Faith for the Future‘, held at HTBB Church Kuala Lumpur. The event was held in collaboration with World Vision Malaysia and Barna Group, with the purpose to equip church leaders in the engagement of Gen Z-ers and Millennials. It was a great privilege to host over 600 people from more than 160 churches at the event.
The event started with worship that was led by the members of Holy Trinity Bukit Bintang church (HTBB). We then moved on with the first session, ‘From Chaos to Connection’ where Daniel Copeland, Director of Research at the Barna Group, presented on the research findings. The data was collected after studying 25 countries which included over 15,000 young adults in 9 languages all across the world. For Asia, they conducted 28,000 online interviews and in different languages.
This generation needs an emotionally connected church because the biggest battles that they are going to face in their entire life is right in front of them.
The church leaders were surprised when Daniel Copeland said, “This generation needs an emotionally connected church because the biggest battles that they are going to face in their entire life is right in front of them.” He added, “they (Gen Z and Millennials) need an emotionally connected church to walk through the positives and negatives and tell them that they are loved.”
Mark Sayers, Senior Pastor of Red Church in Melbourne, Australia, expressed that the concept of having a sense of ’personal chaos’, is a reaction of the world becoming more modern. He mentioned, “In Malaysia, you have different cultural and religious groups but in the millennial generation, you are multicultural and multi-spaced within yourself.” After what was said by both presenters, the church leaders had the opportunity to break into small groups to discuss their opinions about the subject matter.
In Malaysia, 80% of them believe that religion is good and important.
After the break, the event went into the second session. The topic was on ‘Making and Growing Disciples’. According to the research, 57% of young adults “dropped out” of their Christian faith because they no longer identify or they identify nominally but they do not attend. In Malaysia, 80% of them believe that religion is good and important. Daniel Copeland added, “But around the world we are seeing this global rise in the trend of neutrality, harmful, and detrimental.”
During the panel discussion, Pastor Philip Lyn, Pastor Andy Yeoh, Pastor Gwen Choo, and Joshua Jesudasan with moderators Abel Cheah and Raymond Pu, shared their thoughts on this topic. They all agreed when Joshua said that there is a need to create a space that is safe for them (younger generation) to fail. Pastor Gwen added, “I realise that Millennials are hungry for the word of God. They want to learn, they want depth but also want relevancy at the same time.”
Only 1 in 10 young adults say, “I’m a leader in my church or faith community”.
During the final session, Daniel Copeland spoke on the topic of ‘Building Leaders’. Based on the research, only 1 in 10 young adults say “I’m a leader in my church or faith community” and about a third of young adults around the world say that “I have never considered myself a leader.” Pastor Philip Lyn addressed this statement by mentioning, “The future is not us (Boomers) but the future lies with us.” Which proposes that the Baby Boomers are responsible for the upbringing of the Gen Z-ers and Millennials.
Overall, we are grateful that we had this opportunity to organise this educational yet fun event with World Vision Malaysia and Barna Group. We are excited to embark on this journey into engaging with the Gen Z-ers and Millennials and bringing up the next generation of faithful Christian leaders.
Click here to view the event photo album.