On 22 and 23 April 2022, Alpha Malaysia collaborated with World Vision Malaysia and Barna Group to host the final installment of the Faith for the Future forum, Faith for the Future 3.0! We launched The Connected Generation in Malaysia: Engaging Millennials in Leadership, Evangelism, and Social Justice report and unpacked it during the forum alongside several local panelists sharing their thoughts and experiences of working with Millennials.
This was a two-day forum where the first day was fully held online and the second day was hybrid where participants could attend either physically or online. We were blessed to be able to host over 220 participants from 108 churches and organisations!
Day 1
22 April 2022
Our emcees, Eunice Jalin from Alpha Malaysia and Raymond Pu from World Vision Malaysia kicked started the forum with a welcome and recap of the Faith for the Future series; in 2020, Alpha Malaysia and World Vision Malaysia jointly hosted the inaugural Faith for the Future forum. We invited Barna to release the largest-ever global study on Millennials, unpacking their attitudes towards Christianity and contextualising the findings for Malaysia. In 2021, amid a global pandemic, the “Faith for the Future 2.0 – Into a Digital Era” forum was done virtually to further explore ways of engaging millennials to become resilient Christian leaders and their perspectives on faith in the digital era.
We were then led by Cornerstone Community Church Borneo in a time of worship. After that, we went into the first session, ‘Overview of The Connected Generation in Malaysia’, where Daniel Copeland, the Director of Research Services in Barna Group, unveiled the three parts of the research findings – Leadership, Evangelism, and Social Justice. In each of these parts, there was a time of question and answer where we dived deeper to the data that was shared.
“It is important for us to recognise how they perceive pastors so that pastors can be a great ally for them in their leadership journey.“
Daniel Copeland, Director of Research Services in Barna Group
Day 2
23 April 2022
The second day of the Faith for the Future 3.0 forum was held hybrid where we welcomed participants that joined us physically in Holy Trinity Bukit Bintang (HTBB), Kuala Lumpur and even those who were tuning online. We started the forum with worship by Joseph Lim, Worship Pastor at Kuala Lumpur Baptist Church, and Priscilla Khor, 5:00 PM Service and Campus Lead at HTBB.
The first session of the day was led by Paul Kong, National Director of Alpha Malaysia, where he shared about, ‘Encouraging Faith Exploration’. Based on the research, one of the findings that he shared was that 58% rated that letting your actions speak rather than using words is the preferred method when sharing your faith with someone.
“Let us move from a critical spirit to a contrite heart.”
Paul Kong, National Director of Alpha Malaysia
During this session, we had the opportunity to hear the testimony from Fui, former CEO of Kaodim, and Reverend Allan Kong, Senior Pastor of Holy Light Tun Aminah Presbyterian Church. Reverend Allan Kong also shared the importance of connecting with Millennials.
“Having conversations and a sense of belonging are powerful factors in the Millennial generation.”
Reverend Allan Kong, Senior Pastor of Holy Light Tun Aminah Presbyterian Church
This was followed by the second session, ‘Engaging for Social Impact’, where Terry Leong, CEO of World Vision Malaysia, was joined by panelists, Margaret Loy, CEO of Community Transformation Initiative, Cheryl Ann Fernando, CEO of Pemimpin GLS Malaysia, Anderson Selvasegaram, Executive Director of SUKA Society, Terence Ooi, Co-Founder of Wiki Pimpact, and Ninian Tian, Advocacy Manager of World Vision Malaysia. It was an interesting session where they discussed the missing element regarding the research finding that only 25% of Christian Millennials say that their church helped them to understand social justice better.
“The English-speaking churches have a greater responsibility to do advocacy at the policy level. We need to see that as a positive thing when we advocate for the common good, not just for believers.”
Margaret Loy, CEO of Community Transformation Initiative
The last session of the forum sees Reverend Abel Cheah, Leadership Development Director of Alpha Asia Pacific and also a Curate at HTBB, hosting the ‘Millennial Leadership’ panel. He was joined by Pastor Sabrina Low, Lead Pastor in Cornerstone Community Church Borneo, Pastor Andy Yeoh, Associate Pastor and Coordinator of Acts Teens in ACTS Church, and Pastor Doctor Chew, Senior Pastor in SIBKL. During the panel session, there were many things to takeaway from. Many of which were mentioned by Pastor Sabrina where she said, “What I cannot mistake is these younger people will always align to the older generation. Joshua had Moses, Esther had Mordecai, Elisha had Elijah, even Timothy had Paul. You saw the alignment of generations that came together. What helped and empowered me to function as a Millennial leader in the church was that generational alignment”.
We are grateful that we had this opportunity to organise this forum for the third and final time with World Vision Malaysia and Barna Group. It was a blessing to have done this over three years and to produce our very own Malaysian study on Millennials.
Visit here to find out more about the research and also download it. The research is available in English, Bahasa Malaysia, and Mandarin!
