MMI Ministry Report

Malaysia

September 12-15, 2014

I was excited to be able to finally come to Malaysia to be with Pastor Ong Sek Leang, the pastor of the Metro Tabernacle in Kuala Lumpur. Pastor Ong is the leader of the Assemblies of God in the nation as well as the president of the Pentecostal World Conference for all of Asia. That being said, he is one of the most influential Christian leaders in all of Asia. Metro Tabernacle, a church of several thousand believers, is also one of the largest churches in the nation and is located in one of the most non-Christian regions in the nation (which is mostly Muslim and Hindu).

Since Malaysia is on the other side of the world, it took me and my spiritual son who accompanied me (Ted Wroblewski) two days of travel to arrive in Kuala Lumpur.  As of this writing, we still have not adopted to the change in the time zone (12 hours ahead of New York). Thus, it has been a physically difficult trip, but one that was well worth it for the sake of the relationships forged and the seed sown for the Kingdom of God.

Friday Night (September 12)

On Friday night, I ministered in a specially called meeting of the leaders and attendees of the church. In spite of the fact they don’t normally have church services on Friday nights, there were about 400 people in attendance. Pastor Ong asked me to focus my weekend of ministry on “Generations”. Hence, I taught on the generational implications of the “Cultural Mandate” found in Genesis 1:27-28. God gave me a strong teaching anointing and at the end of the message I called up all the parents and married couples so they could receive the Elijah anointing to perpetuate a generational blessing in their families and church. Hundreds came to the front and when we began praying, it was like a canopy of glory came down upon the people and the presence of God was very strong. God moved powerfully and brought this influential church to a greater level of understanding how the gospel of the kingdom must have a generational component.

Saturday Night (September 13)

This night I continued my series on the “Generational Kingdom” and taught some more of the implications of the “Cultural Mandate”. Also I unpacked one of the most profound passages of Scripture in the entire Bible, Genesis 3:15, which teaches us that the nature of the conflict between God and Satan is between their two seeds and, hence, spiritual and ideological warfare are always generational. There was a very strong teaching anointing, but barely a word from the congregation (there was no yelling out amen or shouting as I am used to in Africa, Latin America and North America). These folks are not as emotional, but by the response of the altar calls and the hunger people have for the books I brought I could tell that God was laying a very solid apostolic foundation in this great church, which brought a lot of balance in their understanding of the kingdom of God and how the “Cultural Mandate” of Genesis 1:27-28 cannot be fulfilled if we bypass marriage and family.

Sunday (September 14)

10am Service

On this day I preached in their Sunday morning 10am service that had about 2,000 people in attendance with another 500-1,000 more in youth-related services in a different part of the building. God gave me a pastoral message on “Understanding the Father/Heart of God” with the objective of seeing people released from the trauma of “father wounds” and an “orphan spirit” so they can represent God correctly and bring the generational anointing to their children. At the end about 200 folks responded to the altar call so they could receive the anointing to break generational curses related to father abandonment.

2pm Seminar

To take advantage of my short time in Malaysia, Pastor Ong called for a special two hour seminar right after the lunchtime break. Since this is not a usual occurrence, Pastor Ong was pleasantly surprised when he saw about 400 people sign up to participate in this seminar.

God gave me great liberty to teach further on “The Generational Aspect of the Kingdom of God” and I was able to drill down deeper regarding how the church relates to their communities, the marketplace, culture and the role of marriage and family to bring long-term systemic change in their nation. I challenged them to focus on discipling their young children, both through the parents and the church, and to train their children for leadership in every realm and sector of society.

At the end, we had strong simultaneous prayer as hundreds came to the front and dedicated their lives to restore families and bring the gospel of the kingdom by serving their communities.

Monday (September 15)

On this day, I had an informal breakfast with 12 of the leading pastors of the nation as Pastor Ong asked me to share and answer questions regarding how the church should intersect with the marketplace and the role of the church in culture.

I met many great leaders and had a robust dialogue for several hours as they asked poignant questions related to how the church could interact with business and marketplace leaders. I also taught for 30 minutes or more regarding how the kingdom of God is the highest mountain in culture (Isaiah 2:1-4), that the church is part of the kingdom mountain and not included in one of the mountains of culture, but called to train and release believers to become the gatekeepers in each of the mountains of culture so we can have societal transformation. I taught that the church needs to influence culture from the bottom up, not just the top down, by influencing music, arts, media and not just politics and economics. I taught that the main way a church gains influence in a community is to serve it and meet the practical needs of the people. They were all interested in us continuing the discussion and the door is open now for me to come back to Malaysia in the future to have a larger, more inclusive gathering of leaders and churches.

What a wonderful church and wonderful leadership God has provided in this great nation. I hope to come back again in the next year.