Church planting in Malaysia by the 'natural way'

Five years ago, a young Filipino couple, W and J, worshipped at our church in Singapore. J had been saved in the Philippines. W, her husband was saved in Singapore. They were active in church – serving in different ministries, including inviting people to church. J was the organist for the Filipino congregation.

Shortly after W was saved, he was transferred by his company to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. We initially received the news with sadness because they were such a blessing to our little Filipino congregation. Before the left they asked for the names and addresses of possible churches to join in KL.

After several months of visiting different churches in KL, which were doctrinally similar, they could not find one that was suitable for their family. One was found to be unfriendly to them – possibly because they were not familiar to welcoming Filipinos into their midst. Another was friendlier but was not evangelistic. Their basic dissatisfaction with all the churches was that the churches did not reach out to the lost. They were used to a church that was evangelistic. In fact, this was the only type of church that W had ever known, so to him a non-evangelistic church was not really a church at all.

When they shared their dissatisfaction with me, I suggested to them that maybe the Lord wanted them to start a church that would reach out to others, especially the Filipinos in KL. So without hesitation they invited the Filipinos in their condominium to a meeting in their apartment the next Sunday. To everyone’s surprise, about ten came for that first meeting. A Filipino deacon from our Singapore congregation happened to be in Malaysia at that time and he “conducted” the service in the sitting-room of their apartment.

The next Sunday I went to KL to preach to about 15 people – their neighbours and their friends. It was exciting to see how God used this couple to plant a church in a country where it is not possible to send a traditional missionary.

God used W, who was a babe in Christ, a busy engineer, a busy father of a young boy and a newbie in Malaysia to plant a church in Malaysia. And God used J who was holding a busy internet job, a mother of a young child, and still grappling with life in a new country to trust God to step out in faith with her husband.

“But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise…..That no flesh should glory in his presence” 1 Cor 1:27-29.