Berita TAC, Issue 2 2017

not contain himself when he saw the
elderly pastors on their knees and in
tears. The young Provisional
Conference based itself to be ‘selfsupporting,
self-propagating and selfgoverning’
by trusting God. We have
come a long way now and the recent
survey and statistics speaks of our
growth and strength. We had an
interesting Q&A session after that. He
voiced his concern that the only way our TAC’s Mission is to be achieved is through Evangelism.
Thus, he challenged all Pastors, Leaders and churches to rise up to the call of Evangelism without
delay.
The next talk was on ‘Methodist Schools in Malaysia’ by Mr. S.Selvaraj. In the 19 th century
Christian missionaries were the pioneers of education in the then, Malaya. They served as
principals/ teachers and church pastors. Methodist mission schools saw their birth in the 1880s.
At present, we have 49 Methodist primary schools, 26 secondary schools and 6 private schools.
We also have 2 private colleges. He pointed out that our Methodist strategy is to produce ACE
students – which means Academic excellence, Character development and Extra-curricular
achievement. Apart from our private schools/ institutions, we have lost our distinctive Christian
ethos and character in our government aided schools. His session interestingly ended with some
thought provoking questions such as: 1. Home skills are neglect in schools – why? 2. Is it possible
for TAC to take control of our own Tamil schools? 3. What is the challenge the church faces? 4.
Why can’t the private education be brought into our students? 5. Many of our Methodist
members are ignorant of the Methodist Discipline – how are we to overcome this?
After a challenging talk on education, Mr. Goh Keat Seng shared on ‘Bringing Church History Back
to Life’. He described the difference between Church Archivist, a qualified person and Church
Historian, anyone can be appointed, no need for any qualification. Then we all stood up to sing
the song, ‘Find us Faithful’. History is ministry. History is a source of inspiration. History helps us
in understanding who we are. He gave a description of the responsibilities of a church historian.
Writing our church history is basically to tell the story of God at work in the life of our
congregation. The 3 fold purpose is to
gather and preserve the record of
faithful witnesses through the years,
to teach the members and friends of
the congregation for now and in the
future and to help our church to see its
ministry and mission as an ongoing
pilgrimage in maintaining the church
history and records.
Mr. Gopal Sundaram presented the
final talk on Methodist Heritage. He shared 7 points; we come from a heritage of a Holy Club, a
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