I received a boost from a young Australian doctor who came back for holidays and he read my book on his holidays with family in Taiwan over Christmas. His succinct comment was: “very insightful”. He is in his early 30s and this is my target audience, those in the 20s to 30s age groups, millennials (born after 1984), or in our SIB’s context, the groups that make up the third generation of believers. The first generation was those in 1940s to 1960s and the second generation are those now in their late 40s to 60s. It is my prayer that within this decade of 2020s and the next, the third generation believers will rise up to take up senior leadership posts. And my book is to fill the lacunae or vacuum in the history of church expansion and development in the past 30 years, especially in the last 25 years since I have been in full time ministry. The younger generations need to know the whys, whats and how of our belief systems, leadership structure and church growth came about.
It is no longer enough just to read the classical text like “Drunk Before Dawn” published more than 40 years ago in 1979. Much has changed over one and more generation and I believe that if the church has a future, it rests with those now in their 30s and 20s, perhaps even the 4th generation of believers in Sunday school and young teenage years. That’s why my book’s back cover has two photos of children between 5 to 12 years old, those in Sunday School, one in the interior of Kirokot and one in my home church, KK, the capital city of Sabah. And this morning I spoke with another young leader in his mid 30s and he has requested to buy a copy of my book and I pray that as he reads, he will be inspired to serve the Lord with greater devotion and love the church of Jesus Christ, even SIB with greater fervour and burden to see it advance and make an impact in Malaysia.
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