TRAC PRESIDENT’S WELCOME MESSAGE

Dear Brothers and Sisters,
 

Greetings in the name of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.
 

We warmly welcome brothers and sisters to the 49th Session TRAC at Port Dickson Methodist Centre. We are joined with gratitude and thanksgiving as we conference together for the 49th Session TRAC. We praise and thank God for His counsel, wisdom, love and grace. God carried us and led us through a quadrennium that was filled with many challenges as we rebuild ministries and engaged in Kingdom work following the aftermath of the pandemic devastation. 
 

We praise and thank God for brothers and sisters in all our churches, joining hands co-labouring together with one heart and one voice, navigating courageously and faithfully under God’s leading; breaking free from the shackles of the 3½ year pandemic and its many lockdowns. 
 

Thank you, brothers and sisters, for courageously answering the call to emerge, enlist and engage obediently, responding to God’s leading as He sends us forth for the redeeming and restructuring work in our Conference. Keeping our eyes on God, joining our hands serving Him as He leads, we have grown and become stronger in our faith, trust and obedience. Thus, we look forward to the new quadrennium, building upon the work God is doing us, going and growing deep. 
 

The new quadrennium marks the 140th year of Methodism in Malaysia and building-up to the 140th year Anniversary in 2025, TRAC conducted the following this year:
 

1. weekend seminars, Passion for Salvation – Our Methodist Heartbeat, at district level. This is the attribute God has anointed upon us, to bring the gospel to our neighbours and to disciple them. 
    
2. we further engage and involve young Methodists in our Conference with Project 140, where our youths and young adults are invited to dig deeper into the life of their local church, and the impact and influence their church imprinted upon their community and the nation. Project 140 employs the multimedia to record and preserve in video and print the church’s journey as God breathes upon her His Spirit, sending her forth to do His work and His will. The birth of the Methodist Church in Malaysia began with the first sermon by Bishop Thoburn, ‘“Not by might, nor by power, but by My Spirit,” saith the Lord Almighty.’ 
    

Every church in TRAC has its own account and story of the mighty movement of God’s Spirit leading and guiding her. The more we know about our church, the deeper we love and appreciate our church; recognising her existence and purpose as part of God’s mighty work in our beloved nation. We recognise this as we begin a new quadrennium in 2025, hence we bow with gratitude and thanksgiving for we are joined the multitude of saints who had gone before us, woven together in the tapestry of the life of the Methodist Church in Malaysia, set apart for God’s will and purpose.  
 

We look forward to a blessed and meaningful 49th Session TRAC as God gathers us unto Himself. Christian Conferencing is a means of grace. It leads us to a fuller understanding of our calling, centring our lives in God and with one another, thus we follow Jesus faithfully; growing in holiness, in the common life we have in Christ, His faithful disciples.   
 

Please continue to uphold in prayers, the Local Planning Committee, our brothers and sisters in the Eastern District, and their District Superintendent the Revd. Gaurri Maniam, as they plan and prepare for the 49th Session TRAC. We praise and thank God for them. 
 

See you at PDMC on the 15-17 November 2024, brothers and sisters. 
 

 

Blessings,
TRAC President Revd. Joshua Khong
Trinity Annual Conference