Jaime Sim was a very friendly and inquisitive journalist. And I’m encouraged by her desire to see how we can keep Christians in Malaysia and worldwide informed on what’s happening here in her home country.

The result of our “conversation” 🙂 resulted in this piece Influential Speaker Brian McLaren to Address Modern Challenges to Church, a title which she chose. I thought it was interesting what she decided to highlight as far as what I said … (and I said a lot of things!), Here are two that came out:

“We do not see this [event] as a conference… to promote a programme or a quick-fix or one size-fit-all solution for the problems before us. For us, we just want to create a space and opportunity for people to talk and to listen, and also connect with those exploring similar concerns”

“emergentMalaysia wants to create the possibilities of moving forward, which is the heart of the whole idea for conversations like this…,”

I was also deeply delighted to get an email from my friend Tony Jones who is the National Coordinator, Emergent Village. Now, surely the content of our conversations we have in Malaysia will probably be different in substance and in tone compared to our friends around the world. And yet, at the same time, there may be areas that we may converge due to this increasingly globalized world – and the common influences we have had in our Christian development. I think there is also the awareness that we cannot be isolated from each other as we all seek to understand, live and practice the Gospel in our time and age. 🙂

Anyway, I’ll come back to Tony’s kind affirming words to us, “Terima Kasih” (Thank you in Malay):

“You’ve got friends around the world, which bespeaks the true spirit of emergence that is building around the world. We’re praying for your wonderful event here in the States, and I’m confident that God will bless it richly! “