Equip Gospel Ministries in Malaysia

Andrew Cheah / Dean, St Mary’s Cathedral in Kuala Lumpur Malaysia

Equip Gospel Ministries *1 began more than a decade ago—initially as a way of making the Moore Preliminary Theological Certificate materials accessible to people in Malaysia. Since then, it has, by God’s grace, taught Biblical Theology to just over 2000 Malaysian Christians using the Bible Overview course, *2 used the other certificate level courses to further strengthen Biblical literacy across churches, trained believers in other ministry skills, and begun to work in the national language. Equip seeks to develop into a tertiary level Christian training institution that is reformed, evangelical, and centered on the gospel. Its mission now is to help prepare Christians in Malaysia for gospel-centered ministry, in partnership with local churches, through Biblical, theological and ministry skills training.

1 Equip is seeking to develop its theological education program as a gospel-centered, Biblically faithful and academically rigorous training provider. It seeks to produce graduates who love God and his Word, whose lives are centered on Christ and his gospel, and who handle Scripture in a humble and faithful way, being well informed by Biblical Theology.

2 Bible Overview (known in Australia as ‘Introduction to the Bible’) is the first course in the Equip-MBS Certificate in Theology. The materials for the whole Certificate are generously supplied by Moore College’s Centre for Global Mission (CGM). We are currently getting about 500 subject enrollments in the certificate course each year. Students access the materials through the Moodle that is kindly hosted for Equip on Moore’s servers. We are also thankful for theological graduates from Moore as well as local graduates who help mark our exams.

Equip’s ministry can be illustrated by how God has used it in the life of one student. Dinesh Natorajan is a Malaysian Christian who now pastors one of the congregations at his local church, St Mary’s Cathedral in Kuala Lumpur.

Dinesh came to Christ from a Hindu background after being invited to church by a friend. A few months after his conversion, he did the Bible Overview course with Equip that was being run at his church. This early introduction to Biblical Theology enabled him to see how the whole Bible fits together and is centered on Christ and his gospel.

As he continued to grow in his faith, Dinesh was involved in various church ministries and training. He learnt to share his faith with others and to help nurture believers through speaking the truth in love. He also did more subjects in the Certificate in Theology to equip him to do this better. Eventually, he was asked to consider doing an apprenticeship at his church. He left behind his job as a scientist to serve Jesus in this role.

During his apprenticeship, Dinesh continued to grow. In addition to the practical training he received, Dinesh continued with his certificate level studies using the Moore PTC materials throughout his apprenticeship. He also trained in expository preaching through the Centre for Expository Preaching (a ministry of the Klang Valley Bible Conference) *3 and in personal ministry through some modules that Equip also provided in partnership with the Christian Counselling Education Foundation (CCEF).

3 Klang Valley Bible Conference exists to promote expository teaching in Malaysia.

With the support of his home church, following his apprenticeship he enrolled through Equip in the Master of Divinity program at the Malaysia Bible Seminary (MBS). As an Equip student, most of his subjects have been taught by Equip lecturers. Some of his Equip subjects were delivered through the materials provided by the Timothy Partnership, while others were taught by teachers who flew in for intensives, or who taught weekly on Zoom through the pandemic. These included lecturers and graduates from Moore College and other like-minded institutions. Throughout this time, Dinesh remained active in his local church, gradually taking on more pastoral responsibilities there. Dinesh is now serving full time as a pastor while finishing off the last two subjects in his degree.

We in Malaysia are very grateful to God for people like Dinesh and for the kingdom mindedness of our partners like Moore College that makes his training through Equip possible. However, the development of the ministry does not end here. We recognise that the Moore PTC material in Bahasa Malaysia has great potential for training leaders for many indigenous churches. We are seeking to work with churches to help them see the potential of theological training, and to help them run courses in our local certificate program. We are also seeking to improve and further develop the English language diploma and degree programs, especially in the area of theological community. We are in the process of merging our ministries with that of the Klang Valley Bible Conference. This will strengthen the place of Biblical exposition in our training. In the longer term, we are seeking to develop our own local faculty to teach at degree level. Please be praying with us that God would enable us to see these things happen.

Over the years, God has blessed us with visionaries who have worked hard to see the ministry grow. In the early days, we were blessed with a small, dedicated team of volunteers which became our board. We have been given committed staff—including the Rev Tim Nicholls, a Moore graduate who served as our Ministry Director from 2015 to 2020 and, under God, oversaw a significant growth in the ministry. We have recently welcomed a new Ministry Director, the Rev Tan Kay Hoe, who is leading the newly combined staff team. Please pray that God would continue to supply the people we need for this ministry.

In the end, our hope is in the God whom we worship. It is his gospel we proclaim, his Word that we teach, his church which we seek to serve, and his people that we seek to equip. Our humble prayer is that God, in his mercy, would continue his work in Malaysia, and, if he sees fit, would continue to use Equip for his kingdom and glory.