Contributed by Antonia Lim
20 -22 November 2009: It was a power-packed weekend at Sunway Convention Centre, as City Harvest Church KL (CHC KL) held its Emerge KL 2009 conference with more than 3,000 delegates from Indonesia, Singapore, Taiwan and its home country, Malaysia.
The conference started with a bang as the church’s African choir and dancers performed Black Eyed Peas’ ‘I Gotta Feeling’, while the crowd danced along.
This year’s conference theme was “Emerge Rising”, and it lived up to its name in many ways. The conference saw 103 competitions, with a total of RM50,000 worth of prizes to be won from sponsors like Crocs, SenHeng, Celebrity Fitness, Everlast, Echopark, Bubba Gump, House of Picaso, Culture Couture, Imago Dei, Seasky Restaurant, Elite Optical and Spectacle Hut.
The competitions were plentiful, giving the congregation of CHC KL many opportunities to show of their myriad talents. Among the most popular were the Parade of Schools, Emerge Got Talent, Beauty Pageant & Manhunt, The Biggest Loser, Nintendo Wii games, Arm Wrestling, Jacket Design, TV Commercial, Fashion (Harajuku) Competition, and Sports Mania.
It wasn’t just one big mass competition. There were also many special performances by local celebrities throughout the weekend. Singer and songwriter Theng Xiao Kang, who wrote ‘Qing Fei De Yi’, the theme song for famous Taiwanese drama series Meteor Garden, performed and shared about how his life was transformed when he found God. Singer Wan Chean and beatboxer Shawn Lee also took to the stage to share their talent as well as their testimonies of how Jesus worked in their lives.
On the final night, singer and songwriter Will Tan, who is currently based in Taiwan, gave an awesome performance and shared about how he has been blessed by God and the church. In fact, he is currently serving in his church in Taiwan as a cell leader and a worship leader. This was a great inspiration for many of the young people present — it was powerful to see how one can reach for his or her dreams, while staying faithful in serving God.
The highlight — and the main point — of the three days of exuberance was the Word of God. Kong Hee, senior pastor of City Harvest Church (Singapore) preached powerful sermons throughout the conference that anchored the audience’s experience. He taught the youth to have the spirit of Caleb: to have a good dream that is in line with God’s will, and to have courage to work hard for it. He also instructed the congregation to always stand in unity, and to always be loyal and committed to God, their leaders and the church.
Kevin Loo, senior pastor of CHC KL was touched to see the youth rise up to a whole new level of creativity and commitment during this season of Emerge, and he hopes to continue to build a strong church together that would leave an indelible mark of revival for our generation and generations to come.
Emily Liong Mei Ling, a member of CHC KL, said, “This Emerge conference gave me an opportunity to do things that I had never done before. With the encouragement of my cell group and friends, I learned to overcome my fears and have been transformed into a more confident person.”
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| PHOTOS: Andrew Teoh | |
Even first-time visitors were deeply moved. “I love Kong’s preaching, as it is very relevant and able to penetrate to the younger generation,” said David, an engineer. “The praise and worship was excellent, and I feel that there’s a strong presence and anointing of God here.”
The spiritual atmosphere was strong throughout the five sessions of the conference, and many attendees left with a new mindset and a renewed spirit, ready to emerge and rise up to their next level.
