Abel Cheah loves to start a group discussion by asking, “Who do you think Jesus is?” He pastors a church in Kuala Lumpur, the capital and largest city of Malaysia. This growing crossroads of Asia is like a Times Square of many cultures and faith backgrounds, so he’s accustomed to quite a variety of responses. A Hindu may reply that Jesus is one of hundreds of gods, and a Buddhist might say that Jesus was a great teacher.
On this particular evening, Abel heard something totally new: “I think Jesus is like a cat,” the man said. Abel immediately glanced around the room at the handful of people he knew were already Christians. He saw eyebrows raised, but no one voiced a correction. Instead, Abel simply replied, “That’s really interesting.” Others soon chimed in with their own views, and the conversation moved on.
The man returned weekly for more discussions about spiritual matters. After about two months, he said something that gave meaning to his cat statement. He explained that he had grown up in abusive relationships where he couldn’t trust people who had power over him. The only childhood relationship that he associated with something good was with his cat. So when he said Jesus was like a cat, he was associating Jesus with safety and peace.
Over time, this man found that same safety and peace in a faith relationship with Jesus—along with love, forgiveness, truth and grace.
“That’s the power of a conversation that makes space for grace,” Abel says. “We’ve seen God give amazing growth to our church, especially during these times of social polarity, as we invite people to talk in settings where we hold out both truth and grace together.”
Space for Conversation
Abel and his wife Jacintha this year became the senior pastors of Holy Trinity Bukit Bintang. They had come to the church as young professionals in 2015, when the church was almost a year old. Both were from families of first-generation Christians—Abel’s parents finding Christ in small towns in the northern part of Malaysia, and Jacintha’s parents from a tribe of headhunters, who were violent and often drunk over 100 years ago, but who heard the gospel from three missionaries, and experienced a complete societal transformation since then.
As such, both Abel and Jacintha were eager to grow with a church that was committed to showing the relevance of Christ to a religiously and ethnically diverse population such as Kuala Lumpur, where only 9% of the population identifies with Christ. In fact, the church’s entire formation, invited by Bishop Moon Hing and pastored for a decade by Miles Toulmin, was framed around reaching young Malaysians in a way that might revitalize the wider church in the region and beyond. Even today the church is populated by many young adults, with the average age being 37—the same age as Abel.
The church, currently numbering about 2,200 adults and children, gathers for worship and preaching on Sundays (three English services and two Mandarin). During the week, it serves the community, such as through a local food bank.
But the biggest portion of people who have come to faith in Jesus through the church have come through the Alpha Course, a 10-week series of small group meetings designed to help people process life’s biggest questions. Alpha covers everything from the purpose of suffering to the meaning of life to the relevance of Jesus. In its 11 years of life, the church has already run Alpha 35 times, roughly three times a year.
“Alpha is not just a tool or a program of the church, but an operating system, a culture of evangelism and invitation that makes safe conversational spaces accessible for the seeker,” Abel explains. “When we create the environment for hospitality and a space for conversation, the Lord will save people.”
Indeed, each recent year in the life of the church has seen at least 100 people baptized, as new people have found faith and a community of friends for doing life together.
Who Is God?
“When we talk about God here, the question is often which God is true—or which God shows himself more powerfully?” Abel notes. Many weigh the gospel much like in Elijah’s day (1 Kings 18:21–39). Some encounter signs and wonders, unexpected peace and even dreams—as Abel’s mother did, meeting Jesus as not only real, but also more powerful than anything she’d trusted before. With a majority of people in Kuala Lumpur believing in the supernatural, and with fewer agnostics than in the West, that spiritual landscape shapes the church’s posture: patient with questions, attentive to culture, and bold about Jesus.
In a city of many voices, Holy Trinity Bukit Bintang keeps making space for grace, trusting God to make himself known, with the outcome of many people putting their trust in Christ.
HOLY TRINITY BUKIT BINTANG
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Pastor: Abel Cheah
Website: HTBB.org
Founded: 2014
Denomination: Anglican
Attendance: 2,200