Interview with Raj Singh, Soul Survivor Malaysia

Raj and Margaret Singh

On the 22-25th of November, I had the privilege of joining a group of great young people making an impact in the Klang Valley, worshipping Jesus through serving the underprivileged and homeless. At the end of it all, I managed to interview the man, Ps. Raj Singh, the big guy behind Soul Survivor Malaysia who also happen to be the Senior Pastor of Christian Life Gospel Centre. Here I include the transcript of our conversation (Note : It is a recollection of the interview. The accuracy of the words and information may be disputed, but the content is almost similar to our conversation).

CW : Hi pastor, do you mind spending a few moment for an interview so that I can write something for my blog?

Raj : Yeah sure thing.

CW : So pastor, do you mind sharing a bit about yourself and your ministry?

Raj : I was in the IT industry for 9 years before I was approached to go to full time ministry. I am married with a wife and few kids, the youngest is around 2 years old.

CW : Do you take any theological training?

Raj : Prior to full time work here, I don’t . But currently I am taking bible training at a local seminary. (I glanced through his collection of books, few interesting titles :P)

CW : So let me ask you, if you can change one thing in the Malaysian Church throughout your whole life, what would it be? Or what is the greatest dissatisfaction with the church?

Raj : Wow, a hard question. Err... I think that the Malaysian Church is too middle class. I would envision a church that is less middle class, that will be able to break down social barriers, that is inclusive of the poor and marginalised.

CW : Hmm... then in a scale of 1 to 10, how would you see the Church and your church, CLGC doing in this area? Since CLGC is located in PJ town, middle class and English speaking. How well will CLGC do in this area.

Raj : I would say that our achievement today is very small. We are still learning of ways to serve the poor from other churches and ministries who started earlier and did better than us. I would say that although PJ is a middle class area, there is still a sizable community of the poor and underprivileged, for example the SS2 squatter community that we reached out to years ago through our Christmas street carnival. Now since they had relocated to the Subang Utama low cost flats, we still continue to impact them as the residents remember us when we did the gotong-royong recently. There is no need to relocate our church as the need is at the back of our doors.

CW : I see. How did CLGC come out with this vision? Is it because of your leadership or it has been around since the church came to being? How did you start to teach the church about the issue of social justice and was there any resistance?

Raj : Good question. It was never a one man show, or because of my influence of being the senior pastor. It was actually two things that changed this church. Firstly is due to a leadership crisis that happened years ago when our ex-senior pastor had fallen due to sin. The incident left the church very broken. Then some of our church members including my wife were sharing about their newfound burden, to serve the poor around the church. We started small by praying about it, serving them in small ways, and then the whole church caught the momentum. Secondly, it is through careful understanding of the word of God. If you are to read the Bible, you will realise that the theme of love and justice are the prevailing themes in many of the books. The prophets, the Gospels, the Epistles etc. I guess, it is the 2 things that changed us.

CW : Would you see social action as an integral part of the church ministry or as one of the many ministries of the church? Should a church start to care for the poor at day one since it is planted or wait until it grow to a sizable number to actually reach out to the poor?

Raj : I would see it as an integral part of the church mission. Whether a church is big or small, resourceful or less resourceful, having much or little, it is a mandate to serve the poor whatever we have. In fact, it should not be a ministry in itself, but it should be part of every ministry. The men’s ministry, the women’s ministry, children’s ministry etc. etc. can include social concern as part of their mission, no matter it is run as simple as collecting donations for the poor or going out to serve them.

CW : Perhaps I am repeating what you have said, but perhaps you would like to clarify more. Do you see a need to integrate the church across social classes or different churches to cater / reach out to different classes of society? And how do you integrate them since there is different racial groups, language groups, social class groups etc?

Raj : If we truly want to be an authentic church, we need to show to the society that although we are very different in our cultures with Malays, Chinese, Indians and other races, with different social classes, and languages, because of Christ and the power of the Gospel, we are able to pull things together as a caring vibrant community of believers. That is a great testimony to the world. Although we are not able to do this effectively now, we are learning to make the church more welcoming to the poor be it the way we run our services, the language we speak etc. If we are not able to integrate, then what different are we from the society which is so fragmented out there?

CW : Amen. That’s a powerful conviction. I guess that’s all I would want to ask. Thanks for your time.

I came back from the camp refreshed because this guy has the same conviction that I have. Woohoo! The recent polemic about Bangsa Malaysia is a good litmus test for the Church. If we truly want to be a faithful witness to the Malaysian society, we should all the more run and pursue Bangsa Malaysia as a prophetic dream for this nation, first by living out the ideals of Bangsa Malaysia within our own churches.

Malaysia bagi kemuliaan-Mu!