Community of Praise Church, Malaysia ~ Tales of Little Grey Rabbit 「リトル・グレー・ラビットの物語」

Community of Praise Kuala Lumpur is the 1st church established by Community of Praise Baptist Church (Singapore). The church was attented by my late cousin previously.

Community of Praise Malaysia later began its own journey to expand their ministries in Malaysia, and India too. *Note: Ccmmunity of Praise Malaysia had nothing to do with Community of Praise Singapore.

This is some information from: http://www.copchurch.com/about/our-history/

Our journey started in June 1996 when 4 couples met at the home of the Andersons (Ian and Wendy) to seek what God was saying to them. They met each week, continually seeking God. They eventually asked Pastor Charles Carrol from Community of Praise Baptist Church in Singapore to meet with them. He came together with Matthew Pang and agreed God was doing something in our midst, “that the Spirit was heavy upon him” and that he would seek the CPBC council approval for us to come under their covering.

After much prayer and discussion with Pastor Charles Carrol, Sunday services were started on 17th January, 1997 with 27 people in attendance at the home of the Andersons in Lingkungan U-Thant, Kuala Lumpur.

Subsequently, Ian Anderson and Peter Zimmerman were appointed the Founding Elders of Community of Praise in Malaysia. Thus Community of Praise Kuala Lumpur was “born of the flesh and of the Spirit”.

Pastor Steve of CPBC together with different pastors from CPBC traveled to KL every weekend to preach, teach, consult, train or to just encourage the enthusiastic team of early leaders. Subsequently, COP Kuala Lumpur became strong enough to stand on its own by God’s grace. CPBC’s direct involvement tapered off and finally ceased altogether.

As CoP Kuala Lumpur grew, the congregation’s needs also grew. It needed bigger premises, a full time pastor, more staff, etc. It was at this juncture, in 2000, that the church began to worship at the Methodist Centre for Women and Children in Ulu Klang. Rev Todd Nelson from Texas was recruited to lead the church as its Senior Pastor. He was ably assisted by Rev Rudy Liu and Pastor Edward Nathaniel. These three and their spouses (Jeni Nelson, Pastor Ruby Liu and Elsie Nathaniel) together with Ian and Wendy Anderson were appointed as Elders of CoP Kuala Lumpur.

In January 2002 CoP Kuala Lumpur welcomed Pastor Joel Kumar and his wife Angeline Kumar to head the Tamil Work in the Ampang area. In February 2002, Brother Paul Packianathan and his wife Sister Victoria Packianathan also joined us to assist in the Tamil Work. Pastor Joel & his family left CoP in December 2002 to look for greener pastures.

After his ordination, Rev Paul Packianathan took charge of our Tamil Work on 01.01.2003 when it became a local church named CoP Taman Wahyu.

On 01.05.2007, CoP Petaling Jaya was added to our fold.

Subsequently, in Tamil Nadu, India, two more churches were instituted – CoP Perungudi and CoP Saidapet.

Currently CoP is a church that is run solely by Malaysians and is purely supported by its members.

This is a very brief account of our origin and growth. Details will be added as they are compiled as much of the info was lost in the challenging period in December 2002.

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