Empowered 21 Asia Congress 2017
Everyone with the most rudimentary knowledge of Christianity knows the most significant revival during the past several centuries was the Pentecostal revival that began at a mission-church on Azusa Street, Los Angeles, USA around April 1906. From that revival missionaries filled with the Holy Spirit went to the nations of the world preaching the Full Gospel. Many church research scholars believe without the Azusa Street Pentecostal revival, Christianity today would be a dead or dying religion.
Just the opposite, today Christians of all different types of faiths and persuasions make up to 2.4 billion of the world’s population, and recent research indicates that up to 760 million may be of the Pentecostal or Charismatic persuasion. The clear majority of all Christians in Asia, in which up to two-thirds of the world’s population lives, are Pentecostal in belief.
Many churches in Asia are some of the largest in the world and the growth is far beyond that of population growth. For example, in 1995 Christians in Taiwan were only 2.9% of the population. But twenty years later in 2015, it had grown to 6.3%, a growth of 3.4%. However, during those 20 years the population of Taiwan only grew from 21 to 23 million, a growth of only 0.9%.
Yet it is significant to note that in many Western nations in Europe and North America, the church is in great decline. I personally believe the reason is the backsliding from preaching the Pentecostal message to motivational preaching and the prosperity Gospel. We see the warning of this backsliding in Hebrews 2:1-4.
Empowered 21 is a world-wide movement in which Pentecostal/Charismatic Christians gather together at various major capitals in different parts of the world to reaffirm the truths of the Pentecostal revival, and to pass the vision, message and mantle to the younger generation.
The official publication of Empowered 21 Asia Congress 2017 states, “Empowered 21 is a global movement, dedicated to the move of the Holy Spirit amongst new generations in the 21st century. Birthed in 2008, Empowered 21 was quickly seen as a natural kingdom-wide follow-up to the 2006 Azusa Street Centennial.”
The Vision is: “That every person on Earth would have an authentic encounter with Jesus Christ through the Power and Presence of the Holy Spirit by Pentecost 2033.” The Mission is: “Empowered 21 will help shape the future of the global Spirit-empowered movement throughout the world by focusing on crucial issues facing the movement and connecting generations for inter-generational blessing and impartation.”
This year’s Empowered 21 Asia Congress was held at the Singapore Expo Hall 31st May – 2nd June, and over 7,400 delegates from virtually every Asian nation attended. There was powerfully anointed worship, preaching and teaching, and hundreds were baptized in the Holy Spirit. One of the focus was the ‘passing on of the baton’ from father to daughter, father to son, etc.
Thus there were several such ‘family ministry’ teams such as Pastor Niko Njotorahardjo of Indonesia who is passing the ministry to his son Bill (their congregation has grown to more than 250,000); the main sponsoring church Faith Community Baptist Church of Singapore (over 10,000 members) in which Pastor Lawrence Khong is passing the baton to his son Daniel Khong; Dr. Colton Wickramaratne of the mega-church, People’s Church in Colombo, Sri Lanka, who gave the church to his son Dishan; myself who gave my church, Revival Christian Church in Hong Kong to my daughter Sharon and her husband Samuel Lau over 10 years ago; Lee Seung Bang of the 1,000 member All Nations Church in Jeju, Korea, who has handed the ministry to his daughter Esther; and Pastor César Castellanos of the International Charismatic Mission in Bogota, Columbia (over 150,000 members) who is passing the ministry to his daughter Sara and her husband. Also, one of the speakers was David Yonggi Cho, the founder of the 800,000-strong Yoido Full Gospel Church in Seoul, Korea, who years ago handed the church over to the younger successor, Rev. Young Hoon Lee.
Also during the conference, five older Asian church leaders were honored for their life-time service and leadership in Asia: Dr. David Yonggi Cho (Korea); Rev. Dr. Colton Wickramaratne (Sri Lanka); Rev. David Mohan (India); Pastor Dennis Balcombe (Hong Kong); Tan Sri (Dr) Prince Guneratnam (Malaysia); and Rev. Canon Dr. James Wong (Singapore).
Also, one of the main speakers who conducted several large evangelical rallies after the conference was Evangelist Daniel Kolenda, who received the mantle of evangelism through the power of the Holy Spirit from German evangelist Reinhard Bonnke. He is now carrying on the work of this most famous evangelist in Africa and many other nations.
The Theme of the conference was “Wind and Fire”, and it is the vision of this ministry that the wind and fire of the Biblical day of Pentecost and Azusa Street will be passed down to all succeeding generations. While this movement may be in decline in the West, it is growing and powerful throughout much of Asia, India and the Indian sub-continent, South East Asia, Africa and South America.
At the same time, renewed persecution not seen in decades is now coming to the churches in our part of the world, especially in China, India, Pakistan, Malaysia, Indonesia and even Russia. This is the work of the forces of darkness working in religions and government establishments, as the Spirit-filled churches in these nations are literally ‘possessing the gates of hell’ and rescuing millions from the snare of the enemy.
While we are generally experiencing unprecedented revival in most of Asia, we also are facing great challenges and must preach the Gospel with power and demonstration of the gifts of the Holy Spirit to the 4.47 billion people living in Asia. Thus Empowered 21 Asia was one of the most significant events I have seen in many years.
Dennis Balcombe, Hong Kong
