The United Methodist Church is a global missionary church that is on the verge of bringing the good news to the people who have not received it as yet. Like any other missionary church, there are lots of difficulties the church has to encounter. The leaders have to concentrate on the wellbeing of their people even before they start spreading the gospel. For the past few years, there has been some missionary work going on in Malaysia. Vietnamese and other ethnic groups found in the country are constantly wrongly accused and imprisoned, overworked, and even heavily fined for issues that do not necessarily impose a particular penalty. For the mission in Malaysia to be successful, the leaders have to be ready to get down to the standards of living of local people and then educate them based on their level. They have to make such decisions as building churches in prisons and attracting the prisoners to join the church. For the enslaved people, the church has the obligation to fight for them till the time of their sentence is over. For this church and any other organization, the management must make decisions bearing in mind that these choices shape up its future (Jackson, 2003).
For all these goals to be achieved, the church leaders have to make some choices that might have a long-term effect on the church. Such decisions may also bring misconceptions and destroy the relationships between the countries involved. Considering all those extremes, the leadership of the church, however, sticks to the mission of the church which involves planning and then the implementation of the set aims. The United Methodists Church has introduced what is currently known as the prison ministries. The leaders of the church wanted some way to get to those people wrongly accused by the government of Malaysia. A number of people have been accused and jailed for working illegally, for example, for illegal fishing in Malaysia’s waters. The church realized that the number of people in these prisons was increasing, and thus there was a growing need of reaching them inside the prison walls. They, therefore, made the decision of building prison ministries. Building them was a temporal solution as the church leaders went ahead to push for migration of those people to their countries to meet their families. One effect of these decisions has been felt by the ministers who have put up with the conditions of the prisons just for the sake of the church mission. They try as hard as possible to share God’s word with these people, and luckily most people give their lives to God (Tipton, 2007).
In Malaysia, there are no Christian leaders within the laborers and the migrant workers. The missionaries working with them try very hard to educate them on the leadership skills so that they could at least lessen the heavy burden they bear while managing these groups. Cambodian workers do not even recognize that they are enslaved. They were probably born in the country and have adapted to such working conditions when they have to overwork and fail to see that their human rights are violated. The missionaries have taken the step for the sake of these slaves to approach their respective embassies in Malaysia and approach the ministry of migration in the country so that the people may get an opportunity to re-unite with their families (Lim, 2008).
In the long run, most of the slaves will get freedom, especially once they are back to their mother country. This is one of the aspects the missionary is fighting as it would be impossible to talk to an individual about Christianity when the person has some other more pressing issues, for example, when the one is starving or craving for freedom. As much as the goal of the missionaries is to engineer the ministry for these workers, the church is first involved in more personal relationship with the people. In future, this will make it possible for the people to trust the missionaries and accept the world of God easily (Palmer, 1990).
All the decisions made by the United Methodist Church have one main goal, which is passing on the ministry. The church is willing to go to all depths just to reach the hearts of the people. Missionaries play the field leaders and, therefore, make day-to-day decisions on the behalf of the church leaders. In the year 2011, the church members in the company and the non-governmental organizations joined forces and donated clothes to the people of Malaysia. According to that act, they touched the hearts of many citizens, so today, the impact of that action can be seen in a number of people who have put their faith in God, which is actually the goal of the church (Ooi, 2010).
Once the leaders learned that many people are in the prisons, they made a decision to reach them. Most of these institutions contain ordinary citizens who may hold a position in the leadership of this ministry, though they have not yet learnt enough to lead on their own. Some have dedicated their lives to study; through which the missionaries have transformed the lives of many people in the country. The United Methodist Church has its goals, which are classified as both the long-term and the short-term. Management is the key to the success of the church, the best thing about the management of the church is that it never loses its focus on the goals of the church.
References
Jackson, M. C. (2003). Systems thinking: Creative holism for managers. Hoboken, N.J: Wiley.
Lim, R. (2008). Federal-state relations in Sabah, Malaysia: The Berjaya administration, 1976-85. Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies.
Ooi, K. G., & Ooi, K. G. (2010). The A to Z of Malaysia. Lanham, Md: Scarecrow Press.
Palmer, D. C. (1990). Managing conflict creatively: A guide for Missionaries and Christian workers. Pasadena, CA: William Carey Library.
Tipton, S. M. (2007). Public pulpits: Methodists and mainline churches in the moral argument of public life. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press.