Inter-Church Sports Carnival

3 July 2013 by James Hoh CM-

 

Here, the writer traces the history of the annual Inter-Church Sports Carnival. From ping-pong diplomacy, so to speak, one thousand participants from 11 churches in Klang Valley participated at this year’s event from the month of May until the end of June 2013.

(Please also see 2013 Competition Results at the end of the story.)

 

“A lot of churches used to have their game events for fellowship within their own church. Maybe they find that organizing an Inter-Church Sports Carnival involves a lot of work,” said the 68 year-old Mr Fong Voon Seng, a member of the Petaling Jaya Evangelical Free Church (PJEFC) who was recalling the birth of this ministry. 

 

 

One day, as Mr Fong was having a chat with Elaine Quah of Subang EFC and casually raised the issue of youngsters in their twenties not having the opportunity of knowing Christians from other churches at a time they were looking for their life partners.

They felt that they had to create a healthy environment for them to get together. At first they thought about concerts but they changed their mind because concert was a one-off thing that would not provide enough time for them to mingle and know each other.

“Why don’t we organize some games? Because we have the venue, we can host badminton, ping-pong, basketball and volleyball matches?” asked Mr Fong.  “We started approaching churches nearby like Damansara Utama Methodist Church (DUMC), Glad Tidings, PJ (GTPJ) and Sijil Injil Borneo Kuala Lumpur (SIBKL), Gospel Hall combined churches, Full Gospel Assembly Kuala Lumpur (FGAKL).

 

 

“I have to admit that it is God’s will because all of us who came together could play ping-pong. So we got together for ping-pong in September 2009. It was a diplomatic move but it worked! So we played and had fellowship with members of these churches,” Mr Fong said. 

There were Ms Pearly of Full Gospel Assembly KL (FGA) who was involved in church ministries, Mr Steven Yap of DUMC who was involved in the sports ministry, Pastor Michael Tan of GTPJ and Mr Ong Hock Siew, a sportsman from SIB Chinese Church KL.

 

 

Then after the games, Elaine made the proposal, “Why don’t we fix a date for an inter-church sports event?” “But who is going to finance the event?” asked one of them.  

“No problem!” said Mr Fong, adding that the PJEF has a hall, the Heritage Hall, with such sports facilities.

“They all agreed and shared the same vision but didn’t know where to get the finances to support the event. Then Hock Siew suggested that Dato’ George Ting would be able to help, let me give him a call.”  Dato George Ting is an Elder of EFC PJ.

Dato’ Ting immediately agreed to sponsor the event when he was approached and he was made the Chairman and Patron of Inter-Church Sports Carnival. 

Mr Fong as the main coordinator of the event worked very hard. “I worked very hard but I was very happy and satisfied for more and more people came to help out and sponsored prizes like medals and trophies. We even had lucky draws because of the many gifts. I thanked the Lord for my previous involvement and network in Haggai Institute which gave me the experience,” he said.

 

 

Talking about his experience, he said that in the first year in 2009. The carnival raised funds for the Asia Beacon magazine so we required participating churches to pay a fee of RM500 per year. We raised RM3,000 that year for the Christian magazine. We also raised some money for Orang Asli works through the food stalls that we put up for the participants and the crowd during the Inter-church Sports Carnival.

The participation fees for the Inter-Church Sports Carnival may go up due to the overheads, T-shirts, referees’ professional fees and other costs. There was a year that Dato’ Ting generously waived all rentals for the PJ EFC sport centre, Mr Fong said.

The carnival started with six participating churches four years ago and increased to eight churches in 2011 and 13 churches this year. He was glad that the senior pastors of the six churches wrote articles to promote the event, Mr Fong added.

 

 

Today, the ministry has extended north, south, east and west of Klang Valley.  There are five new churches that have joined this year: Canaan Church of Segambut and New Life Restoration Church, St Thomas Catholic Church, Eagle Point Church from Puchong and Metro Tabernacle from Batu Caves. There were a total of 1000 participants.

Mr Fong said that they would like to invite more churches across the denominations to join in the fun.

“We also want to have a spread of age representation. This year’s oldest participant was from Canaan Church, a 78 year-old grandmother playing ping-pong. Another participant was a 74 year-old golfer. The youngest player was around 13 years old."

 

 

“So we rewarded the youngest and the oldest player even though they were not winners. It’s the spirit of the sports that counts and not so much of winning the matches. Last year, participants from Canaan Church didn’t win anything at all but they were the best team because they got a lot of their members to participate in all the events. Some participated in two events because they are a small church. They event got the grandmothers and the children to participate. And to top it, they were very discipline players. That is the spirit and the honour of the sport!” said Mr Fong. 

For next year, Mr Fong said the committee might increase the number of events besides creating a new category for those below 17 years old for selected sports like badminton so that their parents could attend to make it a family affair.  The organizers also want younger people to participate and eventually to pass the baton to them to organize the games.   

The games were held at five different venues this year: Basketball and volleyball were held at PJ EFC, table-tennis, badminton and netball were held at GTPJ, bowling was at Sunway Pyramid Bowl, futsal was held at Allrounder, PJ and golf was held at Rahman Putra Golf Club, Sg Buloh. 

 

 

Inter-Church Sports Carnival – Final Results 2013

Rank	Badmin-ton	Basket-ball	Bow-ling	Futsal (Open)	Futsal (<17)	Golf	Netball	Table Tennis	Volley-ball
1st	FGA	DUMC	FGA	Eagle Point	DUMC	FGA	St Thomas	SIB	St Thomas
2nd	DUMC	SIB	SIB	FGA	St Thomas	NLRC	GTPJ	PJEFC	GTPJ
3rd	cGH	cGH	PJEFC	cGH	FGA	SIB	DUMC	GTPJ	cGH
4th	St Thomas	FGA	DUMC	St Thomas	Eagle Point	DUMC	FGA	cGH	Metro T.

The Overall Champion for 2013 is FGA KL.

Runner’s up is DUMC

 

 

Dear Viewers in Christ, if you find this article edifying to you, please share with your friends or loved ones by using the social media plugs (Share, Email to this article). The Lord will surely bless you as you bless others. May the Lord’s peace and love be with you.