Cambodian Christian Related Articles

Open Gate Christian Fellowship

1986 – 1990 Open Gate Christian Fellowship (OGCF) was birthed as an outgrowth of a Youth Group led by Pastor Uong Rien, the focus of which was to worship and praise God.  This group started meeting in the home of Tiep Seyem, a widow who agreed to open her home to meetings of this group.  However, at that time the government of Cambodia had not yet given permission for people to worship Jesus Christ, so the church had to change places many times to evade the efforts of the agents of the government.

1990 – 1993 The government eventually granted the right for Christians to gather together, so the Youth Group was able to worship together more openly.  It was during this time that OGCF was formally recognized by the government and began meeting as a church with the name Open Gate Christian Fellowship.  God blessed this group, and its numbers grew until over 60 people were meeting together regularly to praise Him.  At this point the group was too large to continue meeting at Tiep Seyem’s home, so it was decided to meet in the auditorium of the International School of Phnom Penh, a much larger facility.

1994 – 1997 The church continued worshipping at the international school every Sunday morning, and the house of Tiep Seyem became the church’s office.  The church grew to more than 300 people, and a four-person leadership group was formed consisting of Mr. Phin Naro, Mrs. Kry Chenda, Mr. Seng Vitol, and Miss Chuen Navy.  During this time, OGCF began to plant churches in six different locations in Kandal, Kampot, and Kratie Provinces.  However, as leaders from OGCF left to plant these provincial churches, the leadership of OGCF recognized that more leaders were needed both to help in the growth of these church plants and to renew the strength of the mother church so that the goal of announcing the Good News to all parts of Cambodia could be met.  To help develop new leaders for the mother and daughter churches, OGCF created a leadership training group, called the Daniel Group.  Twenty two members from the existing Youth Group that had been Christians for at least one year and felt a personal calling to serve God were chosen to form the Daniel Group.  And from the Daniel Group four members were chosen to serve as missionaries sent from OGCF to strengthen the daughter churches.

1997 – 1999 The church was forced to move yet again when the International School decided to stop renting out its facilities.  The church began meeting in an apartment complex near the Kandal Market.  Unfortunately, these facilities were a bit cramped so the church leadership decided to hold two worship and praise services on Sunday, one in the morning and one in the afternoon, to accommodate the large church body of approximately 280 people.   A new leadership group was formed with new responsibilities divided between the members of the leadership group.  Assistant Pastor Phin Naro became responsible for Missions and Outreach activities; Assistant Pastor Ms. Kry Chenda became responsible for Education and Member Care activities; and Assistant Pastor Seng Vitol became responsible for Development activities. The church began missionary efforts in three additional locations, two locations in Prey Veng Province and one location in Takeo Province.  The church created a plan for developing the members of the Daniel Group who successfully completed both their secondary education and passed the national examinations.  These members of the Daniel group began serving as staff with OGCF while continuing onto post-secondary studies.  The goal of this plan is for these Daniel Group members to become resource people, serving the church in a variety of capacities according to their gifting and the subject of their post-secondary study.  Each member of this sub-group of the Daniel group also studies the Bible, Music, English, and Computers within the church.  The church has as its goal for this sub-group that these young men and women would be trained and prepared to effectively reach Cambodia’s youth and children as a part of the overall strategy of OGCF to reach all the peoples of Cambodia.

January 1, 2000 – June 30, 2003 In search of larger facilities, OGCF moved from its location near the Kandal Market to a more spacious location near the New Market III.  In its new location, the church began to hold an additional youth-oriented service on Saturday in addition to continuing with the two regular Sunday services. Approximately 350 people attended these three services. Missionary activities expanded into three new locations, one location in Kampot Province, one in Kandal Province, and one in Sihanoukville. All together OGCF planted 12 affiliated churches in different locations throughout Cambodia with a total combined membership of 2100 members in Phnom Penh and the provinces.

We had chosen 2 staff people to work daily in the church office and have also began a Day Care service through support from LCMS World Mission. There are also some people from The Daniel Group who had volunteered to teach English in the church as a tool for evangelism to high school students in that time.

July 1, 2003 till the present:

We have once again moved from New Market III to Beng Keng Kang I District of Phnom Penh We thank God that the new place is much more spacious. The extra space has enabled us to increase the number of people we serve through the Day Care program. We also have 6 English classes and one computer class for teaching church members and students. We have one separate room for Mission and Outreach work and a larger room which we use for worship service. The extra space allows more people worship comfortably rather than being so cramped like we were in the past. We have also committed ourselves to plant 3 more churches. The total churches we have planted to date are 15. Members including adult and children total more than 3000.

We are planning develop these 15 churches to stand by themselves, and to help equip their leadership to go on toward maturity, thereby engendering change in the Cambodia society.  We have found that education and training is the key point for attracting new believers to belief in Christ Jesus. And so we have developed education and training programs that have 3 main components.

1. Religion: Faith in Christ

2. Art and Culture

3. Vocational training program

1. I. The Development of training leaders

In order to train resource people to become the leaders that have good morals, a strong foundation in Christ, equipped with skills to teach others, the OGCF leadership is equipping  5 groups of people on different levels:

1. 10 young people in the Torah

2. 5 mission pastors have been sent to the field to plant new churches

3. 9 keys leaders/ pastors are receiving on the job training

4. 21 Assistants pastors/ leaders- Bible Doctrine; Practical and History

5. 35 Sunday school teachers and youth leaders- flannel graph project; Bible Story-      Telling; puppets, etc.

1. II. Art and Culture

Most Cambodian people from the age 30 years old and up in our provincial churches are not very literate, but they are faithful with God, have His love in their hearts, and have great potential for our society. Our method of teaching them to grow deeper in Christ is through the use of cassettes tapes that contain Bible reading, sermons, praise songs, and skits in dialogue.

1. III. Vocational training program:

When we plant new church, we do not want to give salaries to church leaders but we know that they need food to live on, so we give loans to our church leaders so that they can develop their family economy by raising ducks, pigs, cows, chickens, or developing a small business.

We believe that our strategy and action plans fit well with in Jesus’ mandate to make disciples of all nations, and to help the poor and oppressed.

In order to achieve our vision, we need both technical ability, and funds for bringing us closer to bringing the good news to our all parts of our country. We hope that our future partners have a common vision from God to bring the Good News to all the ends of the world, will come to Cambodia. Amen.