Borneo Evangelical Church

The Borneo Evangelical Church or SIB (Malay: Sidang Injil Borneo) is an evangelical Christian denomination in Malaysia. The church was organised in 1959 from the work of the Borneo Evangelical Mission with help from the Christian and Missionary Alliance Church in Indonesia (Indonesian: Gereja Kemah Injil Indonesia) ^[1]

Claiming more than 500,000 members ^[2], the SIB is the largest Protestant denominations in Malaysia having evolved from a small missionary presence among the Lun Bawang people of the Kelabit Highlands and the Iban people of Limbang to having congregations both in East Malaysia and West Malaysia today.

History

In 1928, three Australian missionaries of the newly established Borneo Evangelical Mission (BEM), Hudson Southwell, Frank Davidson and Carey Tolley arrived in what was then known as the Kingdom of Sarawak. Together with a timber merchant by the name of Alexander Henderson, a mission station was established along the banks of the Pranga River in the Limbang district.

The Japanese occupation of Malaya, North Borneo and Sarawak and post-war developments resulted in the intentional indigenization of the mission and a Bible school was established in Lawas in 1947. By 1959, a local church organization was established with organizational help from the Christian and Missionary Alliance Church in Indonesia and the new entity, named Sidang Injil Borneo worked in parallel with the BEM.

In 1972, a Bible school was established in Miri to cope with the increased demand for trained workers. With the merger of the BEM with the Overseas Missionary Fellowship in 1979, the SIB had grown into an indigenous self-governing, self-supporting and self-propagating church.

The SIB expanded its work to the state of Sabah in 1974 and SIB Sabah was organised in 1976. By 1993, SIB had established a nationwide presence when SIB Semenanjung was inaugurated in November of the same year.

Beliefs and practices

The beliefs of the SIB are contained within a Statement of faith framed within an Evangelical Charismatic context ^[3]:

1. We believe in the inspiration of the Scriptures as originally given. The Scriptures are infallible, inerrant, and the sole and final authority for all matters of faith and conduct
2. We believe in the eternal God the Father, the Creator of the universe
3. We believe in the creation, test and fall of man as recorded in Genesis, his total spiritual depravity and inability to attain divine righteousness
4. We believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, Messiah of Israel, the Savior of men, conceived of the Holy Spirit, and born of the virgin Mary
5. We believe the Messiah died and became the sacrificed Lamb for our sins, was buried and rose again on the third day and personally appeared to His disciples
6. We believe in the bodily ascension of Jesus to Heaven, His exaltation, and personal, literal, and bodily coming again in the second time for His people
7. We believe in the salvation of sinners by grace, through repentance and faith in the perfect and sufficient work of the Cross of Calvary by which we obtain remission of sins
8. We believe in the necessity of water baptism by immersion in the name of the eternal God in order to fulfill the command of the Lord Jesus the Messiah
9. We believe in the operation of the gifts of the Holy Spirit
10. We believe in the Spirit-filled life, a life of separation from the world and perfecting of holiness in the fear of God as expressing the true Messianic faith
11. We believe in the reality and personality of the devil and eternal judgment in the lake of fire prepared for the devil, his angels and those who follow him
12. We believe in eternal life for believers and eternal punishment for the unbelievers
13. We believe in the reality of one new man made up of Jews and Gentiles. There is one universal Body of Messiah, made up of genuine believers, but this one universal Body is also composed of many local fellowships in given localities. These fellowships are under the sovereign headship of the Lord Jesus the Messiah, exercising autonomous government under Him, administering all its local affairs, and ministry, as well as the propagation of the Gospel
14. We believe that government is ordained of God, and powers that be are ordained ministers of God to us for good. To resist the powers and ordinances is to resist the ordinance of God. We are subject not only for wrath sake, but for conscience sake, rendering to all their dues, custom to whom custom, fear to whom fear, honor to whom honor. We declare our loyalty to our government and its leaders and will assist in every way possible consistent with our faith in the Scriptures as Christian citizens

Structure and organization

See also

• Christianity in Malaysia
• Status of religious freedom in Malaysia

References

Further reading

• The Borneo Evangelical Mission (BEM) and the Sidang Injil Borneo (SIB), 1928 - 1979: A Study of the Planting and Development of an Indigenous Church; Jin Huat, Tan; University of Wales; 2008
• Drunk Before Dawn; Lees, Shirley, OMF Books, Kent, TN; 1979
• Mabuk Sebelum Fajar Menyinsing; Lees, Shirley; transl.: Evelyn Hwee Yong, Tan; Sword Publishing House, Malaysia; 2009
• The Bario Revival; Bulan, Solomon & Lillian Bulan-Dorai; Home Matters Network, Malaysia; 2004

External links

• Sidang Injil Borneo Sabah
• Sidang Injil Borneo Kuala Lumpur
• Sidang Injil Borneo Skyline, Kota Kinabalu, Sabah