Christian expansionism in Southeast Asia has generally flown under the radar for several reasons. There are demographic limits to the growth of Christianity. With the exception of the Philippines , it is a minority faith in all Southeast Asian countries. In Malaysia , Brunei, and, to some extent, Singapore , the growth of the Christian community is capped by the size of their Chinese communities. These limits may have compelled churches to look beyond their shores. Churches and Christian conservatives in the region, with the exception of Singapore and the Philippines, are also less vocal in the public sphere in comparison to their Muslim counterparts. These factors have resulted in less attention being paid to the dynamics within the Christian communities in many parts of the region. Expansionism has been purposefully undertaken with great discretion in light of the political challenges and sensitivities in Muslim-dominant countries. This is an important phenomenon because it tests the thresholds of multiculturalism. All Southeast Asian countries either claim to welcome different faiths, or profess tolerance of religious diversity. However, reality often fails to measure up to rhetoric when religious groups are perceived as threats to the dominance or privileged positions of other groups. The expansionism is also important to understand because it requires no small amount of planning, certitude, resources, and organisational know-how to execute. Such commitment of labour and resources only underlines the type of conviction that may come head to head with other religious groups which share the same intensity of conviction. DIGITAL EXPANSIONISM Unlike solo missionaries of yesteryear who ventured into foreign lands to spread the Gospel, contemporary efforts to spread Christianity have become more organised and concerted. A growing number of Pentecostal churches today have taken on expansionist characteristics. Some openly reflect their transnational visions in their names. For example, Kingdomcity aims to “bring the kingdom to each city”, while International Full Gospel Fellowship (IFGF) replaced “Indonesia” with “International” to reflect its new mission to “reach out to people at every corner of the world”. In Myanmar, relationships between Buddhists, Christians and Muslims is taboo. For these couples, love found a way Such expansionist churches share several characteristics. Firstly, they are usually Pentecostal and independent in character, and multi-site in form. They may begin as a local single site church which grows and later develops plans for setting up branches within its national boundaries and overseas. Although many of the overseas branches claim to be financially independent, they are not administratively or theologically autonomous, but instead are overseas extensions of the original church. This expansion is unlike “church planting” in which a “planted” or “daughter” church is often expected to develop its own identity and administration after initial support from the “planting” church or “parent”. Secondly, the original church provides administrative and theological guidance to its overseas branches. This is crucial because it allows the original to pass on its DNA to the new overseas branch. In practical terms, this means the overseas branches retain the name of the original church and adopt its liturgy, worship style, culture, and aesthetics. Thirdly, selected church leaders form a small regional team to provide administrative and theological oversight over the overseas branches. Pastors overseas are required to report to and seek approval for certain matters from regional pastors, who answer to the senior pastors. Notwithstanding this, the branch pastors claim such oversight is inclusive rather than restrictive. Fourthly, the overseas branches follow standardised annual themes and directions set by the regional team. For example, IFGF’s regional team sets four-yearly and annual themes that guide all branches on sermons and activities. Finally, such churches retain strong links with each other through technology. In Kingdomcity, which has branches in Singapore, Indonesia , Cambodia , and Australia among other places, the Sunday sermons of senior pastors may be live-streamed to overseas branches. For Christians in Indonesia, retail and religion are intertwined. Just look at Singapore MORE THAN THE GOSPEL The most common reason given by pastors and church leaders for going transnational is the Great Commission. According to the Book of Matthew (28:19-20), the Great Commission for Christians is to “therefore go and make disciples of all nations”, and is often interpreted as God’s commandment for churches to go beyond their national boundaries and reach out to diverse groups of people. This natural impulse for the church to go beyond its four walls to win souls for Christ cannot be underestimated. However, in addition to the desire to spread the Gospel, there are several sociological factors to consider. Firstly, some of these churches began their overseas branches to reach out to citizens of their home country living overseas only to later grow beyond this community. IFGF in Indonesia initially established their overseas branches to reach out to Indonesians, many of whom were Chinese Indonesians who had emigrated after the riots of May 1998. However, overseas Indonesians were a limited community, which prompted the church to reach out to local communities living around its overseas branches, as well as establish branches in areas with little or no Indonesian communities, such as Nepal and Pakistan . Later in 2003, IFGF revised its mission to reflect this international outreach and now claims to have 3,000 churches in 35 countries. Secondly, there are demographic limits to Christian growth in countries such as Singapore and especially Malaysia where Christians are almost exclusively ethnic Chinese and Indians. In Malaysia, the Chinese population is forecast to dwindle from 24 per cent of the population in 2013 to 19.6 per cent by 2030. Having to compete with other religions such as Buddhism and Taoism for Chinese membership, some of these churches have calculated that it would be more fruitful to seek converts overseas. This may have been the case for the Malaysia-originated Kingdomcity. Its founding congregation in Kuala Lumpur is approximately 10,000-strong, according to a May 2019 interview with a Kingdomcity branch pastor. However, with its wide-reaching international presence across nine countries, Kingdomcity’s total congregation size triples to more than 30,000 congregants. Christians in Asia: persecuted, oppressed … but keeping the faith Thirdly, the strong nexus between spiritual growth and material growth in Pentecostal churches may be another driver of expansionism. For many of the churches, spiritual growth and obedience are inextricably tied to tangibles such as financial and congregation growth. This finding is supported by a previous study in Singapore and is certainly the case for IFGF and Kingdomcity. A 27-year-old Indonesian Chinese pastor from IFGF said in June last year that the main church in Jakarta set annual targets of growth for its branches, and asserted that: “Every four years at our global conference, we set an annual growth target for each branch based on past performance data. At this point, our annual growth target is at 7 per cent.” Having multiple branches gives the main church access to a wider range of financial resources for its operations. Many pastors are cagey when asked about the financial streams of their churches and claim that all their overseas branches are financially autonomous. However, the main church manages the contributions from their multiple branches to sustain overseas missions, activities, and other costs. CHRISTIANS FIRST Although many of these churches claim to reconcile the Gospel with local cultures, this does not generally go beyond translating sermons to local languages. They may however be disruptive to the practice of local cultures and ethnic identity. This is because they usually discourage the reconciling of theological or doctrinal beliefs with folk practices and urge the congregation to prioritise a sense of regional church unity over local ethnic kinship. Many pastors do not approve of their flock performing folk or cultural rituals that have a spiritual dimension or involve the worship of other gods. Although each individual has their own journey in their faith, their churches strongly discourage them from practising any cultural or folk tradition that has depictions of spirits or other gods. In the Kingdomcity Singapore branch at Capitol Theatre, a pastor exhorted the congregants to define themselves by their “kingdom” and not their ethnic identity, suggesting the importance of a shared Christian identity over a local cultural one. Christian expansionism into urban centres such as Singapore, Surabaya, Jakarta, Kuching, and Perth is also increasing competition with local churches. A Kingdomcity branch pastor in Kuching said other churches in the east Malaysian state seemed antagonistic towards Kingdomcity as the latter had increased its own membership by attracting young members from other churches rather than converting unbelievers. This is aggravated by the fact that the pool of younger Sarawakians is shrinking as young people emigrate to larger cities such as Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, and Melbourne for better opportunities. Finally, this church expansionism seeks to meet the needs of local Christians which local churches may have failed to address. In addition to reaching out to new converts overseas who require longer periods of mentorship and pastoral care, these churches actively seek out Christians who may not be completely fulfilled at their current church. In Kingdomcity Singapore, for example, one of its leaders who was in her early 30s noted that its main aim is, in fact, to reach out to young people with Christian backgrounds who have left their parents’ church. As a result, its Singapore branch consists mainly of young Singaporean Christians who have left their parents’ churches to seek better personal spiritual growth, or those who have returned from Australia and cannot readjust to their family church. As with any foreign product entering a domestic market, these overseas church branches offer more variety for consumers. But they are less likely to be syncretic, and also present competition to local churches. How such dynamics and intra-community politics will pan out remains to be seen. Terence Chong and Evelyn Tan are the deputy director and research officer respectively at the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute in Singapore. The findings in this paper are from a research project funded by the Singapore Ministry of Education’s Social Science Research Thematic Grant. The above is an edited version of the original article, which was published in ISEAS Perspective No 96