Singapore churches – Page 2

Category: Singapore churches

New Horizon Church: Blessed with Hope and a Future

15 October 2024 blogpastor Leave a comment

New Horizon Church is the only three-in-one church in Singapore. What do I mean by that? It has gone through two mergers. The first was a merger of two churches – the older Herald Assembly of God with Agape Christian Community, another Assembly of God church. You can read more about the merger HERE. The merger resulted in a new name “New Horizon Church”. The second was recently, a merger between New Horizon Church and Revivalife, an independent, charismatic church of about thirty members. It took about a year to integrate the two bodies. The former senior pastor, Lawrence Koo, had longed to retire and move into a new chapter, and the pastor of Revivalife, Joshua Lye, was appointed to succeed Lawrence.

Pastor Joshua Lye the new senior pastor

I came to know the new senior pastor decades ago. He was one of the members of Lutheran Church of our Redeemer who was touched by an outpouring of the Spirit. It gave him a hunger to study and feed on God’s Word and he became gifted in the teaching. He felt the Lord wanted him to plant a church. I lost touch with him until one day we met and he told me he had started a church and was the bi-vocational pastor. Over a year ago we met again, and he said he was in Singapore Bible College and amid a church merger. I am glad the merger process went well, and that in the end, both pastors found the respective places where God wanted them: Joshua Lye as senior pastor of the merged church, and Lawrence Koo, retired, and launched into an exciting new chapter of his ministry.

Pastor Lawrence Koo in an exciting new chapter

I knew Lawrence Koo from my travels with him and Andrew Khoo to the United States. We visited Willow Creek’s annual leadership conference, Toronto Airport Church and Brooklyn Tabernacle Church. He went to Willow Creek annually and later brought the leadership conference to Singapore, the well-known Global Leadership Summit. After retirement, he joyfully launched into a preaching and leadership training ministry. It is a ministry twelve years in gestation. During that long time, he waited on God, longed for and prayed for the new phase. When I guest preached in New Horizon on Sunday, he was in Malaysia ministering. He has preaching and leadership training scheduled in Baguio (Philippines) and Agape AG in Seremban (Malaysia). He regularly ministers in Batam and China too. In fact, he is also willing to help facilitate the merger of small churches, provided certain prerequisites are evident. This is called retirement for pastors! Pastors retire from a position with all its responsibilities and privileges, but never from their calling or gifts. Their ministry takes a new expression.

*The board members prayed for the pastors*

Pastor Appreciation Sunday

It was Pastor Appreciation Sunday and this church honoured their pastors. I preached on the topic, “What you can and cannot expect from your pastors”. The congregation comprised a good mix of young and old and was receptive and that encouraged and fired me. After the message ended, they affirmed their pastors (including those who retired) and even me, the guest preacher. The present felt like a bar of gold. It was bottles of bird’s nest drink, which we needed more than gold. I take that back – actually, we needed a bar of gold more! Many churches do not know about this annual celebration on the second Sunday of October. Maybe pastors are too paiseh to plan an event for themselves. If that is the case, the lay leadership should take the initiative to recognise their pastors and to promote pastor-congregation understanding and mutual respect.

Pastor Joshua brought me around their newly renovated fourth-floor space for infants, children, youth, and the Chinese service. This is another occasion that I met my former church members during my guest preaching ministry. It’s Dick and Amy who were with us for many years before they moved on. I was happy to see them settled in the church and using their gifts for the Lord.

The church was in a good location. A car park spot was reserved for me in a car park for about 15 cars. However, I was told there is a lane behind the church where up to 40 vehicles can park free. Furthermore, I was told there are three MRT stations within one kilometre of the church.

I felt great joy ministering to the congregation, said my goodbyes, and drove to my home church about 5 minutes away. My thoughts were about the church, praising God for how he worked his plan in two churches’ future and two pastors’ lives to produce a fruitful outcome that no well-crafted succession plan could surpass. God is faithful and always works to give his people hope and a future. New Horizon Church is indeed a blessed people.

To visit NEW HORIZON CHURCH website go HERE.

To read more about my visits to different churches go HERE.

(Great photos from Dennis Thong, so I had to post more of them or it would be a waste.)

Kum Yan Methodist Church: Church with a Missional DNA

2 October 2024 blogpastor Leave a comment

It was with a sense of awe that I read about the history of Kum Yan Methodist Church (KY) in a May 2021 excerpt from the Methodist Message about the 103rd-anniversary celebration: “…. I learned how KY’s founding father, Mr I.C. Lam started the church because he sensed the needs of the people around him. As a teacher at Yeung Ching School, his heart was stirred and filled with compassion for the Cantonese migrants who did not know Christ. So, he started a fellowship and reached out to them with the Gospel. As the congregation grew, they eventually needed a place to worship, so he began a Sunday worship service at the school.” Kum Yan has a missional DNA.

I was invited by Pastor James Chan, their missions pastor, to preach in the English worship service. I knew James from the early years of the charismatic revival of 1972. We were in the same church immersed in an intense outpouring of God’s love and power among students from different schools. Out of that revival, a fierce love for Jesus propelled us into four decades of dedicated ministry. We served together for several years until James travelled to the U.S. and Canada for his theological studies while I completed mine at Tung Ling Bible School and Trinity Theological College. James had extensive and varied experience in churches of different sizes and cultures. He taught and ran a missions training centre (Bethany), led YWAM Singapore as its National Director, and gave member care and leadership training. For several years he was doing missions in China. Later over lunch, I heard that next year he would head to Japan as part of a church planting team. For me, I stayed and served the home church for forty years before I retired in 2020.

Ps James(L) and Pastor in charge Philip Lim (R)

I received a warm welcome at the car park from James and Joanna, whom I knew from my years serving in Church Resource Ministries Singapore. It was with a strange mixture of excitement and anxiety that I entered and surveyed the worship sanctuary. It was a beautiful sanctuary, built like a junior college auditorium with plush crimson seats, and a huge cross as its central focus. The service was about to begin and the worship team and pastors were praying. I met the pastor in charge and recently elected bishop of the Methodist Church, Rev Philip Lim, Pastor Simon Say and Pastor Stephanie.

The songs of praise were a wise combination of new (at least to me) and familiar songs. The over 300-sized congregation comprised a majority of young and middle-aged people (65%) in the 20 to 60 age group, and about 35% who are over 60 years old (the young old and middle old). The age group breakdown is a good mix for inter-generational discipleship and ministry. The prayers and announcements reveal that this church has a missional heart, praying for their missionaries in Lebanon, and giving a report about their recent mooncake outreach event. It also shows there is good collaboration between the English and Chinese congregations.

James had invited Salome Wong our former church missionary to China. He wanted to catch up with her. We walked to a nearby place for an early lunch and a long fellowship together. We had hoped to meet up with Sarah (James’ wife) but she was busy with ministry to the children’s church. That is Sarah: always dedicated and responsible.

Pentecostal Christian Community: Beloved Little Flock

11 September 2024 blogpastor 2 Comments

I have known Pastor Douglas Goh since we met during one of the Love Singapore Prayer Summit in Malacca. Or perhaps in some other earlier meetings. He struck me as a thoroughbred Pentecostal, proud of his roots in the Assemblies of God Singapore, and deeply committed to being more like his Master and helping his members to follow Jesus. After not seeing each other for many years, we bumped into each other at the hospital pharmacy twice. We exchanged numbers and kept in contact. I discovered that recently on 24^th May 2024, Pastor Douglas was honoured with a lifetime membership for being an ordained minister with the Assemblies of God Singapore for the last 40 years: a mark of faithfulness and loyalty. Our two God-incidental meetings prompted him to invite me to preach in his church. I gladly accepted and enjoyed my time ministering to the church. They must have found it edifying because they invited me a second time.

Finding the church at Village Hotel Bugis was easier the second time. I was early and had time to grab coffee and biscuits. The members trickled in and the worship service began, led by Pastor Maureen, the wife of Douglas. There was a lone musician at the keyboard and a lone backup singer. Despite the skeletal worship team, I found myself sensing the presence of God and a sense of holiness and peace.

I am always pleasantly surprised even though I know that Jesus said he is present even if two or three are gathered in his name. Why do we always associate God’s presence with huge crowds and big worship bands? God is pleased to be wherever his children are. “Don’t be afraid, little flock. For it gives your Father great happiness to give you his kingdom.” (Luke 12:32 NLT)

The gathering was small, and I connected easily with this congregation the size of two large extended families. The Lord was present and enabled me to teach them about “Discerning False Prophets & Teachers”. They were appreciative of the teaching and I was glad they caught it. The members were committed to the church, some for many years, even decades.

I joined them for lunch fellowship. I noticed and admired the deep bonds of love. It felt like family. I could see that in the way they treated each other. I was warmed by their hospitality. Noticing that I limped from a bout of gout, they asked me what I wanted and went to buy the food and drink in the food court as I sat and chatted with other members.

I heard some members talking in Malay and I asked, Are you guys Peranakan? Yes. And so too is the pastor and his wife. I had unknowingly stumbled into a small Peranakan Christian community. I found this so interesting, being a Peranakan myself.

I left them after the lunch fellowship filled with the joy of the Lord. The Father loves his little flocks and there are millions of little flocks around the world, in rural villages and small towns, in megacities and slums, in restricted countries where Christians are persecuted, and in prisons and concentration camps. We need “little flocks” – small churches where the bonds of love are strong and deep in an increasingly fractured, digitally impersonal, and polarized world. Fear not, little flocks, the Father’s eyes are upon you!

To know more about this church go HERE.