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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.

Visiting Nepal

10 April 2023 blogpastor Leave a comment

It was a good sixteen years ago, in October 2007, when I last visited Nepal on a trek with friends on the scenic Poon Hill trail. You can see the old video HERE. Things have changed considerably in Nepal. We paid toll to communist insurgents to trek through the areas they controlled. Now they are a legal political party currently in power. Once the beloved royal family was in power, but not anymore. Then there was the great earthquake in April 2015, a very painful scar in the memory of the Nepalese. Over 8000 lost their lives, thousands were rendered homeless, and the World Heritage sites I had visited had been damaged severely.

This time round, I visited Kathmandu, a rural village and hiked up to a remote mountain village. The conditions were starkly contrasting. Shopping shelves were filled with all kinds of foods and goods in the city, but in the village there were only tiny family-run provision shops selling essential foodstuffs. Cafes were abundant in Kathmandu, and you get a wide variety of cuisine, but mostly Western, to cater to the tourists, and oh at so affordable prices for us foreigners: SGD$1.80 for decent coffee latte. Taxis were easily hailed in the city but in the small village only two vehicles were available for hire…. and forget about cafes. Opportunities for good schooling and jobs are better in the capital then in rural and mountain villages. The differences were obvious to me.

It’s a beautiful country of grand mountains, golden grains, and abundant rivers and streams. The people are beautiful too: a hospitable people albeit weighed down by systemic poverty. This became evident when I travelled outside Kathmandu and talked to locals about the standard of living for the majority of Nepalese. It became clear when I shared in their meals, slept in their mud-houses, and used their squat toilets in the outhouse. I have not known such conditions in my childhood. I was born into the era of SIT apartment living, precursor to HDB flats. As much as I felt uneasy, the inconveniences were bearable for it was for a mere two nights. I recall looking at the young people in the remote mountain village and bemoaning the lost potential if they remained stuck in the mountains. This convinced me that student hostels in Kathmandu are a key help for rural young people to have a better education, increased chances of employment, and some hope of helping their family break free from poverty.

I also met with committed Christians and we were mutually blessed as we shared with one another. I learned several things:

Casteism exists in Nepal (despite its ban) and those in the lower castes are responding to the good news of Jesus Christ.
Nepal has a largely Hindu population of 30 million and proselytizing is forbidden by law. However, there are people turning to Christ, and suffering persecution from family and community is not uncommon.
The sharing of the gospel was at times accompanied by remarkable healings and deliverances, leading to whole families coming to Christ.
The Nepalese Christians were hungry to know God and his word. Their worship and singing were infectious and inspiring even though I could not understand Nepalese.
Sadly, casteism is so ingrained in the culture, that Christians have generally not completely broken free from it, especially when it came to marriage.
The people of God in Nepal need the help, the come-alongside partnerships with the churches outside of Nepal. They need humble spiritual input and prudent financial support, without donor conditions of wanting control and naming rights.
I was inspired to hear about God’s grace among the unreached people, to witness the deep commitment of the gospel workers, and the simplicity of a movement free from institutional barriers. It felt like the book of Acts has come alive in Nepal.

Meeting Up With Blogging Friends

21 November 2022 blogpastor Leave a comment

It was pleasant to meet up with blogging friends of yesteryears. I have been blogging a long time and in the course of these years I have met some fellow bloggers and chatted with them. Well it so happens I met with a few of them in recent months.

With one of them, Terence Yeo, we planned morning ride to the Jurong Lake Gardens, culminating with a brunch at Taman Jurong Food Centre. The day was cloudy and pleasant. The weather prediction was that it would rain but thankfully he was already on the way when I informed him of my wet weather plans. Too late. But as it turned out, it hardly rained.

We talked about a range of different things. Terence has always been well informed and has intelligent views on all kinds of information and news whether biblical, extra-biblical, or current news and events. Of course, we also caught up on personal matters and talked about what we have been up to and about our families over a meal of the famous bak chor mee of Taman Jurong.

A fortnight later I met up with Jeffrey Teo and pastor Joshua Lye, two acquaintances from long ago. We met at the Republic food court at Westgate and caught up after a period of about a decade. I was very apologetic because I had forgotten an earlier appointment with them.

Big changes have taken place since I last met them. Jeffrey Yeo who is one of those serious runners who travel overseas to do races, had moved to an Assembly of God church, and Joshua had planted a church, which meant he was a bi-vocational pastor for several years, until he recently answered God’s call, “left his nets” and went into Singapore Bible College’s Master’s program. I shared with them some of the things happening in the church and I was happy to hear that both of them are still very much involved and interested in the church at large, and what’s going on today in the world.

Joshua was a participant in a revival among the members of the Lutheran Church of our Redeemer at Duke’s Road. I asked if he minded if I linked him to Galven Lee and Sina who are collecting Singapore revival stories, and he did not mind. I thought such a story is worthy of retelling over and over again, recorded for posterity to read and be inspired at what the Lord can do when hearts are open to him. Just think about it, the Lutheran Church experienced some form of renewal among some of its members the extent of which I am unsure. Evidently it did not spread as widely in the denomination as the renewal that spread in the Anglican denomination.

I have referred quite a few of these pockets of revival in schools and churches to Galven and Sina and they are very earnest and diligent in seeking such stories so if you know of any let me know in the comment box, and I can pass the tip to them.