Highlights as MCS closes its 130th year

MCS 130 Celebration of Praise and ThanksgivingThe Methodist Church in Singapore rounded off its 130th anniversary (MCS 130) celebrations this year with a rousing Celebration of Praise and Thanksgiving Service on 28 Nov 2015. More than 1,200 attendees packed the sanctuary at Paya Lebar Methodist Church, and the people’s voices were raised in song to praise and thank God for His faithfulness to and favour on the MCS these past 130 years.

Some key highlights of the Service:

A rich musical showcase of multi-cultural worship performances by our three Annual Conferences – the Chinese Annual Conference, Emmanuel Tamil Annual Conference, and Trinity Annual Conference – in Mandarin, Tamil and English.

The Church as one body was represented by the Methodist Festival Choir and the newly-formed Methodist Festival Orchestra, comprising members from various churches across Annual Conferences, as well as a bannerette procession of representatives from all 46 local Methodist churches, bearing placards with their respective church logos as a symbol of unity.

Our Bishop, the Rev Dr Wee Boon Hup, gave the sermon on our MCS 130 theme, “Moving Forward in Service”, exhorting the congregation to focus not on acts of service alone, but to develop the “mind of Christ” (Philippians 2:5, ESV) so that moving forward in service would be motivated by our relationship with God and Christ’s example of humility. (Stay tuned for a fuller summary of Bishop’s sermon in the February 2016 issue of Methodist Message.)

The top winning song in the MCS 130 Song-Writing Competition was presented at the Service: ‘Seek, Love, Serve the Lord’ by Dr Andrew Pan from Wesley Methodist Church. (Read more about the competition results and participants.)

A Long Service Award was presented to the Rev Philip Lim Min Hock, who reached his 25th year of service in 2015. The Methodist Welfare Services (MWS) also presented tokens of appreciation to the Presidents of the three Annual Conferences, in gratitude for their churches’ participation in and strong support of their Getting Out Of Debt (GOOD) programme, which saw MWS surpass their fund-raising goal, giving a fresh start to 619 families in this Jubilee Year as well as enabling a new debt management programme in 2016 to help even more families.

A video was screened, summarising highlights from all the MCS 130 events held over the year:

  • MCS 130 launch (Watch the launch video here)
  • ‘Our Unsung Heroes’ video project (View all 10 videos, as well as the trailer video, here)
  • MethodistWalk 2015 (Read the event coverage here)
  • Aldersgate SG 2015 (Browse photos from the event here)
  • Wheels for GOOD (Read about the event here and here)
  • MCS 130 Song-Writing Competition award presentation

To watch the full MCS 130 Highlights Video, click here.

Were you at the Service? Did you participate in any of the MCS 130 events and initiatives this year? If so, we want to hear from you! Please click here to give us your feedback by 21 December 2015, and help us do better for the next big anniversary. Get your friends and family to share with us their experiences as well – we value feedback and are grateful for the opportunity to improve!

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