President: Our churches have mission to fulfil
“BECOMING a Christ-like people, full of grace and love, reaching the community through disciple-making.” This was the mission statement raised by the Strategy Committee during the 26th Session of the Chinese Annual Conference (CAC) at Bukit Panjang Methodist Church from Nov 13-15, 2001.
And in his Presidential Address at the opening of the session, the Rev Khoo Cheng Hoot laid down the challenge of “Making Disciples” in the years ahead.
Making disciples, he said, which goes beyond programmes and courses, “needs us to pray for a change of life for those in the pulpit as well as for those in the pews. It needs for us to watch over one another in love.”
“The CAC has a mission to fulfil. It has a responsibility to the community. Making disciples is our approach and being connectional is our strength. It is time for conference members to take the lead, and all the people called Methodists should stand together and be partners in the mission,” he stressed.
In order to fulfil the mission, the Strategy Committee has targeted three short-term and three long-term goals, which the CAC aims to achieve by year 2004 and 2010 respectively.
The short-term goals are to:
* Baptise 2,000 adults,
* Develop a common leadership programme for all CAC churches, and
* Raise $17.5m for Sengkang Methodist Church.
The long-term goals are to:
* Double the church membership,
* Double the number of leaders, and
* Build three churches at strategic locations in Singapore.
These goals will form the basis of a 10-year direction for the CAC.
As for equipping members of the CAC churches, two new programmes are introduced: Growing a Healthy Church (GHC), for strategic planning, and Covenant Discipleship (CD), for developing people to be accountable for Christian living.
Apart from the mission statement, the Rev Khoo also announced an extension of the CAC’s ministry to serve in the General Conference and its partnership with ETAC, TRAC and the World Federation of Chinese Methodist Churches (WFCMC).
In addition, he encouraged a closer co-labouring with the Methodist Missions Society (MMS), Methodist Welfare Services (MWS), Methodist School of Music (MSM), Disciple Agency (DA), Trinity Theological College (TTC), Methodist Book Room (MBR) and the Methodist schools.
Referring to the Sengkang Methodist Church project, the Rev Khoo expressed his gratitude for the support from different churches. “We pray that when the building is ready, Sengkang MC is there to take on the challenge of reaching out to the 500,000 people who will live in the Sengkang Punggol area,” he said.
The main theme of the CAC for the quadrennium (2001-2004) is to “Enrich God’s Family, Enlarge God’s Kingdom”. For the 27th Session of the CAC next year, the theme will be “Building up Christian Home to Honour the Lord”.
Chen Yi Reng is a part-time Correspondent for Methodist Message.