This year, Toa Payoh Chinese Methodist Church (TPCMC) celebrated our church’s 40th Anniversary on September 29. It was especially joyous for us as we had dedicated our new church building on August 31, having fully paid for it after seven grueling years of fundraising. We are grateful for God’s provision!
Held on September 2, 1973, our first Mandarin Service saw less than 30 worshippers, including those that came from Foochow Methodist Church to aid us in starting the church. Today, we have roughly 810 church members, with about 650 worshippers coming every Sunday to worship our Lord. Our single service has grown into three services – Mandarin Service, Hokkien Service, and New Life Worship (our bilingual service) – and our vibrant, energetic Youth ministry.
In conjunction with our new church building, our six-year vision from 2010-2016 is “提升敬拜，坐满圣殿”, which means “to improve our life of Worship and to fill the sanctuary with God’s people”. With this vision in mind, we are looking to reach outside of our church and serve the Toa Payoh community.
Social Concerns is an area of ministry that is very new to our church, so for the coming year, we will be focusing on teachings that equip our members with understanding of the social concerns ministry, preparing them for the field that is right at our doorstep.
Another challenge that we have noted is the influx of foreign employees in our society. Because of this, we see a lot of foreigners coming into our church, seeking a house of worship in this land which is foreign to them.
Six years ago, we started a ministry named “神州之家” or “Divine Home” to serve the Chinese nationals. In recent years, we have seen increased numbers of Malaysians, Indonesians and even Burmese in our congregation.
We must see to the needs of these people that have come from different cultural backgrounds, and help them to settle down in our church or even in this society. God has led them here; what reason do we have to shy away from taking care of these sheep?
My prayer for TPCMC is for more people (especially young people) to see the place and purpose that God has for them in a Chinese-language church, and that this church can be their spiritual home where they can find comfort and seek refuge in the Lord.
PRAY * for Toa Payoh Chinese Methodist Church’s outreach to the Toa Payoh community, and foreigners from countries like China, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Burma.
Pictures by Toa Payoh Chinese Methodist Church
We continue our series of profiling local churches from our three Annual Conferences of The Methodist Church in Singapore. As we come to have a better understanding of each other’s history and ministry, there may be opportunity to forge cross-church partnerships and collaborations.
The Rev Wong Yeow Lin is the Pastor-in-Charge of Toa Payoh Chinese Methodist Church.