MMS was officially established on 30 Sep 1991 as the missions agency of The Methodist Church of Singapore (MCS). Its primary mission is to establish indigenous churches where none currently exist. MMS aims to be a disciple-making movement that touches and transforms lives. Church Planting and Community Development are the integrated strategies for transforming lives and communities.1
MMS’s mission comes alive as a testament shown by the past 29 years of partnerships with MCS’ Annual Conferences, churches and donors in Singapore, together with missionaries and hundreds of national pastors and co-labourers serving in Cambodia, East Asia, Laos, Nepal, Thailand, Timor-Leste and Vietnam.
Col (Ret) Quek Koh Eng, Field/Church Engagement Director, emphasised that “MMS does not and cannot work alone”, and this was of vital importance in developing the Church Engagement Strategy.2 We are encouraged that God has seen MMS through the years by bringing together faithful men and women to fervently contribute and carry out God’s missions work. We are also blessed by the Methodist churches and communities that have come alongside MMS to pray, to love and to generously contribute their time, effort and resources toward our ministries and missionaries
Moving forward, as a denominational missions agency, MMS endeavours to be an agency of choice amongst the Methodist community in Singapore. While we have come some way in establishing our work in seven countries over the past 29 years, we are nevertheless mindful of our inadequacies as we journey on. We believe we are now at a point where we need to expand our partnerships, enrich our collective call and energise our congregations in the area of missions.
The MMS Church Engagement Team (CET) desires to build capacity by enhancing stakeholder and partnership relations strategically, managing expectations and engaging churches in a meaningful way to deepen the partnership with all three Annual Conferences—the Chinese Annual Conference (CAC), Emmanuel Tamil Annual Conference (ETAC) and Trinity Annual Conference (TRAC)—as well as with all local Methodist churches and missions committees.
This can be achieved through a three-phase framework of conducting a missions pulse survey, dialogues and forums with the following key outcomes:
- Deepen the relationship and partnership with the Annual Conferences and all local Methodist churches in Singapore.
- Receive valuable and meaningful feedback to customise and realign action plans for the collaboration in mission and ministries initiatives.
- Have greater clarity in what is expected of MMS as a denominational missions agency, and a more coherent understanding of the roles and relationships between MMS and the local Methodist churches and the missions agency.
- Enhance partner relationships, improve partnership retention and form new partnerships.
Rev Derrick Lau, MMS Executive Director, sets out one of the goals in the Strategic Directions 2025 as having Church Engagement be an essential initiative of MMS to engage, excite, encourage, equip and establish mission interest, involvement and partnership in all our Methodist churches from CAC, ETAC and TRAC.3
This initiative provides a clear sense of direction to collaborate, encourage strategic partnerships and establish long-lasting relationships. They are fundamental to paving the way towards achieving the God-given mission. There are still much to be done in our fields to equip, nurture, train and strengthen the pastoral and lay leaderships to become self-sustainable one day and fulfil the call God has placed on their hearts.
As MMS enters into the new year, it is our hope that this initiative will invigorate and deepen relationships and collaborations with existing partner churches. Also, we hope to begin new dialogues with churches that have yet to become partners, to come alongside to intercede, contribute and support MMS in big or small ways.
With one goal, one mind and one heart, let us push forth in living out the mandate given to us: to love God, to love our neighbour and to make disciples of all nations.
Get in touch with us now; every partnership and all contributions count towards touching and transforming lives for God.
1 The Book of Discipline, ¶371.
2 Col (Ret) Quek Koh Eng, Field/Church Engagement and Area Director’s Report, MMS Strategy for Church Engagement.
3 Rev Derrick Lau, Strategic Directions 2025 (2019).
Col (Ret) Quek Koh Eng is the Church Engagement Director and Grace Chung is the Church Engagement Manager of the Methodist Missions Society (MMS). / Photos courtesy of MMS (This article was first published in Harvest Force Issue 1 [2021])