HOPE FAMILY NEWS
Hope Johannesburg: Youth Outreach & Church Seminar
Outreach: How to raise a champion
On October 9, Pastor Jeffrey Chong landed in Johannesburg, South Africa and he hardly had time to recover from his jetlag and we were off to activities. We were off to minister to a young soccer team and their parents at 19h00 Bridgetown (about 25km from our home).
Watch Video Hope Johannesburg
We have adopted a team of 44 young people whose age range from 8 -15 years to ensure that they are introduced to the Lord and are mentored into a biblical lifestyle. We have two brothers who are dedicated the team and another who does group discipleship on Sundays, at the end of the service. God has been gracious and we have 19 of those young people who were non-Christians being born again and regularly attending Sunday Service. Our work continues with various activities including soccer tournaments, picnics and once a week bible studies after soccer training.
An additional and equally important dimension is reaching out to the parents. We were very excited at our second parents outreach meeting with the attendance of two fathers! Our previous meeting has been attended by mothers only.
Ps Henry preached a short sermon on “How to raise champions” emphasising the importance of God’s Word as the standard of our lives. The focus of the sermon was the example of King Josiah.
We praise the Lord for one of the parents who accepted the Lord that evening and was committed to join us for Sunday Service. That same evening we prayed for various needs and trusted God for powerful testimonies.
An Organized Church Seminar
29 people attended what turned out to be a powerful and timely seminar which has transformed the way we approach ministry. The ‘Organised Church’ seminar presented mainly by Ps Jeff challenged the participants to make their lives count, have a big vision and execute the work of God systematically and be purposeful about their lives.
Watch Video Song presentation
Pastor Henry & Lerato Sebata
Hope Johannesburg, South Africa
Hope Tokyo: Church Anniversary
Greetings from Hope of Tokyo Church. Masami and I praise God for His goodness. We celebrated our 8th church anniversary at the new venue that God provided us. I preached a sermon regarding building a house of covenant as we expect our church to grow strong as a covenantal family.
At lunch time, we showed our appreciation to some people who have been serving faithfully since the beginning of the church by letting them cut the anniversary cakes.
However, the highlight of the anniversary was the membership night. We went out to have a special celebration dinner. This is done annually to welcome new members who passed the Vision and Philosophy, and membership class. We made a vow between the leaders and members that we are in covenant to help one another grow and we took communion together. I was touched when listening to testimonies of how God led some brothers and sisters to new lives. We pray that God will lead more people to know Him and join our family.
Japan has not yet experienced a revival. We plant churches with a vision to be a part of the revival when it comes. Please continue to pray for us. May God bless you.
Chew & Masami
Hope Tokyo, Japan Website
Hope Labuan: Davao, Philippines Church Planting
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It all started in 2003, with an initiative to reach out to the Filipino group. During those early days, we started from humble beginnings: 5 Filipinos joined our care group. As they consistently joined with us at CG and Sunday Service, the vision that we recited every week began to work in their hearts. Eventually, they developed a burden for their hometown and began to pray and encourage the group to start up a Hope Davao.
Watch Video of Mission Trip
The pioneering work started in early 2006 with two Filipino sisters, Joy and Iren, who decided to return to Davao. They began to gather up their relatives and friends, and by faith they started their first care group.
This went on until early 2007, when another brother, Wakki also decided to go back to Davao and further build the group there. In August that same year, Hope Labuan made their first mission trip to Davao. The plan was to hold a gathering for college students and to impart to them the vision of God and also to introduce Hope Church. The outcome of that first mission trip was that Hope Davao was able to start a college students group.
In 2008, another milestone in the history of Hope Davao was made. After many months of prayer and efforts to find a place for their weekly Sunday service, God opened the way for them. They were able to secure a place with a monthly rent that was 1/3 the true value of the building. Once again in August, another team from Hope Labuan went and launched Hope Davao’s first public Sunday worship service.
In just two years, God has been pouring out His blessing upon Hope Davao. Now the church has 20 people coming to their weekly Sunday service. At the start of September, DMM and WFL were launched. Surely, when God is at work, Hope Davao will not lack of God’s support.
GOD BLESS DAVAO!!!!
Kevin Su
Hope Labuan, Malaysia
Hope Melbourne: 18th Church Anniversary
On 12th to 14th September 2008, 321 members and visitors from Hope Melbourne, Australia celebrated its 18th Anniversary. This celebration was combined with our annual Bible Conference. The subject of the Bible conference was 'A Sanctified Church'. We were blessed to have Ps Wilson Lim from Hope Brisbane as our guest speaker.
Together with Ps Ian Foley and Ps Mark Rusic, they brought the Word of God and many people were blessed. A sanctified Church is a church totally devoted to God and His ways.
In the past 18 years, Hope Melbourne has gone through many changes, and naturally faced many challenges along the way. Hope Melbourne today is a strong, vibrant and growing church and now has four centres in Melbourne: Waverley, City, Frankston and our newest centre in Darebin. More centres are in the pipeline.
The goal is to plant a centre in all 79 Local Government areas in Victoria by 2015 so that the gospel will touch every corner of Victoria and new strong Christian churches be built in these regions alongside other existing churches and so to help fulfill the Great Commission with the greatest possible urgency.
Pastor Ian & Daisy Foley
Hope Melbourne Christian Church (Website)
Hope Kuala Lumpur: WA Church Camp 2008
Rekindle the Passion for God’s Kingdom What a blessed 2008 church camp! The working adult groups from various locations in Malaysia came together to meet at Selesa Resort, Bukit Tinggi in Pahang from August 30 to September 1. Our Pastor David Chen who is from our mother church flew all the way from Bangkok to Malaysia to bless us by sharing his wonderful experiences with God.
The first day when we arrived at the resort, our senior Pastor Simon opened by sharing about the need to continually develop our lives in all aspects: career, personal, social, resource management, spiritually and mentally.
The teaching helped us to balance our lives properly and to be the head and not the tail in the society that we’re a part of. To put this emphasis into practice, we had games to test our fitness and mental capacity. At night, Pastor David shared the importance of having personal testimonies (Revelations 12:11). He described a personal testimony as a love story. We were not only encouraged, but also our faith was lifted up by how God is really real in his life and how God helps him through the many difficult challenges that he faces.
The next morning, Pastor David shared on the topics of God’s love and building God’s house. He mentioned that the love of God in us will lead to us naturally doing God’s will and serving Him.
We had a session called “He says and She says” which addressed the issues that face working adults, such as our careers and our life partners. The spiritual atmosphere reached its peak on the final night after praise and worship. Pastor David shared and reminded us about knowing and fulfilling our vision. Later during altar call, he asked everyone who wanted to renew their relationship with Jesus, who wants to forgive others, or have received the challenge to go into the mission field, to respond. Many who were there responded and received prayer in eagerness.
God visited us and moved the hearts of the people wonderfully. Spiritual breakthrough came about in us and we broke forth in praising God joyfully and without having any heaviness in our heart. Praise God! Amen. We praised God because we didn’t feel like going to sleep.
Pastor David taught an interesting topic about the discipleship process. This aided us to identify areas of improvement and whether there is a failure in certain sub-processes of discipleship. We had a closing ceremony and a photo-taking session with everyone.
