Advance Newsletter

HIM NETWORKING GROUPS

2010-05-01T11:28:00.002+10:00

Hi. Pastor Denis here, and I'm at the forth GC for HIM and behind me is a group that is doing Hope networking.

I want to talk about Hope Networking or HIM Networking in this clip. And basically we are getting churches from around the world to come together and network according to certain homogeneous groupings. For this particular GC, we actually have seven groupings. They are the kids, the youth, the tertiary students, the working group, family group, worship group as well as the intercessory group. So they are all over the place networking together.

Our goal for Hope Networking is basically three things: it is to share ideas, it is to exchange resources, and to connect with one another - not only during this networking session, but beyond as well. So in the future we are going to create a centralized website or emailing list where we can begin to coordinate with members and share information and resources beyond this GC.

So what I'm saying is that Hope Networking is kicking, it's alive and we have begun the process and we would like to encourage more people from around our Hope churches internationally to join up with us, link up, because there will be future networking events as well where I believe there will be a great time of friendship building and connecting with one another and sharing of resources and ideas which can help each and every one of our local churches to grow as well. And this is a collective effort from each person who joins one of these sessions.

So, I am very excited and I'd like to say that from what I saw today, everyone is having a great time, and that is very important. And I believe that it is going to go on from here and we are going to go on to the next level of networking as well - globally.

So God bless you and see you in the future in one of our networking sessions.

For more information write to: denizlu2u@gmail.com

Pastor Denis Lu
HIM Networking Group Coordinator

HIM VIDEOS

2010-04-28T12:00:00.001+10:00

Dear Pastors and Leaders

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ORPHANAGE MINISTRY: UGANDA, AFRICA

2010-04-27T19:10:00.000+10:00

Vision for Uganda orphanage

On the afternoon of Saturday 19th September 2009, I arrived in Uganda, a nation devastated by decades of war and by the HIV/AIDS epidemic. Two years ago, I had only hoped that I could somehow contribute to the pressing needs on the other side of my world.

I first heard about the great work Watoto Child Care Ministries was doing in Uganda while I was at a womens' conference.

[Photo: Tina Wong in Uganda, Africa Orphanage]

I was inspired as I heard the stories of orphans who each had been placed into a new home, with 7 other parentless children, and a widow to look after them; and how these families, within a wider village community, were raising children into strong, God-loving adults. These children, most of whom had lost their parents to AIDS, now have hope again and believe in a brighter future. So I started raising funds. I thought I would help by contributing towards the cost of building a house. Little did I know that God had plans for me to join with a team to go to Uganda and actually build the house.

Teaming up with Glebe Rd Uniting Church

The team was a beautiful collage of personalities. From my church, there was myself, Melissa Toh, Kevin Choo and Mei Goh. The majority of the team were from Glebe Rd Uniting church in Ipswich, and a few of their friends.

All up, there were sixteen of us. We had been meeting up and praying together for months leading up to the trip, so we arrived in Uganda with ample anticipation. We were committed to building a house, but not just a house - a home. A place where precious lives would be restored.

Bulrushes, Watoto's Baby Centre

The day after we arrived, we visited Bulrushes, Watoto's baby centre, where orphaned or abandonned babies are rescued and nurtured. Babies scurried towards us from all directions, crawling into our laps and reaching out for cuddles. We all melted like butter! To think that many of these precious ones would have died had it not been for Watoto.

Many were brought to Bulrushes premature, malnourished or in terrible condition, but are now happy, healthy, bouncing babies!

Building a house in Suubi Two

The next day, we started to build in a new village called Suubi Two. We loaded and unloaded bricks and formed a long chain so that we could move bricks from A to B.

Each brick weighed 7.5kg so we got a great work out. With Ugandan builders assisting us, we all got the hang of bricklaying fairly quickly, and by the end of Day One, we had built eight rows of bricks. That evening, we all groaned in agony from sore muscles and aching backs, arms, and legs, but after some Tiger Balm and a good night's sleep, we were back on site early the next morning, eager to keep at it. We were determined to finish buillding the house! After a total of three and a half days of vigorous brick-laying, enduring scorching heat, braving shaky scaffolding, getting mortar and mud in our shoes, clothes and hair, we finally completed the house!

Together with the builders, we had a dedication ceremony to dedicate the house to the children of Uganda, and prayed a prayer of blessing over the house and over the lives of those who would call this dwelling their home.

We had worked hard, but it was a labour of love. While we were building, God was also building faith in us. We had an opportunity to visit and pray for one of the children in the village bed-ridden with malaria, and by the next day, he was out of bed, joyfully drawing with the colour pencils we gave him. On the final day of building, we also had the honour of seeing one of the Ugandan builders give his heart to Christ. We cherished every moment in our hearts, and felt so privileged to be a part of God's great work.

Fellowship with the locals

The highlight of the whole trip was when we went to one of the established Watoto villages where we had lunch with the families.

The family that I visited had eight girls and a Watoto mum, who greeted us at the door with big smiles and warm hugs. We were then spoilt with the best Ugandan home-cooked meal ever. As we ate, the girls happily shared about their favourite subjects at school and what they wanted to study in university. There was so much hope in their eyes. As they were excitedly showing us their rooms (4 girls to a room), we were saddened to hear the story of how only a year ago, they lost their previous Watoto mum to AIDS.

I couldn't even try to comprehend how it would feel to lose your parents and then to lose your adopted mum, to go through so much grief as a child. Yet these girls had a strength of faith about them that was remarkable. Before we left, they blessed us with a delightful dance and a couple of beautiful songs. We were so touched by their love and found it so hard to say goodbye. We already knew that coming to Uganda to build a house was going to make a difference, but after spending time with one of the families, we were absolutely convinced that what we have built will make a difference in childrens' lives, and a lasting impact in the nation of Uganda.

James 1:27 says, "Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world."

Compassion for the orphans and widows

As long as there are orphans and widows in need in our world, there will always be work for the church. We left Uganda with a strong sense that our work had only just begun, and that the building will continue when we landed back on home soil. So I am setting my sights on another house, another eight precious orphans rescued by 2012. Some team members have determined in their hearts to return to Uganda in the near future to serve as volunteers. All of us will continue to champion this cause.

We set out to build a home and change lives, and in the process, God built His compassion deep in our hearts and changed our lives forever.

Uganda Africa Mission Photo Website

Tina Wong
Hope Church, Brisbane

Write to Tina Wong for more information about "Orphanage ministry in Uganda, Africa: tinie_wong@hotmail.com

MAKING A DIFFERENCE THROUGH SHORT TERM MISSIONS

2010-04-27T15:27:00.008+10:00

[Uganda, Africa Missions Trip Photos]

May Cheung serves as the missions manager for Hope Oceania churches. In her home church, Hope Church Brisbane, she pastorally oversees a student group, and the missions & outreach departments.
She is passionate about seeing God’s people capture God’s heart for the world, and be actively engaged in His global vision.

MAKING A DIFFERENCE THROUGH SHORT TERM MISSIONS

Short term missions (STM) has only been around since the late 1950s when groups like Youth With A Mission (YWAM) developed the concept that missionaries need not be those who go to the foreign for their entire lifetime, but they could be young people with just a few weeks to spare. Since its humble beginnings, the STM movement has grown explosively.

A short term mission is the mobilisation of a Christian to ministries done overseas, cross culturally or nationally for a short period of time ranging from days to one year. A short-termer is a willing and committed Christian to be used by God for a global purpose.

[Short-term Mission Trip to Uganda, Africa]

Why Do Short Term Missions?

There are many valuable benefits of being involved in short term missions – to the host church, to your friends and your church, and to yourself.

a. It stretches your faith and moulds your character.

You will have opportunities to do things you’ve never done before in your home church. It challenges you to rely on God. It grows your faith. It provides a context for the Spirit of God to do a significant work in your life.

b. It helps to confirm your vision.

Maybe you have sensed a call from God to be involved in long term missions. STM is a good preparation for long term mission work.

c. It can lead you to a deeper commitment to missions.

You become inspired by your experience which can lead to long-term commitment towards missions and even become significantly involved in the on-going missions thrust of your church. This includes becoming informed, enthusiastic senders, mobilisers, or even goers.

d. It helps your home church catch the vision

The testimonies and stories you bring back to your life group and church can encourage others to catch the vision. You will speak out of experience, not just textbook knowledge.

e. It increases your sensitivity to needs.

Exposure to issues of wealth, poverty and social estrangement challenges our perspectives and things we take for granted.

f. It gives you opportunity to interact with church planters and mission workers

The dedication, commitment and service of the missionary can inspire your personal walk with God.

g. It puts you in the right place at the right time.

STM teams may find God has placed them in a situation at just the right time to accomplish a special purpose eg to affirm & encourage a missionary who feels forgotten, to meet people who are ready to receive the gospel etc.

h. It honours and affirms the church planters and mission workers.

i. It extends the Kingdom of God

The benefits to the host church/country are: seeds of gospel are sown, people are converted, local church leaders are trained, local church is ministered and Body of Christ is encouraged etc.

What Types of Short Term Missions You Can Be Involved In

a. Exploration trip – to survey the land for pioneering opportunities and search entry vehicles.

b. Extension – ministry to existing local churches. Eg leadership training, evangelism & outreach, ministry training

c. Secondment or Attachment – to strengthen and serve in a church in another locality for several weeks or months

d. Community Development & Humanitarian Aid – in areas of medical, education, construction. Eg Watoto, Effective Aid

e. Intercession – do prayer walks in the target city/town.

f. Pastoral visitation – to encourage and bless the long term mission workers.

Someone once said that short term mission is a normal part of discipleship. The short term mission process is a great opportunity to disciple members.

We have been given stewardship of the gospel. Not everyone is called to be a missionary but everyone is called to the mission of bringing the gospel globally and cross culturally (the Great Commission). Short term mission is one way every person can be involved. I encourage you to aim to go on a mission trip at least once in your lifetime.

For His Kingdom sake,

May Cheung
Missions Coordinator, Hope Oceania
[Hope Oceania Missions Website]

Reference: Adapted from Hope Singapore “Stepping out to short-term missions”.

JESUS OUR DIVINE MENTOR

2010-04-20T15:00:00.001+10:00

Jesus Christ is the Good Shepherd, and that He is the best role model, teacher and mentor we could possibly desire. There is no-one else who has proven Himself to love us more, be more concerned about our daily development and progress or our future ministry than the Lord. In aspiring to be better mentors ourselves we need regular input from our Divine Mentor. Engaging with the Lord through prayer and bible reading is imperative to enable us to benefit from His input to our lives. This series is to inspire us to become the mentors that the Lord wants us to be, caring for others and training them, so that many others in the church can be shepherded, mentored and taught to become strong Christians and to function at an appropriate level of ministry.

John 10: 10 – 15 “The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly. 11“I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd gives His life for the sheep. 12“But a hireling, he who is not the shepherd, one who does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and flees; and the wolf catches the sheep and scatters them. 13“The hireling flees because he is a hireling and does not care about the sheep. 14“I am the good shepherd; and I know My sheep, and am known by My own. 15“As the Father knows Me, even so I know the Father; and I lay down My life for the sheep.

1. JESUS IS OUR GOOD SHEPHERD

He lays down His life for us! (John 10:11, 15, 17);
He loves His people and cares for His people (John 10:13);
He knows His people and knows what is best for us! (John 10: 3, 14; John 17: 3);
He leads and guides His people (John 10:3-4, Psalm 32: 8);
He does not abandon His people – He searches for us! (John 10:12);
He brings lost people back (John 10:10);
He pastures (nurtures and nourishes) His people (John 10:9);
He teaches, corrects and disciplines us, amen! (2 Tim 3: 16, 17);
He protects His people (John 10:12).

Therefore – because Jesus is the best Mentor and Shepherd we could ever possibly ask for – He wants to teach us to trust and obey Him, amen! Whatever He says will always be the best for us in the long run – and His motive is perfect love. We can trust God today, amen.

a) Do you want Jesus to be your Good Shepherd today? What things do we need to ensure that Jesus will continue to be our Divine Mentor?

2. WE NEED TO FOLLOW JESUS’ EXAMPLE

John 13: 13 – 15 “You call me Teacher and Lord, and you say well, for so I am. 14“If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. 15“For I have given you an example, that you should do as I have done to you.

Matt 7: 12 “Therefore, whatever you want men to do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets.

Luke 6: 31 “And just as you want men to do to you, you also do to them likewise.

Mentoring: refers to a personal developmental relationship in which a more experienced or more knowledgeable person helps a less experienced or less knowledgeable person.
There are several definitions of mentoring in the literature. Foremost, mentoring involves communication and is relationship based.

It entails informal communication, usually face-to-face and during a sustained period of time, between a person who is perceived to have greater relevant knowledge, wisdom, or experience (the mentor) and a person who is perceived to have less (the protégé or mentoree).

Since the focus of mentoring is to develop the whole person, the techniques are broad and require wisdom in order to be used appropriately (Wikipedia).

b) What is the best way for me to receive mentoring from Jesus?

3. WE NEED TO RECEIVE JESUS’ TEACHINGS

Matt 7: 24, 25 “Therefore whoever hears these sayings (teachings) of Mine, and does them, I will liken him to a wise man who built his house on the rock: 25“and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it did not fall, for it was founded on the rock.

Carry our cross (a willingness to suffer hardship, eg. Fasting, rejection, tiredness; but not sickness or disease) Matt 16: 24;

Preach the gospel, train leaders and plant new churches Matt 28: 18 – 20; Mark 16: 15 And He said to them, “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature.

Mentor one-another – demonstrate love for each other 2 Cor 8: 24 Therefore show to them, and before the churches the proof of your love and of our boasting on your behalf. Matt 28: 19 make disciples of all nations!

Hate sin and wickedness Hebrews 1:9 You have loved righteousness and hated lawlessness; therefore God, Your God, has anointed You With the oil of gladness more than Your companions.”

c) A big part of mentoring is “on the job” training. What types of activities will we need to be involved in so that the Lord can mentor us while we are active?

d) Is it possible not be active in our faith and yet still grow and mature as a christian?

4. WE NEED TO SPEND DAILY TIME WITH JESUS!

If Jesus is to be our Divine Mentor – then we need to spend time with Him. It is impossible to be mentored by Someone you do not know!

Prayer
Word of God – meditation – SOAP
SOAP = Scripture, Observation, Application, Prayer
As we meditate on a passage of scripture, one verse or section will stand out. This will most likely be the section the Lord desires to teach us from. Begin by writing down the verse. Then begin by writing the most obvious deductions about the verse. As you write, more ideas will come to you. Write down these extra ideas. Soon you will be surprised at how many ideas you have written down. If you do not write them down, the flow of new ideas can be inhibited by our lack of memory – that’s why I find it quite stimulating to begin to write ideas down and then let new ones flow. You will be surprised – I guarantee it! Then the author of the Divine Mentor (which includes the SOAP idea – Wayne Codeiro) encourages us to write down a direct application of these observations to our personal lives. Without applying it to our lives we will deceive ourselves (James 1: 22). Then we finish our SOAP session with Prayer. Please pray over each new observation you receive from the Holy Spirit. Lets be diligent – and we will see ourselves growing spiritually, amen!
Regular disciplined devotion e.g. Mary and Martha (Luke 10: 42).
Destiny Determines Duty – faith requires action to follow, amen!

To be effective – we need to spend time with the Lord in solitude!
Find somewhere away from others, away from the mobile phone and the internet!
Concentrate on the Lord and focus upon Him!
Get to know God – wait for His Spirit’s gentle promptings in our conscience.

e) The SOAP is applied while we are having our quiet devotion time with the Lord. Can we make time to practice applying SOAP each day?

God wants to transform us more and more into His likeness – but He does not force us – He beckons us and gives us the option – it is up to us today to choose to allow Jesus to be our Divine Mentor, amen!

Please encourage all of our members and visiting Christians to spend time with the Lord every day. We must not neglect our time with Him. He commands us to rely upon Him and His grace, which is impossible without regular prayer and bible meditation. Lets make it a goal to do some SOAP sessions each day and to share your insights with your mentor or other life group members, amen!

Written by Pastor Brendan Kirby, Hope Church - Adelaide

INTENTIONAL DISCIPLESHIP ID 2010

2010-03-30T18:41:00.000+10:00

[Christmas Celebration in Hope Singapore]

In 2009, God spoke to us already that from the years 2009-2015, it is going to be seven years of harvest. This is why we treated 2009 as a year of preparation. We prepared our lives, our leadership and our base camp. We wanted to be ready when God brings in the harvest. Then in September, 2009, as I was praying to God, God sent a very clear signal in my heart that we are going to spend the whole year of 2010 investing in intentionally becoming disciples and making disciples. We call it ID2010.

Let me tell you about the first part. It is about intentionally becoming a disciple. We want to become a disciple. Jesus made a clear distinction between those who were in the crowd and those who were disciples. Jesus loved the crowd, but Jesus wants us to progress from being part of the crowd to becoming a disciple. To become a disciple, there are three things I would like to share with you.

Pastor Jeffrey Chong Video Message

Disciples have strong spiritual habits

The first thing is that disciples have good, strong spiritual habits. It is important to have strong spiritual habits. All of us desire more of God. For some, it may only remain a dream. For others, they can make this dream become a reality. What is the difference? The difference is in the actions. Our actions are controlled by our habits. With the right habits, we are able to draw nearer to God. With the right habits, we are able to encounter God in a fresh way.

[Hope Singapore Combined church service]

Disciples possess godly attitudes

Secondly, disciples also possess godly attitudes. We need to have the right attitudes. When I look at Matthew 5-7, it talks about godly attitudes. In these chapters, Jesus targeted the fact that some people were more concerned about external behaviour. For example, Jesus said that some of you say do not commit adultery, but I say to you, that when you look at the opposite sex with lust, you commit adultery. Essentially, Jesus went straight to the attitude of our hearts.

[Hope Singapore Water Baptism]

Disciples take personal responsibility of spiritual life

Thirdly, disciples must also take personal responsibility for their spiritual life. We cannot abdicate our personal responsibilities and push it towards our pastors, leaders, mentors or shepherds. Sure the leaders will do their very best to help us, but first and foremost, we take personal responsibility to nurture our spiritual life and make sure that it grows.

Next, it is not just about becoming a disciple. It is also about being a disciple-maker. A true disciple makes disciples. Jesus spoke to his disciples in Matthew 28 to go and make disciples of every nation. A true believer is a disciple and a true disciple will go about making disciples. So this whole core value about becoming a disciple and becoming a disciple-maker is not for a few elect; it is for everyone who bears the name of Christ and for those who call themselves Christians. So we want to be intentional, to be able to teach and model for the people under our care. We want to help the people come to know God. We want to help the people, to teach them the right spirit, correct the wrong, affirm the right we want to help them understand God better and to love God deeper.

[Hope Singapore Easter Service]

ID 2010: Becoming a disciple & disciple-maker

So in 2010, we want to do these two things: becoming a disciple and becoming a disciple-maker. We want to do it with great intentionality. I have deliberately added intentionality because I believe with all of my heart that discipleship will not take place unless and until there is great intentionality. In fact, nothing great has ever happened without great intentionality. So once again, I want to welcome you to ID2010. For a full understanding and full explanation of this ID2010, log in to our website and download the sermon entitled ID2010; listen to it.

May God bless you very richly. Let us all become disciples and disciple-makers. Praise God!

Pastor Jeffrey Chong
Hope Church, Singapore Website

Exposure! (24th - 26th April) [Download Registration Form]

PASTOR SIMON ENG MESSAGE

2010-03-30T17:04:00.000+10:00

Hi everyone let me share with you about our next core value and that is about being church planters. As you know, church planting has been our core value; church planting has been practiced in our church for the last 18-20 years. Internationally, all our churches have been grounded on this core value of being church planters. Our people are trained, our people are challenged, our people pray and they look into fulfilling the Great Commission through church planting. Firstly, let me share a few thoughts about this area.

Prepare churches for the Great Commission

My first point: the importance of the church of being a church planter. We need to get our church; we need to prepare our church to be the right kind of church in order to duplicate church planters, disciplers, leaders and being able to fulfil the Great Commission. We need to build our church correctly so that these values and the principles of the Word of God are being taught and instilled into our people so clearly that they appreciate, they understand, they receive all these principles and prepare themselves in the church. The church becomes the model; the church becomes the sending centre as well.

As our leaders grow in the church, as our people capture this vision in the church, they naturally flow together in this core value of being church planters. Every member in the church should capture this vision and value of being a church planter; either directly or indirectly, they will be involved. We want the majority or 100% of our church to be involved; being in church planting. It is not just for the pastors, it is not just for the people who are most committed. Firstly, we need to ensure that we get the quality of the church correct.

The church is the seed. If the seed is not healthy, it will not reproduce. If the seed is not healthy, it also will not reproduce the right kind of leaders, the right kind of disciples, and the right kind of conceptual thinking to be able to multiply church planters. So it is highly important that we really get our church correct. I would like to encourage every one of us around the world, ensure that in the year 2010, we really look carefully throughout our churches, look carefully at the quality of our churches and ensure that we are able to reproduce church planters after our own DNA; core value of being church planters.

Church Planting is our strategy

Secondly, I want to mention that church planting is our key strategy. You know as we look at the aspect of fulfilling the Great Commission, throughout the entire world, I have been a Christian for 30 over years, I hear about Christians wanting to fulfil the Great Commission. There are many, many strategies; there are many ways of doing it from different Christian organisations. However, for ourselves in Hope, we believe that God has put the call and the challenge upon us to fulfil the Great Commission through planting churches. This has been established over the last 18-20 years. It has been practised in nations; it has already been established in the regions around the world of our churches. We have seen the fruits and the fulfilment of this strategy.

For an example, let us take Australia. We planted in Melbourne, and from Melbourne, it has gone to Brisbane, it has gone to Sydney, it has gone to Adelaide, it has gone to Perth etc. Every major city around Australia has Hope churches now and these churches that are planted biblically and healthily with the important core value in mind will continue to saturate around their city. For example, Brisbane has entered into Gold Coast. They will continue to look at the surrounding areas about Brisbane and saturate the entire region around north-eastern Australia. This is church planting, this is strategy. Further out of Australia, we shall look into the Oceania region: New Zealand and the islands around Oceania etc. Our churches there should strategise on church planting as the key strategy to fulfil the Great Commission.

Let me encourage you with a real life story that is still happening today about our church planting in Europe. We have two dominant regions. In Western Europe, our churches in London, around the United Kingdom, have been growing healthily. Planted from London, it went forth from Central London. It has gone to various cities. It has gone to Hatfield, it has gone to Ealing and it has gone to Birmingham. They are healthily multiplying and God has been favouring our churches there to multiply them. They are growing. It is touching the Filipino group and touching various communities of Asians etc. The English are coming in to join our groups of people there so Western Europe is growing healthily.

Also, our German and Eastern European churches are growing. I will just focus on talking about Germany. I think the churches around Germany have also captured this vision of church planting. They are planning on establishing key seed churches in eight regions around Germany. Each of these regions will continue to grow and they will continue to saturate their regions.

By this strategy, we can see that it will touch the nation of Germany and it will touch the nation of the United Kingdom. The churches will continue to grow, it will continue to saturate and multiply into many more groups in their respective regions. So we can see the practicality, the successes and the feasibility of this strategy; is really, really workable. We try it and we have worked it out and we have seen the fruits. So try for yourself in your local churches, in your region. You will see that God can help us with this strategy, bless this strategy and God can make it grow to fulfil the Great Commission.

From now until Jesus comes back again, our churches will continue to have this core value implanted into our members and into our churches. We will continue to establish new churches in either the regions or in the new cities, new countries etc to fulfil the Great Commission in this manner. When we look at it nationally and we look at it regionally, we see that this strategy is workable, is possible and it can succeed. That is why we believe in church planting as the key strategy because we have practiced it for 18-20 years and we have seen the fruits, we see the results and we see the success. It is an effective way, it is a very fruitful way to cover the country nationally, to cover the region beyond a national scope and together as we join our hands working around globally, we can see that we can fulfil the Great Commission to plant strong and biblical churches, to plant disciple-making churches around the world and that can help us fulfil the Great Commission.

Every member involved in church planting

Thirdly and lastly, I want to mention that every member should be involved in church planting, directly or indirectly. The core value should be in us. Although we know that not everybody will go out, we want to encourage every member in our church to capture this value. Every member in our church should be part and parcel to plant, to pray, to think, to mobilise themselves and say, “Hey, someday I will want to be able to join some team. Someday I will be able to assist. Someday, you know, I want to be involved in this”. No one should say “oh, this is not my calling, this is not what I want to do; this is not my gifting”. Even though it is not our gifting, in the different things that we do around the church; for example, a Sunday school or PKC or children’s ministry, by doing a quality children’s ministry in our churches, we can duplicate it in another country elsewhere. It is assisting, it is duplicating our ministry wherever we are involved in, and it can be a ministry that literally will help some of our churches elsewhere around the world. This is the dynamism of this strategy. You know through church planting, through everyone being involved, everybody developing and being involved in their respective ministries around the local church, that local church ministry can reproduce itself in another global church elsewhere, in another country, in another group of people, in another part of the world.

So dear brothers and sisters, everything that we are doing will be able to help, to assist and be able to advance the cause of church planting. We are church planters. We are certain that this strategy will work. This core value needs to be assimilated fully into every one of our members. Let us be clear about this. Down the years, we do not want to fight about this and we do not want to argue about this. We are church planters. Our members and our people should capture this value throughout these future years that we want to put into our church.

All our people should have this vision, should have this core value in themselves to say, “I’m a church planter, I want to be involved in church planting, my church must be a church planting church. It must reproduce other churches so that we can expand, we can bring the Kingdom of God through our church planting to establish our churches into every part of the world”. Continue to look through our churches; continue to ensure that our church quality, our churches are healthy and this seed will be able to reproduce itself into healthy churches, into strong churches, into church planting churches beyond our local church.

Global Conference in Kuala Lumpur

Coming up after our Chiang Mai GC (Global Conference) will be the one in Kuala Lumpur. It will be in April. It will be publicised or made known already to your local pastors or to your RMC church etc. Find out this information where it is, when it is and the days we are going to have our Global Conference. I want to invite you to be there because it is great for our global families and leaders and pastors to come together to share, to pray, to talk and be ministered to about how we can advance the Kingdom of God, how we can continue to fulfil the Great Commission and through our global pastors and leaders meeting together.

God bless you.

Pastor Simon Eng
President of HIM

HOPE GERMANY CHURCHES NEWS

2010-03-30T16:42:00.004+10:00

HOPE BERLIN, GERMANY

Hello brothers and sisters. My name is Stefanie Rose. I am from Hope Berlin in Germany.

We are very excited because this year in May 21-25,we are going to see in the festival held in Stuttgart, Germany. We hope to see 500 people in our festival. Wow! I am so excited; will it really happen? I really think our God is big. If you want to come, join us and see for yourself.

Stefanie Rose Video Interview

I really hope to see you at our festival from May 21-25 in Stuttgart, Germany. Our topic will be “Heaven Sent”. We are heaven sent, so please come and join us!

Stefanie Rose
Hope Berlin, Germany

HOPE STUTTGART, GERMANY

Wir sind Steffen und Ulrike aus Stuttgart! (We are Steffen and Ulrike from Stuttgart)! We have just been married for six months now and you can still see it. My name is Ulrike, I am from Germany, originally from Berlin and I served at Hope Church in Germany. I am Steffen. I have been in Stuttgart for ten years now. We will now share a bit about our backgrounds.

Steffen & Ulrike Video Interview

Sharing from Steffen...

I come from an East German family; the eight of us. I grew up 26 years and eight days ago. As I started to wonder about life, the meaning in life and what is after death; I started to search different philosophies, different words and religions to really find out what is the real meaning of life. However, I could not find it and even my so-called Christian friends at the time could not explain to me.

So from that time, I still thought that Christianity and God was something for weak people who could not handle life on their own. However, I was still looking for the answer for life and questioning the meaning of life.

When I studied near Stuttgart, I got to know a Malaysian Christian. It was quite unusual for me because Malaysia is a Muslim country. My friend used the chance to immediately evangelise to me and share about his experience with God. I decided at that time to ask all my questions: all the difficult ones about life and meaning, and life and death. He answered with an offer; he said “hey, it is a difficult question to answer, but let us read the Bible together. Maybe you can find some answers.” Up until that time, I had not read the Bible yet, even though I was 26 years old already and living in a so-called Christian country.

So we started to read the Bible. I figured out how the Bible describes God and describes the way God relates with people. I learnt that not only did it really make sense, but to live a life with God and Jesus is to live a really meaningful life.

So after six months of reading the Bible, I was quite desperate about my current life situation and I decided that I needed Jesus in my life. So I repented of all my sins and asked Him to come into my life and to be my Lord and Saviour.

Sharing from Ulrike...

I come from and grew up in East Germany. I went to study in 2000 in a city quite close to Berlin. Actually, it was there that I heard about the Christian faith for the first time. At the time, I was studying with someone who was a Christian, who just got to know Jesus nine months before at Hope Berlin. She shared to me about what she believes in, about her ideas of who God is and what she wants to see in her life.

For me, it was very surprising because I had a big, big prejudice against God and against the church. I did not see the difference between the institution of church and God. I did not know at that point of time that I could have a relationship with God; that God was a personal God. So it took me some time to overcome my prejudices – my friend was very perseverant with me. Between studying and preparing for exams, we had enough of chances to talk about the question of life and about other things: how to have a satisfying life, how to build relationships that are successful, and what to do with our lives.

Slowly, I could see that she had something in her life that I did not have. She was not only preaching something, but she was living it out. I started to read the Bible and then I went to a care group in Frankfurt. It was very hard for me. I did not understand much. Slowly, my perspective changed from “there cannot be a God; if God is there, I should see Him”, to the perspective of “okay, I cannot deny that there might be a God; the fact that I cannot see him is not conclusive proof that he is not there”. It was really a big, big change in my thinking, especially since Germans are known to think a lot and to be very analytical. This was an important change in my concept of the world. I think at that point of time God really stirred in my heart.

I became very honest with myself, honest with my friend as well. It came to the point where I needed God in my life, and not only God, but I started to understand that Jesus is His son and that he was crucified for me and for my sins and for my not perfect situation. After a year, I decided to try it out. I wanted to take the chance for a new life; that was Jesus. This happened in Frankfurt, around the same time that Stefan got to know Jesus as well. For me, as I became a Christian, I got to know Jesus at Hope church and it became very clear that this is my family; this is a place where I want to learn more about God, where I want to get discipled, where I have my friends and where I have my spiritual family.

Now eight years later, I have been serving in Hope Frankfurt; Hope Berlin, leading a house church, and moved a year ago to Stuttgart. Steffen and I are leading Hope Stuttgart.

Building Hope Stuttgart

We have been leading Hope Stuttgart now together for the past year. It is difficult to share the gospel to Germans because they think they know a lot about God. The problem is that they do not know God personally. They reason a lot so it takes a lot of time to make them think again, rethink again. So we spend a lot of time talking to people, reasoning with them together, try to read the Bible together and challenging them to make their own decision, because usually they just copy the decisions made by their parents or society; that God is not something that they need in their life. I used to think that way as well.

A Multicultural Church

So we are currently leading Hope Stuttgart and our church today has an international look to it. We have 50% German and the other 50% are students from Malaysia, Thailand, South America, China and even Africa.

We are working not only in Stuttgart, but also in the cities around Stuttgart. We try to support the people there and try to start some house churches, meaning small groups where members can personally grow, reach out to their friends, students, colleagues and families. What we are emphasising a lot right now is to talk to people about the gospel and try to evangelise in different ways: on the street, in student dormitories, to colleagues during lunch breaks and so on. It is really hard work but it is an exciting work to do because as we have experienced something that only Jesus coming into your life can give you.

Hope Stuttgart future vision

It is our mission and focus in the region to just use every contact that we have. We want to see that at the end of 2010, wherever you are in Germany, you can reach a care group or a house church in 90 minutes. This is what we want to see happen in 2010. It means we have to go into those towns and cities, meet the one or two contacts we have, meet their friends, and go evangelising on the streets there with questionnaires. We are really putting a lot of effort and finding new ideas on how to do mission; this is where we involve everyone and the different teams in our house churches.

So if you are interested in, and want to learn more about what mission in Germany looks like, a country which 100 years ago sent out many missionaries, but ironically, nowadays needs missionaries, please come and visit us as well. You are very welcome.

See you in Germany. See you!

Steffen and Ulrike
Hope Stuttgart, Germany
Hope Germany Website

REACHING THE NEXT GEN

2010-03-30T10:41:00.000+10:00

The eternal purposes of God for His church are unchanging. They have remained the same since the day of Pentecost 2000 years ago. God expects His church to worship, to evangelise, to fellowship, to edify believers, to serve the needs of people and to do missions & multiplying churches.

The Great commandment and the Great commission are non-negotiable. Any church that fails to fulfill these purposes is not really a biblical church. While God’s purpose for His church never change, each new generation must rediscover those purposes in their churches. And the methods that are used must change with every new generation.

Ablaze Conference Video

The Bible tells us “David had served God’s purpose in his own generation.” (Acts 13:36). He did the timeless in a timely way. He fulfilled the eternal in a contemporary setting.

As a church, we are to likewise make an intentional effort to do how to do church with a new generation of youth and young adults. Our goal is to take the timeless and express it in a timely fashion.

There are some values that are always relevant and always effective regardless of the target group you minister to. They are timeless values that appeal to every generation. But each generation must develop new expressions of these values.

The question remains “Are we willing to do whatever it takes to reach our generation for Christ?”

If our answer is YES, where should we start?

Although many churches have several programs that meet the needs and likes of an average middle-aged person, they often have little that meet the needs of the average youth and young adults (Gen-Y).

While not every church is called to start a targeted program to draw in Gen-Y, I believe that every church is called to minister to all members of its community, including today’s youth and young adults.

In the last couple of decades, most church ministry has been aimed at the legions of Baby Boomers (1946-1964). Just as Boomers demanded attention in the late 1970s and 1980s, now members of Gen-X (or Xers – 1964-1980) are demanding the church’s attention. And coming up quickly after them are the next generation of young adults, who we are referring to as the Gen-Y (1981-1994; 15-28 years old).

However, unlike Boomers and Gen-X, Gen-Y are unique and distinct from the previous generations.

Most importantly, they are RIGHT NOW the movers and shakers of our society and the world! For example, it’s said that these generations constitutes the most unchurched and unreached in different parts of the world (even the entire world)!

This isn’t to suggest that these young people aren’t spiritual. However, they hold a very different idea of what it means to believe in God. In addition, many of them have less than positive opinion of the church.

One of the difficulties in reaching this generation is to fully comprehend their natures, characteristics, communication styles, ways of life and social attitudes. Furthermore, there are many subgroups within this demographic, which have some differences among themselves.

They have splintered into many more subcultures. Ministry that reaches one group may miss the mark for another. With so many variables, it can be quite hard to know where to begin.

The following three essentials would greatly help us create a Gen-Y ministry framework, which assists us to better reach & minister to them.

1. Real (Authenticity):

Authenticity is the key word here. Not only must our ministry be credible and trustworthy, but we must be also. They don’t expect us to know all about their life issues, nor do they want us to embrace their lifestyle/ culture.

They are simply seeking understanding, and respect. If our ministering has a hidden agenda, or we are less than transparent, it will be seen. This generation can sniff a phoney from a long distance.

Today’s youth have access to the most advanced technology, movie special effects, and video games with which we can never compete. But the good news is that they are not impacted by slick presentations. They don’t want a rehearsed talk, or a manufactured spiel. The more spontaneous and interactive we are in the classroom, the less intimidated, and more open they will be.

They are drawn to authenticity. We are to be authentic – real and genuine.

2. Relational (Partnership):

Programs are frameworks in which a ministry exists. Programs don’t minister but people do! It is not programs that will change lives but relationships that will be remembered and have the greatest influence on people’s lives.

Our Christian faith is sealed in a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. We are building Jesus’ Generation! – People who are imitate and follow Christ! (Col 1:15, Eph 5:1) Jesus stepped into our world to identify with us: to walk as we walk, to experience what we experience, to talk and relate to us in relationship!

“Disciple-making is not about the program but people!”

3. Relevant (Contexulisation):

It is essential for us to discover their area of interest. But the style, as well as the content of our message must be relevant to a generation who are visually educated and entertained.

There is no point in giving music to a friend on a cassette tape if they only have a CD player, or on CD if they only use MP3.

Similarly we must research in the most appropriate format for those we are reaching. So in understanding the communication styles of our target cohort we will be better equipped to reach them. Remember that relevance is using what is cultural to say what is timeless

These three essentials would help us thrive to create a suitable Gen-Y ministry model and approaches. However, as you are on your journey of formulating them, it is good to keep in mind your local church context, culture and vision.

I don’t know about you. But for me, I believe that for such a time as this, God has called me to win this generation for Him. And one day I want to be able to say to myself that I have served God’s purpose in my own generation!

What about you?

Torchie KL
Ablaze Ministries International
torchie@gmail.com
http://twitter.com/torchiekl

NEW ADVANCE NEWSLETTER ADDRESS

2010-03-30T09:38:00.001+10:00

Dear Pastors and Leaders

Our website has been relocated to the following URL: http://advancenewsletter.blogspot.com

Please update your bookmarks accordingly.

Thank you for all your support.

LIVING IN THE CENTRE OF GOD'S PURPOSES

2010-03-29T13:32:00.001+10:00

When I was a research scientist in CSIRO, I had to use many heavy machinery and sophisticated electronic devices. As a major part of my research involved taking accurate measurements, it was critical that I check my equipment and recalibrate it regularly. No matter how sophisticated the devices I used, the calibration eventually goes off. It would be negligent of me, as a thorough research scientist, not to ensure that my instruments were accurate. Because if my instrument were not accurate, I would be working with incorrectly measured data and this can significantly affect my research conclusions.

The same thing often happens in our lives. We need to ensure we recalibrate ourselves on some regular basis. We need to check that our perspectives, our emotional state, our passions and goals in life are properly attuned to God’s. Otherwise, we may well be living in one of 3 situations...

First, we may not even be aware how far our lives are out of tune with God. This is dangerous because ignorance can lead to greatly unexpected results. Some imagine that they will be right before God, perhaps to discover too late that they were not pleasing to God.

Secondly, we may once be attuned to God but we have been steering increasingly off-centre for some time. Because the mis-steer may be small, we may not realise it. But eventually, the off-balance will get larger and larger if we do not re-focus ourselves. The sad thing is, some disciples are shocked to discover how far they wonder away from God’s will, only after some major calamity.

Jimmy Bakker was a very successful tele-evangelist and his TV show reaps in millions of dollars from donors. But he got caught up in the hyper-prosperity doctrine and amassed a great wealth for himself though some improper means. Eventually, he was caught and sentenced to jail. In 1996, he wrote a book entitled “I Was Wrong” where he renounced his past teachings on prosperity theology.

King Uzziah did what was right in the eyes of God (2 Chron 26:3-5). Yet after he became powerful, pride took hold of his heart and he began to be unfaithful to God. He even imagined that he could burn incense himself to God in the temple and God struck him with leprosy (2 Chron 26:16-20).

Thirdly, we may be in the happy situation where we are in the centre of God’s purposes.

Regardless, of which 3 situations we may be in, it is important to continue to recalibrate ourselves.

What are some key steps to living in the centre of God's purpose?

Connect with God

There is nothing more important than connecting ourselves with God.

Not just the going to God in prayer with a prayer list. But a seeking of God to speak to us, to alert us of any off-centredness. A genuine soul searching, “God, am I ok? Are there things in my live that needs attention?” This is not meant to be navel gazing, but simply part of the process of self-awareness guided by God.

Psalms 139:23 - 24 (NIV) 23 Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. 24 See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.

Sometimes, our misalignment occurs simply because we are too exhausted or too stressed. Connecting to God and drawing from His strength is critical at such times. God can refresh us deep in our souls and spirit.

Check your alignment

When a car tends to steer to the left or to the right, rather than straight, it means a re-alignment of the wheels are needed. In the same way, we need to check every so often whether we are running true. We need to check whether our perspectives are still aligned with God’s. We should check against the Scriptures consistently with integrity and honesty. It is only by constantly reading and studying the Scriptures humbly that we can check whether our perspectives are aligned with God’s.

We need to be open to others that God brings into our lives and allow them to speak into our hearts. This will keep us on the straight and narrow.

All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work. 2 Timothy 3:16-17

Cast back to His promises

It is important to remember again the promises of God that God gave to us in the past. God is faithful and will not neglect His promises. Yet often God is waiting for us to respond with faith to His promises. Perhaps our recollection of His promises has gone dull or has become blunted over time.

We will do well to meditate again on His promises to us and let it stir in us faith and passion to see it come to pass.

Psalms 119:162 (NIV) 162 I rejoice in your promise like one who finds great spoil.

May you keep your hearts well calibrated before God!

Dr Wilson Lim
Hope Church, Brisbane

# Taken from Inside-Newsletter

CHURCH PLANTING IN DAVAO, THE PHILIPPINES

2010-03-23T20:09:00.000+10:00

Hi, this is Ps Wakki from Hope Davao. Welcome to Davao City, this is Davao City, the town centre.

I joined Hope in 2003 in Malaysia, and now I’m here in Davao, planting a Hope of God church. Actually I’m a local. We worked in and attended the Hope church there and now we have returned for God. We started Hope Davao in the month of August, 2007. Firstly, we had our first mission trip that year, and then we held our first Sunday Service in August, 2008. This is now our sixth month as a church here in Davao.

We started with three people: I, sister Irene and sister Joy. All three of us are locals but we came from Malaysia. When we started Hope Davao, we invited our relatives to gather and Hope Davao became a church. We averaged about 20 every week; and we believe God will increase our numbers. Also we are doing some outreach to the campuses. We have some students in our church now but most of us are working adults.

Twice already, Hope Labuan, Malaysia has sent a team to help and train us in reaching out, how to do other important things: gathering people, inviting people to church and how we should conduct evangelism etc.

So far, I can say we are doing well. Personally, I request for your prayer. Pray for us, pray for Hope Davao to grow, pray for Hope Davao to be invested in by God. Pray that we will grow spiritually, not just in numbers but in maturity for all those who are inside the church, since the majority of them are new Christians. So we *** your prayers, include us in your prayers and I’m inviting you to visit us. Davao is a very nice place. We welcome you, and please send your team and we welcome you to help us to reach out to university students, help us reach out to those professionals, there are a lot out there and we need some help. So send your team.

Pastor Wakki
Hope Davao, The Philippines

CHURCH PLANTING TESTIMONIES

My name is Irene. I’m from Hope of God Davao.

Four years ago, I was serving in Hope Labuan, Malaysia before I left the country. Before that time, I was not a Christian. However, a few months later, I joined Hope of God Labuan, Malaysia where I accepted Christ. Three and a half years later, I returned to the Philippines and I support Joyce in planting a church. I know I have received a lot of blessings after I received Christ. More blessings have come into my life.
In my care group, I am a worship leader, and one of the core team members in this church. I thank God because I received a lot of blessings. A few weeks ago, I received a job at the company I’m working for now.

Hello I’m Joy. I’m from Hope Davao, The Philippines.

God really told me to plant a church here in Davao. Before, I was serving God at Hope of God Labuan in Malaysia. God touched me to really have a burden for people because at the time, we had a Filipino group. Actually it wasn’t, God told brother Wakki to plant a church, and as a fellow Filipino, we grew together in Hope of God Labuan: we served together. God also touched my heart to plant and support our brother Wakki as our leader here. Since I’ve served in Labuan, Malaysia, I really praise God because the love of God has extended to my family and now my family is serving God in Hope of God Labuan, Malaysia.

God, at the time, told me to go return here to Davao. Praise God because He really set everything in order. When I arrived, I rested for one week and I started the care group with just my family at that time. Praise God I really obeyed him, because God knows my heart, and my heart really belongs to him. However, there was a bit of fear because I didn’t know if I could find work here. But I really praise God because God is really faithful to me; when God brings you here, God will bless you.

An example of where God really blessed me here at Hope Davao was when many people came to God and my relatives, along with me and my sister really helped to serve God together. There are a lot of my relatives here at this church. Then just a few months ago, God really gave me a good job and a few months later, God provided me with a promotion. I really praise God for that. God is faithful in my life, and I believe also, that as we continue to obey God, God will bless us also. So just continue to hold on to God’s promises and I believe God will bless us as we obey our Lord Jesus.

HIM FAMILY NEWS MARCH 2010

2010-03-09T11:10:00.004+10:00

A Little Taste of America

February 26th marked the inaugural launch of Rebuilding America: Missions@US. The seed began with five persons from different backgrounds. Two weeks prior to the event, God provided a new couple to TEAM USA. Indeed, God molded us into one team within a short period. It was not always smooth sailing managing all our busy schedules. Our dedicated team planned this launch trusting God fully. Derek did the deco. Even at the very last minute on the day itself, Junming (a guest) called to help Jon buy dinner for the evening.

We anticipated an attendance of thirty persons. God superseded our expectations. On the night, fifty-five persons showed up creating a burger crisis (insufficient dinner). Again God intervened by alerting us to prepare more than the sign-ups and perhaps someone was on a diet too. Though it was not twelve baskets of left over (remember that we’re talking about Singaporeans here), at the end of the night a lone Big Mac remained.

Our original plan was to feed everybody with the latest American comeback, WENDY’s. Due to a long queue at Lau Pa Sat, we had to forego this plan to go with the iconic Mcdonald’s. It was Junming’s offer to help check out Wendy’s before everything overran.

We started with dinner and mingling. After the carb with sugar rush, the programme started with a welcome from Pastor Lawrence. This was followed with a presentation on the findings about US churches from David Olson’s book, The American Church in Crisis. We have heard about American celebrity pastors, but the number of Christians is stagnating compared to population growth with most church growth coming from immigrants.

Next Ruey shared his story about starting a care group in the Silicon Valley, Northern California. He put his faith in God and saw miracles. He told the story of setting a goal of reaching twelve people. God answered this prayer of faith. Ruey was reminded that with God, anything is possible.

Then Pastor Ben spoke. He reminisced that our church started nineteen Februaries ago on Feb 17th 1991. Today our church is going global. He focused on the US, a country with very diverse cultures. He explained the church planting plan for the US and challenged us to play our part in building God’s church. He then prayed for us.

Later Keith took group photos before we broke into three discussion groups. Some were keen to study in the US whilst others wanted to work in the US. Many questions were about missions and life in the US. When discussions ended, we said goodbyes. Team USA cleared up, locked up and did a short debrief. Next we follow through with our respondents. Pray with us as we prepare for church planting in the US.

You can reach us at rebuildingamericahope@gmail.com

Written by Anne Djitowibowo

Hope Nairobi, Africa

At the end of 2009, Hope Nairobi wishes to thank God for the many people who held on to the Word of God and practiced it in their lives. We thank God for our two new care leaders who chose to obey the Lord and saw their lives changing. We had the privilege of having Pastor Willie praying and prophesying over them upon their appointment in October. Both care leaders saw themselves growing in their wisdom and understanding of the Lord intimately. Bravo, James K of Nairobi 1 and Ernest W of Nairobi 2.

Since many of us chose to obey the Lord and chose to give, we are seeing our potential being realised. The Lord blessed us with many young men, like Gibson, who managed to provide leadership to Hope Nairobi when we did the Orphanage project in December. Hope Nairobi managed to raise Ksh12,000 (SIN 250) on our own. It may look little to many, but for a young church like ours, it was a great accomplishment. Praise the Lord!

Hope Nairobi was also privileged to have a wonderful German couple teach us how to communicate. Through the session, we learned to express ourselves in a more objective yet heartfelt manner in order to convey the effect of difficult situations on relationships. Thank you, Doris and Frank Baur.

Last November saw us hold our first sport day where we just went crazy, having fun and playing football. Thank you everyone for making the day a success. We really knew how to have fun. We have never seen Steve ran so fast!

We have seen many new young men and women rising up. Maxwell is now our resident guitar player, Emma is now involved calling visitors, Steve is now a shepherd and has excelled in our Hope Nairobi Information and challenges us constantly to keep reading, Ben and Joy are now challenged to be consistent in care group and the list goes on.

In spite of setbacks, we know God is constantly blessing us with young people to disciple and train the leaders of tomorrow. One day, we pray that Hope Nairobi will produce many young Christ-centred disciples to contribute in every area of society.

We know our success does not depend just on us, but on a partnership with many others. They saw our potential and chose to give: Hope Singapore, who has taken the time to pray and challenge us by sending teams to train and disciple us. Pastor Willie, after an exhausting time travelling into Liberia, happily joined the care leaders to Jomo Kenyatta University to meet people on the matatu (local bus). The Baurs, who gave up Sundays in their own church, to help us communicate and most of all, our dearest Lord, who challenged us again and again to be excellent in everything. Amen. We are what we are today because many before us have given into us and for us.

2010 will be another exciting year.

Pray for us. We want to see 20 young exciting men for God who will be our future care leaders. Praise the Lord for James K, who attained a new position at a structural engineering company and Ernest in receiving a German scholarship for his Masters in Biotechnology.
Pray for Gibson, who will be our next care-leader, for his interview with Coca Cola and that he will gained wisdom from the present care leaders for ministry.
Pray for Maxwell that he will grow to be a musician who disciples other musicians.
Pray for Ben that he will influence more lawyers to Hope Nairobi.
Pray for Steve that he can influence more Information Technology personnel.
Pray for us as we plan an exciting Valentine’s Day safari walk, allowing people to understand what “Love” truly is. Pray for many more structural engineers, people in biotechnology; and of course, the list goes on. Isn’t that exciting!

There are never ending adventures with God and His people.

Lisa Chee
Hope Nairobi, Africa

Hope Nepal Camp - The Core

The second Hope Nepal Camp was successfully held on the 17th to 19th of October, 2009. The three-day event was held at Kathmandu, the capital city of Nepal, and the theme for this year was “The Core Part I”. There were 39 people who attended the camp, including 10 children. Pastor Kit Siang and Sister Lih Qing from Hope Serdang, flew to Kathmandu to join us in this event. Brothers and sisters from other provinces like Butwal and Pokhara also travelled hundreds of miles to come and join us at Kathmandu.

Due to limitations in transport and poor road conditions, some of the brothers and sisters had to travel by bus for 13 hours. There were even some who required a few days just to reach Kathmandu in time for the camp. This really showed that our fellow believers in Nepal greatly desire for the Word of God. It was a great time of family gathering for Hope Nepal churches to receive ministering from God.

The camp officially started on Saturday afternoon. The opening ceremony was officiated by a group of PKC children presenting two action songs, praising the Lord for His faithfulness and welcoming the attendees. It was then followed by a speech from Bro. Prakash, representing Hope Kathmandu, and the organizing committee of the 2nd Hope Nepal Camp. We then moved into a time of praising and worshipping the Lord. Pastor Kit Siang then took over to teach the church the first core value: being “Christ-centred”. Throughout the camp, the church was fed with the Word of God by Pastor Kit Siang teaching the first five core values of the Hope movement. These values are being Christ-Centred, Holy Spirit Empowered, Bible Based, Covenantal Relationship and Enriching Community Life.

One of the objectives of the camp was to see the core values of the church strongly planted in the hearts and minds of all attendees. Besides the teaching on core values, there was also a workshop to teach the people financial management. Pastor Kit Siang discussed the concept of work, tithing, saving and spending in the right sequence when handling money. The church has greatly benefited from the workshop, knowing that we should first work, then give unto God in the form of tithes, and then we should save and lastly we only spend so that we could have abundance as God had intended.

The camp ended on Monday afternoon. The closing ceremony was simple yet touching. Bro. Prakash presented a song, reminding the church about the sacrifice of Jesus Christ and the reason for the existence of the church. Many brothers and sisters were moved to tears and deep reflection. Although the churches in Nepal are still small, but they have the quality of a mustard seed. After the camp, our brothers and sisters are now equipped with strong biblical values, believing that as they persevere, God will surely help them grow and use them in making an impact in Nepal.

Prayer support is essential for Nepal’s churches. Intercession from prayer partners will make them strong and stand firm in an environment of idol worshipping, political instability and corruption.

Some of the areas we can pray for them:

1) Pray that God will heal the land of Nepal. The stronghold of idolatry will be pulled down and the favor of God be upon the land.
2) God will bless our Nepalese brothers and sisters in terms of provision and they will be lifted from their daily struggles.
3) Pray for the churches to be strong, equipped with biblical values and following the Word of God faithfully.

Reported by Lee Lih Qing – Hope Serdang

Hope Kuala Lumpur Bible Conference

Our first Bible Conference (BC) for 2010 was held from February 26-28, revisiting and re-emphasising our core values. The first five core values were taught in last year’s annual Malaysian National Convention (MNC) while the other values (being Bible-based, Christ-centred, Covenantal people, Holy Spirit empowerment and life enriching community) became the main theme for this Bible conference. A total of 480 participants from the Central Region Hope churches attended the event.

During the BC, we were taught to have our faith fundamentally grounded in the Bible and applying the Word of God in our lives. The church will be the vanguard in safeguarding the sanctity and integrity of the Bible. As Christ-centred people, the congregation was taught to align their lives upon Jesus Christ and develop and nurture Christ-centred thinking. Ultimately, the goal of a Christ-focused person is to walk in unity with each other and God, have a stable faith in Jesus, unceasingly speak the truth in love and develop Christ-likeness in every aspect of our lives.

A covenantal-driven church focuses on God’s covenant and above all, loving, honouring and worshipping Him as well as loving and forgiving one another by resolving differences and reconciling relationships. Only through the empowerment of Holy Spirit, are we continuously being moulded in His likeness and only by the anointing of the Holy Spirit are we able to function in our spiritual gifts. Through the development of our spiritual gifts, we are able to create a life-enriching community that enthusiastically enfolds people from all cultures with unconditional love and meeting needs holistically.

By cultivating such values, we are able to transcend racism, prejudice, animosity and bias; instead, nurturing a caring community where help, compassion, sharing and fellowship are naturally expressed out of sincere love and deep commitment towards one another. Engendering such values will help the churches to relate to diverse cultures and people, serving their needs holistically and touching lives for Christ.
Overall, the conference was a success and participants were impacted by the teachings of our charismatic leaders.

Furthermore, Ps Prakich travelled many miles just to grace the event together with the local church leaders. Kudos and praise to the organising team for their time and effort in making this conference a huge success. It has inspired people to live up to the expectations of God and endeavour towards the church vision of instilling Christ-centred people to plant vibrant, biblical churches in Malaysia and all over the continents.

Reported by Ang Beng Kuan, Hope KL

Hope Manila Valentine Day Celebration

All over the Philippines, the 14th of February is a huge day of celebration for Valentine’s Day. It was also a big day for Hope Manila. Beyond the romantic celebration between couples, Hope Manila rejoiced about the agape love of God. The preaching of Sister Eunice Tan Messengtham centered on the question “Have you really forgiven?” - providing everyone a closer look into the second greatest commandment of “love one another as yourself”.

The highlight of the lunch fellowship that followed the Sunday Service was the drama skit by the Youth Sub-District of the day-to-day life of a married Filipino couple. The marriage, as depicted on stage, was a typical one: started out as sweet as a strawberry-glazed icing, as delightful as any honeymoon could be. The years passed by and the strawberry-glazed icing became as sour as kiwi fruit. Sadly, the marriage became a charade of smiles and hidden sorrows, laden with unspoken hurts from years ago. Of course, the saving grace of a happy ending came with both the husband and the wife forgiving each other and making their marriage an offering to Christ. Indeed a joyful celebration of the true love of Christ!

The Family Sub-District had a romantic soiree for its married couples, dressed in all their finery, who danced the night away. Hope Manila’s church hall was transformed into a ballroom where the typically casual pops and moms transformed into dashing gentlemen and beautiful ladies. And not to be outdone, the couples made the night as fun as it was romantic! There were games galore and everyone came home joyful, hopeful and full of purpose. Oh, what a lovely day for Hope Manila!

HIM STRATEGIC PLANNING 2015 PROJECT

2010-02-25T21:07:00.002+10:00

HIM is currently on our first-ever strategic planning process. The purpose is to develop an overarching direction, achieve effective synergy and recapture our cutting edge. The result of this process will be a five-year strategic plan encompassing the ministry years from 2011 to 2015.

[The SPT consists of (from left) Pastor Denis Lu, Pastor Ben KC Lee - SPT Chairperson, Dr. Wilson Lim, Ms Nicola Song, Mrs Hai Eng Lu and Pastor Dinah Phua-Lee.]

The Strategic Planning Team (SPT) approach to this process is to pray as we plan. We have also enlisted HIM intercessors to cover us and the planning process.

We are adopting a collaborative strategic planning model; this means it is an inclusive process. Accordingly, we sent out official surveys to leaders and ministers. We received a total of 100 survey responses on top of responses from the Interim Leadership and Group Leaders. The responses came from all age-groups and from all regions of the world.

Thank you to all our leaders who provided us with your invaluable feedback.

Our planning process is divided into four phases:

1) Preparation
2) Design
3) Development and
4) Implementation

In total there will be five planning summits. The first one was held on the 23rd November 2009 with our President, Pastor Simon joining us at the summit. The entire planning process is expected to be completed in mid-2010.

The SPT will travel to conduct presentations at HIM national and regional councils to be scheduled between the months of June to September 2010. We look forward to dialogue with you.

You can reach us at this e-mail address:

spt@byHim.org

HIM Corporate Communications

PASTOR SIMON ENG MESSAGE

2010-02-25T19:40:00.017+10:00

Hi, brothers and sisters in our HIM family. Greetings from HIM Chiang Mai! We have just finished our Global Conference. Once again, we had an amazing participation from our international churches and leaders. We had people from Europe, North America, Oceania and many other countries. As usual, our leaders and our family came together. This time we held it at HIM Chiang Mai. It is a beautiful church with a beautiful venue with a few hundred coming to participate in this Global Conference.

Pastor Simon Eng Video Message

Global Conference - Spiritual Covering

One of the objectives in holding our Global Conference here in Chiang Mai is to be able help strengthen our HIM pastors, leaders and churches throughout Thailand. They came from many different regions. We chose the topic of spiritual covering which is an essential and important topic. Through these three days together, our Thai leaders and pastors were so comforted and strengthened. They felt that the international community supported them throughout last year. By coming together here, it sends a very a strong signal and sends that covenant message that we are together with them.

The importance of spiritual covering

Back to the Global Conference, we chose the topic and theme of spiritual covering. We did five great lessons in all. One lesson was defining spiritual covering. Spiritual covering is not necessarily a positive topic with a lot of churches and a lot of Christians. In fact, in a lot of circles, it is negative concept and thinking. In this series of lessons, we have taught our people that not only is spiritual covering essential, it is in fact, a blessing.

By coming under spiritual covering, we are in fact coming under a power shield.

We are coming under protection and guidance under our leaders which is under the lordship of Jesus Christ. By His very grace that He imparts to His leaders, we receive spiritual covering and we are being protected from spiritual warfare attacks of the enemy. So we defined it very clearly so that our people really know about spiritual covering.

God initiated spiritual covering

Next, we spoke about some of the reasons we need spiritual covering. One reason we need to take note is that God himself who is the Creator, who sustains us and who cares for every one of us, desires His entire creation to be protected because He loves us and cares for us. He is really concerned about our wellbeing. Therefore, God himself has initiated spiritual covering.

Spiritual covering provides protection

Secondly, we need spiritual covering because we are in spiritual warfare. In any war, there needs to be shelter and places where you can protect yourself. We have spiritual armour and weapons, but at the same time, God tells us we are in fact covered by coming under the church and coming under the leadership that He instituted under the very structure of the church.

Spiritual covering brings blessing

Finally, good spiritual covering is protection for our people. When our people are properly covered by a good relationship with the pastor/s, by a proper structure and system implemented in the church, there is blessing and spiritual prosperity.

Our people will grow, do well, and are protected from every wiles, tricks and evil of the enemy if we do a holistic and thorough job by covering our people well.

Brothers and sisters, it is a blessing. However, bad spiritual covering will result in our people being attacked, confused, be in distress and even lead to the destruction of our people. So I just want to encourage you. Jesus covered his disciples. His disciples went and planted churches and they in turn, also, brought about the covering of their people. So this topic and theme of spiritual covering is a blessing. Listen through our entire teaching. You will find it a very thorough, comprehensive series of lesson to help each one of us.

Spiritual covering is a universal principle

Brothers and sisters, spiritual covering is essential. Get these series of lessons and learn more about it. I talked to some of our leaders, whether they are in Europe or Australia or the Americas, they talk about the benefits and the blessings of listening to this entire series. It will do you good to be able to listen through it and teach our churches about this entire area.

The next five years vision

So my dear brothers and sisters, we also spoke in our pastors meeting. We are putting the past behind us. Many of our churches, internationally and in Thailand have stabilised. We are looking forward to growing. We are looking forward to planting churches. We have put in place a strategic five year plan that will be completed by mid-year. We are doing a road show to communicate to our regions of churches. You will hear about it about what we plan to do in the next few years to capture the heart of God and to move in the harvest that God has prepared for us.

Upcoming GC in Kuala Lumpur & Melbourne

Finally, I would like to invite you to come for the next Global Conference coming up. It will be in April 21st-23rd. It is going to be in Kuala Lumpur. It is going to be on a wonderful topic; we are going to touch about rising the next generation of leaders. Come and join us. It will be exciting. Mark it in your calendar. Further to that, there will be another one in September in Melbourne. See your pastor and leaders, and get the information; prepare to come.

My ministry's plans for 2010

On a personal note, this year, I will be travelling through many churches in our regions again. Last year, I almost covered the whole world and our regions. My objective was to bring stability to the regions. Thank God, that by the grace of God, I have seen almost all our regions come into that place of stability. At the end of the year, we have all planned to have a wonderful Christmas and New Year; we celebrated that.

This year, my objective in my travels will be to bring further strength and growth in our regions.

The first trip will be in the Easter period for the Oceania Convention. We are expecting about 1000 people and it will be at the Gold Coast Convention Centre at the Gold Coast, Queensland. We are expecting a wonderful time there. We are going to teach about core values and set them in place. This is going to be the objective I am going to set for myself. I am going to the regions and speaking to the people about building and revisiting core values and the right biblical values. The aim is for all our churches to have these core values and clear hope distinctive such discipling our people, joining Word for Life or CDS, coming to learn the Bible and prayer, mentoring one another etc. These are some of the distinctive and clear things we want to place in the HIM family and ministries.

HIM churches in Liberia & Democratic Republic of Congo

So brothers and sisters, I look forward to a wonderful time with God. I am prepared, my heart is excited, I am eager to go and impart to our churches again to see our regions really grow and develop. One of the exciting things that have happened in the past year is in our African churches. Hope Liberia and Democratic Republic of Congo have decided to flow and move along with us. I am excited about what God is doing over in our churches in Africa. We are going to see these two strong leaders and clear people that want to plant churches and preach the gospel to many of the regions of Africa. We are going to see exciting things happen in Africa this year.

Brothers and sisters, I continue to greet you in the name of the Lord. In HIM, our international and regional churches, we are moving on with God. God bless you and amen.

Pastor Simon Eng
President of HIM
www.byhim.org

Special highlights of GC in Chiang Mai

HIM FAMILY NEWS

2010-02-25T16:53:00.004+10:00

Church on the NEXT LEVEL!

Christ-centred living is a process. We always need to remember who we are in Jesus, what He has done for us and where He will lead us. As a church, we help each other to reach our NEXT LEVEL all the time. The first step is to be SAVED/’ADDICTED’. Some believe in Jesus, but they never reach the NEXT LEVEL: being BAPTISED and choosing to WALK with JESUS.

Eph 4:13-16 “…until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ. Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of men in their deceitful scheming. Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into him who is the Head, that is, Christ. From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work.”

The NEXT LEVEL can be to give JESUS to OTHERS.
The NEXT LEVEL can be to find your place in the church, become part of a team, and start working with the gifts God has given you.
The NEXT LEVEL can be to take responsibility and become a leader for something or someone.
The NEXT LEVEL does not stop until we are home in heaven. To be a disciple of Jesus is to be in constant growth and progress. There will always be a NEXT LEVEL!
We want to be a church on the NEXT LEVEL!

For some, the NEXT LEVEL is to have ”quiet time” or ”private time” with God every day – how else can we get to know Jesus better every day? NEXT LEVEL for others is to be focused on God’s will – not my own! To have JESUS as LORD in our life.

By Pastor Tonje K. Marken

Hope Haugesund’s Second Anniversary

In September, Hope Haugesund celebrated its second anniversary. You can count the number of people on the picture.

God is good. Steve and Imelda Mondala are the leaders, and they have been a blessing for many in the last two years. God bless all of you!

Water Baptism in Hope Haugesund

Richel Manlucob Moreno and Gemma Alo Knutsen were baptised in Hope Haugesund on Sunday, November 15. The Pentecostal church Tabernaklet Haugesund generously provided their venue for the water baptism ceremony.

Mission in Riga, Latvia (December 3-5)

Tor and I had the opportunity to go to Riga, Latvia. Marcus and Stephanie (from Berlin) and Ondra and Jana (from Prague) had been in touch with four newly saved girls. These girls were so motivated and eager to learn more about Jesus, that we were asked to come over and teach them.

Tor and I thought this sounded like a great opportunity. Also, it was an opportunity for us to have some private time together (we went to a spa for the whole day).

We met the girls Thursday and Friday night, and Saturday afternoon. They are amazing girls; we had a great time with them. It felt like we have known each other for a long time. On Friday, one of the girls brought a guitar that she had gotten just the week before.

We had some guitar lessons, and a wonderful worship session (for the first time ever in Riga!). Then Tor taught about the resurrection of Jesus and how important this fact is for our faith.

We also talked a lot about how God’s love for us totally changes our lives, our minds and our values. The girls are now meeting regularly every Sunday, and their house is always full.

Written by Wanda Håbrekke, Hope Oslo

FRIENDS OF TORONTO

The inaugural Friends of Toronto gathering was held on 23 January 2010 over a simple outdoor afternoon tea.

Special guests who were either Canadian or have studied in Canada were invited to this gathering. The atmosphere was congenial and people chatted about taxation issues, cross cultural communications, evangelism, living and work life in Canada. There were about 13 people, together with one or two new friends.

Everyone took away important facts that helped in their preparation towards their move to Toronto. This event followed Canada Mission Night, held in September, 2009 attracted a good mix of people who were keen to live, work, study or be involved in missions in Canada.

Visit Friends of Toronto's Blog

Hope Singapore JEDI 2nd Anniversary

The JEDI (Jesus Empowered Disciples International) unit from Hope Church (Singapore) celebrated God’s goodness and faithfulness at our 2nd anniversary party.

The theme “Nothing Is Impossible” was aptly chosen to reflect how we have witnessed numerous miraculous blessings and life transformations of our members over the past year. Indeed, nothing is impossible with our Almighty God!

JEDI'S BLOG

Some of the highlights of the event were:

1. Praise and worship session with our own band and singers. 2. Creative and touching skit to re-enact the miraculous healing from stroke of James’ mum. 3. Powerful life changing testimonies. 4. Inspiring sharing of a message from Michael, our district leader.

God is faithful and He blessed us with an attendance of more than 100 people and half of them were visitors to the group! The event was a roaring success and we are so thankful for the commitment of our members who sacrificed their rest, time and finance to prepare for it many months in advance. Through Him, we can do anything! Let’s continue to march on to the new year ahead. All glory to Him!

What is the vision of JEDI?

We’re a group of vibrant Christ-followers comprising of young overseas graduates & internationals, determined to live our life to the fullest!

The vision of JEDI is to enfold and empower Christ-followers who graduated from overseas and to extend His loving hand to Internationals staying in Singapore. God has grown in us His burden and great love for Internationals who may find Singapore a difficult place to settle in and Singaporeans going through transitions coming back here.

Written by Leong Chung Nang

Church Planting in Metakab, Malaysia

Caleb attended Hope Melbourne in 1993-1994. Since then, he has been attending Hope Kuala Lumpur (KL). Caryne has been involved with Hope KL since 1994 but spent 1995 in Hope Melbourne too.

Hope Mentakab was supported by the college, university and working adult groups from Hope KL since 1997. In 1999, there was a need for someone to be there permanently as the church grew. The 16th of January, 2000, saw Caryne move there after securing a job as an Accounts Executive. Caleb joined a year later.

Hope Mentakab Video

Hope Mentakab started with a group of youths. As the years passed by, they matured and moved into the working adult groups. It left a void in terms of students. Caryne moved into teaching in 2002. Thank God, He blessed us with another two more primary school teachers and a music teacher.

[Sunday service photos]

At the end of 2003, we held our first Colouring Contest. We saw in total about 45 participants. Since then, our annual Colouring Contest has been drawing in new contacts for our Sunday school, with a record of almost 70 participants once. Now, the average Sunday school attendance is at least 10.

[Youth Group Photos]

In mid 2006, we officially started a youth care group. It was a struggle initially as it was very exhausting with the youths being just so energetic. However, seeing them grow is a real joy. Thank God that now our average turnout for the youth care group is about 20 and we have our own youth core team.

Pray with us to reach out to all age groups in Mentakab. We want to touch the youths, working adults and the families for Christ. We need to see everyone be united strongly to see His kingdom grow! Mentakab is a booming industrial town thus hopefully more people will not mind serving in a less hectic town than the capital of Malaysia.

Caleb & Caryne
Hope Mentakab, Malaysia

HIM VIDEOS

2010-02-25T15:18:00.002+10:00

Pastor Simon Eng Message

Special Highlights Global Conference Chiang Mai

Hope Metakab, Malaysia

Grace Assembly: Shah Alam Centre - Healing Service

HEALING CRUSADES IN LIBERIA, AFRICA

2010-02-25T14:29:00.002+10:00

[Photos: Pastor Helen Kirby in Liberia, Africa]

My African Mission Trip -
October 2009

I have found my mission trip to Africa to be one of the most challenging feats of my life as a female pastor and Christian minister. The verse ‘All things are possible to those who believe’ (Mark 9: 23) was a constant reminder of God’s faithfulness and unfailing love to me throughout my three weeks mission trip to Liberia.

Woman's Conference and outdoor crusades

I was given the task to visit and minister in four Hope churches Liberia – Hope Monrovia, Hope Gbarnga, Hope Voinjama and Hope Foya. I was given a schedule to preach over 20 messages in 11 days which included a woman’s conference and 2 outdoor crusades!

I knew this was going to be difficult, and I underestimated how difficult it was going to get - because of the long travel and hazardous road conditions due to the rainy season, the continuous ministry from one church to another as soon as we arrived, and the spiritual pressure of preaching in a large crusade. I really learnt the value of fasting and riding on God’s grace during that time.

Thousands gathered for healing crusades

I really want to thank God for an opportunity to meet Ps Sonny who heads the Hope Churches in Liberia. What an awesome man of God! This man is always fasting and hardly sleeps. He had faith in God and in me when I was doubting my ability to preach in the crusades. He had faith that rain will not touch us during the crusade and God kept the rain away …

We had over 4500 in attendance over 3 nights and hundreds gave their hearts to Jesus Christ.

I want to thank God for all the miraculous healings and salvations we saw at the crusades. Many demons were cast out and people set free. The atmosphere was charged with faith & the battle had been won in prayer – almost every single person I touched was healed that night.

God's blessings & protection in Liberia

The road conditions were less than favourable during that time – just to put it mildly. There have been many accidents and deaths on these roads but God continued to protect us. One trip that usually takes 7 hours – took us 15 hours to get there! We got stuck in these huge ‘mud craters’ more than 3 times! (please see the photos). At one stage we were driving in pitch black without any headlights and holding on to a little torchlight from the side window as our only source of light!

All our luggage (2 sisters came with me) remained intact throughout the whole trip – nothing was lost or broken. A South African woman who sat in the seat next to us lost all her luggage when she arrived in Liberia. Although one of our luggage items almost got shipped to Turkey – we managed to get it back just in time. Also we did not miss a single flight.

Children's Conference in Liberia

I also felt really blessed by my mission team members, Anushka & Fiona, who were fasting & praying for me the whole time. Anushka's children's conferences brought a lot of joy & laughter to the kids in Liberia . Not forgetting Ps Willie, our International Missions Coordinator, who came all the way from Malaysia after a tiring mission trip overseas to visit and give some oversight to the churches in Liberia. Praise God for sacrificial men and women in our movement!

Greater faith in a supernatural God

This mission trip has indeed been a life changing experience for me – I will never be the same. I have been completely humbled and touched by the grace of God that was on me during this whole mission trip without which I wouldn’t have been able to do anything of spiritual significance.

I can say with great faith and confidence that we believe in an awesome God that will never let us down.

When God stretches us, He provides the grace to sustain us. I believe God has dropped an extra deposit of faith and trust in Him that will stay with me for a long long time. Hallelujah!

But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth." Acts 1:8

Pastor Helen Kirby
Hope Church, Adelaide

CHRISTIANS ENGAGING SOCIETY

2010-02-25T14:05:00.002+10:00

Pastor Ben KC Lee

Lobby groups promote their agenda in the public square. Some push whilst others are militant. The term "culture war" describes the clash of values and worldviews. We see this conflict between conservatives and liberals. For instance, "Don't judge" has become a slogan to avoid facing the issue of right and wrong and used to allow a tacit acceptance of a moral wrong like cloning or prostitution in modern culture.

It seems that each generation of Christians struggle with the relationship between their faith and culture. We try to make sense what Jesus said, “Be in the world, but not of the world.” How do we tackle issues of the day in a civil society? Here are some ways we can effectively engage.

First, pray continually. Bless the city. Stand in the gap. Pray over the city together with other churches in the city. Prayer leads to action. God's Word also calls us to intercede for those in authority (I Tim. 2:1-2). Ask God to give wisdom to our leaders often besieged by pressure groups. We pray also because the issue of the day cannot be separated by the spiritual issue that accompanies it. Call out to God to intervene. Continuous fasting and intercession leads to community transformation (2 Chro 7:14).

Engage with a compassionate attitude. Participate in nation building. Serve the poor and those who need help. Bring forth Christ's character in society (Rom 12:21). This is different from promoting harsh attacks or quick judgments on the culture. This is to go beyond moralising. After all, we don't have a monopoly on values or on morality. We are called to make a difference in society and this will primarily come by example. The call to be salt and light is not a moral assault on society but a call to be distinctive. For example, one of the best weapons against open marriage or sexual perversion in society is a happy marriage.

Get trained to articulate a relevant and convincing apologetic in the public square (I Pet. 3:15). Churches need to equip members with the ethical tools, thinking skills and Biblical perspectives to address contemporary issues rather than dismissing cultural forms we dislike based on hearsay mentality.

Here are key Biblical perspectives to emphasise for those who equip others: a) We can confuse doing good in the world with making the world good. We can’t make the world good with legislation. The world needs to encounter Christ. b) Our enemies are principalities and powers in high places rather than flesh and blood. The enemy is not the anarchists, homosexual lobby or the licentious. c) There is a balance between religious and secular values. Ours is a multi-ethnic and multi-religious society. If laws are based on one religion, it creates a problem with citizens of other faiths. Laws should accommodate diversity in culture, ethnicity and religion. The spirit of the law should respect pluralism and protect citizens from moral decadence. Ours is a secular democracy. Legally, religion is supposed to stay out politics. Biblical values can be present in all aspects of life without shifting to theocracy.

We have an obligation to speak prophetically about the issues of the day. Confront moral indifference. Here are some crucial issues. There are displaced people due to war and natural disasters. There are child labour, child prostitution and child soldiers. There is debt bondage where poor governments have to make large cash payments on foreign debt. There is lack of economic justice. There are sanctity of human life issues such as abortion, euthanasia and embryonic stem cell research. There is no religious freedom in many countries. Standing against injustice, exclusion and oppression requires courage but we do it (Mk. 9:50).

Finally, stress universal values which must find expression in national policies if society is to survive. Ask, "What is good for our community?" Express the view with concern about the health of people in our community and the kind of environment we desire to foster for fellow citizens (Mic. 6:8). We ought to have a community that represents a certain standard of dignity. This doesn't emphasise any partisan "morality". When speaking in the public square regarding cultural and social issues, start with the common good argument and then work from there. Come from the perspective of the public good. Engage culture with traditional virtues. Virtues always lead us to higher ground. One traditional virtue is that marriage has been between a man and a woman for all time, in all cultures, religions and civilisations. This is why we encourage natural, traditional marriage.

Engagement is clearly a Christian mandate (Jer. 29). We are empowered by the Spirit and released to live out our faith where we are. We certainly can’t engage without involvement. Society will feel the consequences if Christians sit out.

Source: http://sg.christianpost.com/dbase/editorial/469/6|10/1.htm

UPCOMING EVENTS 2010

2010-02-25T11:17:00.008+10:00

HIM GLOBAL PRAYER

GLOBAL CONFERENCE 2010

Chiang Mai, Thailand (20th - 22nd January, 2010)

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia ( 21st - 23rd April, 2010)

Melbourne, Australia (30th - 2nd October, 2010) Website

HOPE OCEANIA CONVENTION

Ethos: The Core Part 1 (2nd - 5th April) Gold Coast, Australia (Website)

HIM CHURCH GROWTH DEPT - SINGAPORE

Breaking 100
Exposure! (24th - 26th April) [Download Registration Form]

GERMANY FESTIVAL - STUTTGART

Theme: You Are Heaven Sent (21st - 25th May, 2010)

HOPE NORTH AMERICAS CAMP - LOS ANGELES

The Core (2rd-5th July) Loyola Marymount University

HOPE EUROPE LEADERS' CONFERENCE

27th - 29th August, London United Kingdom

15th MALAYSIAN NATIONAL CONVENTION

4th - 7th December, Penang - Malaysia

HIM VIDEOS

2010-01-28T21:11:00.001+10:00

Pastor Simon Eng Message

Hope Kuala Lumpur Christmas Service

Anglican Church Healing Meeting

Planet Jesus (Y-Hope)

EXPLORING THE HOLY LAND

2010-01-28T19:11:00.001+10:00

Greetings in the Wonderful Name of Jesus Christ!

One of my major roles as a pastor is teaching. And one of the favourite topics is The Life of Jesus. As Jesus’ life is laid out chronologically, I realise how wisely and strategically He spent His time on earth. In order to help my audience gain decent understanding, I use visual aides such as maps and photos. This month I paid a 9-day visit to the Holy Land.

Visiting the biblical places in Israel

I flew from London to meet with my travel-mates, four German guys from Hope Stuttgart, at Tel Aviv. Since we wanted to maximise our time, we hired a car and moved around from the Southern region of Judea to the Northern area of Galilee and from the Eastern part to the West Coast, covering most, if not all, the major sites, especially those in the Gospels.

I have a mixed feeling about this land. I was stunned by the skyrocketing cost of living. The food prices are comparable to or even higher than that in London. Can you believe it? I was fascinated by its rich history, diversified culture and exotic landscapes. In such a tiny area, Israel is influenced by Jewish and Islamic cultures. Its incredible landscape varies from rugged hills, arid deserts, most saline sea with no possibility of life, to green pastures and fertile lands.

Walking in the Old city of Jerusalem

Our first destination was Jerusalem. Smaller than one square kilometre, the old city of Jerusalem in encircling walls divides vaguely into four quarters, the largest of which is occupied by the Muslims.

The others are Christian, Jewish and Armenian Quarters. We roamed around the city through narrow alleys, full of souvenir shops, to visit important sites. Though it was not during any Jewish festival or Christian day, we bumped into some religious processions along Via Dolorosa, traditionally believed to be walked by Jesus on his way to the Golgotha.
It is amazing to see members of different Christian denominations rival to claim their ownership over the sites believed to have been associated with Jesus. One of them was the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, a traditional site of Jesus’ crucifixion, burial and resurrection. Its custody is divided among Armenians, Greeks, Copts, Roman Catholics, Ethiopians and Syrians.

Mount of Olives, Bethlehem, Caesarea

Almost everywhere we went, we heard people-shop keepers, local tour guides, restaurant waiters, taxi driver-called us “My friends”, inviting us to buy their products or services. Most of the shops put no price tags on their products. We had no idea how much they should cost.

One thing that is fascinating about Israel is that one can still see the lifestyle of people as in the Bible times. On the Mount of Olives, we came across a boy riding on a donkey on the modern-day street.

On a hillside of Bethlehem, we saw a shepherd tending a flock. We visited two major residential sites of Herod the Great, the king who ordered a massacre of babies under two years of age in Bethlehem. The first was his mighty fortress on the top of the plateau of Masada, and his majestic seaside palace at Caesarea. Having seen the remains of those imposing architectures, I could grasp the personality of this king much better. Being paranoid of being overpowered, he was so shaken when he heard about a new born king of the Jews.

The Dead Sea is a natural wonder

Apart from the rich history and culture, Israel boasts its remarkable nature. The Dead Sea is truly a natural wonder. Lying beyond 400 metres below the sea level, it is the lowest spot on the earth surface.

I will never forget the Ein Gedi National Park by the Dead Sea where exotic flora and fauna existed alongside refreshing waterfalls in the midst of the dry land. When pursued by King Saul, David was perhaps hiding somewhere around there.

We spent a few days in Galilee, the region where most of Jesus’ extensive ministries occurred. The journey from the Dead Sea of the South to the Sea of Galilee of the North lasted only three hours by car. As we entered Galiee, we realised that we had driven through the Palestinian West Bank as we were asked to go through an extremely strict security check.

Sea of Galilee, Capernaum, Nazareth

Our first sight of the Sea of Galilee was a vast serene lake with a rainbow over it. Despite being called sea, it is in fact a body of fresh water surrounded by hills.

It was somewhere on these hills that Jesus delivered His famous Sermons on the Mount. We visited some significant sites on its North-eastern rim such as Capernaum, a new home of Jesus after He left Nazareth. We spent the last few days of our trip in Nazareth, Akko and Old Jaffa.

The impression I have got about Israel cannot be expressed fully through words. It has made a great impact on my life. It has changed the way I read the Bible. Now I pay more attention to the details of biblical stories that I might overlook in the past. Now I could make sense of what I had heard, learned and taught. There is much more to learn from this land and I hope one day I can go back to visit it again.

In Christ,

Pastor Prakich
Hope Europe churches website

BEING PART OF AN INTERNATIONAL CHURCH

2010-01-28T16:19:00.001+10:00

I have been a resident of Seattle for 25 years. I have only been to one other country, Canada. To call me a local would be an understatement. This Christmas I will be with a church comprised mostly of international origins. So how have I come to be a dedicated member of such a diversified church?

Being Part of an International Church

Three years ago I was an unchurched and unhappy guy looking for something else in my life. I worked in a factory. I dreamed to change my life for the better. I became friends with a co-worker who introduced me to Hope Church Seattle.

I went because I needed to do something different with my life. The thing I noticed immediately was an abundance of cultural diversity. The love of God was present, so was the love of friendship. I saw that I was not being judged, but was the one doing the judging.

Love among cultural diversity

As soon as I let go of the differences, I began to experience being a member of a loving church. Being a part of this church gave me several blessings. I enjoy being truly able to help people become accustomed to a new city and culture. I am part of a growing faith community to which I can be of service.

Finally, to be able to be taught by people who have an attitude of supportive growth and change, not only for their lives but also for their spiritual growth.

First Christmas caroling with church

The first Christmas that I was with the church we went caroling. It was surprising that an international based church made this their yearly custom, given that I thought this was very scarce. I had only read about this in history books, and did not realize how hard it was, as well as how rewarding it was. Caroling helped me to really appreciate the meaning behind Christmas, as well as having the gift of so many people to spend it with. Experiences like these help me to reaffirm that I am with the right church.

A new life in Christ

Coming from a country that was founded by Catholic values, an idea of God and Christ has floated in and out of my earlier life.

Having a relationship with people who have found Christianity as a new and rescuing spiritual path gives a renewed sense of dedication to God. When God led me to this church, it was the right timing and the right atmosphere. Looking back, without the help of God, and a good church, I would not have made it.

Commitment in the local church

Today God continues to give me reasons not only to stay but also to continue serving in his name.

The first opportunity I had to serve was washing dishes, which later turned to bringing the drum set to and from the worship venue every Sunday. I have found that keeping these commitments, even in tough times can add to your spiritual foundation. Many experiences like these help me to reaffirm that I am with the right church.

Fulfilling God-given dreams

I stick with this church because they are different, they have a want to know a new and loving God, and they are the kind of people I would like to be with. You can be surprised by what God will lead you towards, and what kind you dream you can accomplish if you can dedicate your time to helping and being part of your local church.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

Andrew Bodey
www.hopeNA.org

PASTOR SIMON ENG MESSAGE

2010-01-28T15:58:00.004+10:00

[Christmas Celebration in Hope Singapore]

Greetings, once again, brothers and sisters in our HIM family. I want to greet you in the name of Jesus. In this time of sharing, I would like to share with you; share together about another core value in our movement and that is about disciple-making. We have taught this topic in our Global Conference.

Ps Simon Eng Message

Transforming community through discipleship

Let me just share with you again from my heart what we value about disciple-making. Jesus invested into 12 disciples, we are clear about that. For three-and-a-half-years, he took 12 disciples with him, poured his life into them and showed them every aspect of the ministry; they were with him. They learned from him, they observed him and they studied him, and at the end of three-and-a-half-years, when he went back to Heaven, Jesus literally gave the entire ministry to these 12 disciples. Of course, we know Judas betrayed Jesus, but someone else replaced him. From these 12 disciples, almost 2000 over years ago, the work of Christianity, of spreading the gospel continues til today. These 12 disciples were so effective that they multiplied the work of God throughout the entire world.

Brothers and sisters, discipleship-making is important; it is essential. It is a core value; it is biblical for us to multiply disciples in our movement.

Let me share with you three main areas of what I want to see. We could share a lot of areas about disciple-making, but let me focus on a few, three areas.

[Christmas celebration in Kuala Lumpur]

Disciples are committed to Jesus Christ

The first is disciples are committed to Jesus Christ. There is a level of commitment; there is a whole-hearted commitment that God is looking for. When we are whole-hearted in our commitment as disciples, we will be able to do much more and fulfil the work of God in our life. God is looking for committed disciples. There were multitudes that followed Jesus, but in the end, it was 120 that stayed in the upper room and prayed until they were filled with the Holy Spirit.

Brothers and sisters, God is looking for committed disciples; not half-hearted disciples nor people who stay on the fringe, but they go through all the way with Him.

They are water baptised, they learn the Word of God, and they obey in every aspect of the Word of God. These are the true disciples, the committed disciples that God is truly looking for.

[Christmas celebration in Chicago, USA]

Disciples of Christ are passionate people

The second aspect I would like to share about being disciples of Jesus Christ is there are certain characteristics, there are certain values and there are certain areas that we want to see arising in the disciples of Jesus Christ. Let me just share a few areas.

Firstly, we know that the disciples of Jesus were passionate people.

They were passionate disciples: passionate about God, passionate about the Kingdom of God, passionate about expanding the Kingdom of God, preaching, discipling other people and multiplying the work of God as well. There was a quality of passion in them.

[Community Christmas Project, Hope Brisbane]

Disciples of Christ are Kingdom-focused people

We also know that the disciples of Jesus were kingdom-focused people. They lived a lifestyle that was kingdom-focused.

They were not entangled with the world; they were not entangled with many other things that distracted them away from what God called them to do. They were kingdom-focused and they lived a kingdom lifestyle. They were kingdom-focused and they multiplied the Kingdom of God wherever they went as well. Then we can talk about the disciples having attitudes that glorified God. They were humble, they were submissive in their attitude and they were sacrificial in their lives. This was the lifestyle, this was the attitude that we see in the disciples of Jesus. I would like to challenge every one of us, brothers and sisters; God is looking for such disciples.

[Christmas celebration in Hope Hatfield, United Kingdom]

Disciples of Christ are submitted to God's Word

I would like to also talk about disciples who also submitted to the Word of God. Their lives were submitted to the Word and their lives were submitted to the leaders.

They worked in unity and they worked in the teams together. Their lives were also linked together in covenant, submitted to one another as well. These were the characteristics that we see of the Christ-centred disciples. They followed Jesus, their lifestyle glorified God, the way they served together glorified God as well and that is why they were so effective in being able to multiply the work of God as well.

One-on-one Mentoring

Finally, I would like to talk about our discipleship, our mentoring, and our one-on-one in our HIM family. Brothers and sisters, we believe in one-on-one discipleship. We believe in one-on-one shepherding of our people. You and I must place a strong emphasis and effort on shepherding our people one-on-one. There is so much value, so many benefits when we give personal attention to our disciples. I have done it over the years and I can certify, and I can affirm that when we give one-on-one shepherding with our people, they will grow. They are streamlined, they are taught the Word of God, and they are transformed in their life as well. They know how to live their lives purposefully and fruitfully for the Kingdom of God.

One-on-one attention, giving our people that shepherding attention will develop them just as Jesus was able to develop key 12 disciples that transformed the world.

[Christmas celebration in Hope Manila, The Philippines]

Building people within local churches

Brothers and sisters, this is a core value in our church, this is a core value in our movement that we must not neglect and we must not forget as well. Schedule your time and meet with our people. If you have not been doing it for quite a while or doing it for quite a long time, I want to urge you and I want to challenge you today, disciple-making is a necessity. It is a core principle, it is a key principle that we must multiply our people and we develop them and we are able to speak into their lives.

[Christmas celebration in Hope Tokyo, Japan]

We are able to mature them faster than just preaching to them alone. I would like us to come back to committing ourselves to see this core value being fulfilled, being done well and excellently throughout our entire movement and churches together around the world. I trust that when we look at our disciples, when we look at our people, we will be able to say “yes, I have invested in their lives just as Jesus has done. I am able to raise these people one by one because I have put in the effort to follow this biblical model”.

I trust that we will be able to see great fruits as we disciple our people.

[Christmas celebration in Hope Auckland, New Zealand]

Global Conference in Kuala Lumpur (April 21-23rd, 2010)

Last but not least, I would like to invite you once again to join us for our next Global Conference coming up. That is going to be in April 21-23 and it is going to be held in Kuala Lumpur. Once again, I believe from our previous Global Conferences, it is going to be an exciting time of learning, exciting time of growing together, relating together and meeting our leaders around the world.

It is in Kuala Lumpur, date 21-23 April, 2010. Please block that out in your calendar and as many of you as possible, do come and join us. It is going to be a wonderful time of learning and we are going to share together about what God is doing in our movement for the first quarter of 2010.

God bless you. Amen.

Pastor Simon Eng
President of HIM
www.byhim.org

COMMUNITY PROJECT - CHRISTMAS 4 KIDS

2010-01-28T14:47:00.002+10:00

Hands of Hope, the community arm of Hope Church Brisbane, once again this Christmas season, have successfully put together its annual community event ‘Christmas for Kids’ (C4K) in the south-western suburbs of Brisbane with almost 1000 kids and 300 parents.

[Christmas 4 Kids Photos Website]

A fun-filled day for the community

This event is significant in giving a chance for every child and family from diverse and underprivileged backgrounds to experience the spirit of Christmas. Hands of Hope with 230 volunteers and the organising committee (also volunteers) had the opportunity to support the community with practical means. Completely non-commercialised and free of charge, kids from age 0-12 get to attend a fun-filled day and experience Christmas.

Santa, games, gifts, food for everyone

To participate, all the child needs to do is to register in order to be entitled a Christmas gift and a free giant hotdog lunch.

The children get to watch a variety of stage performances and participate in exciting games and activities from over 20 stalls ranging from obstacle courses, treasure hunts, tug of war to face painting, dance performances, and musical chairs to name a few. And of course, an opportunity to meet Santa as well as showcasing their talent with great prizes up for grabs!

Parents who attended the event with their children were overjoyed and commented on the rarity of community events for kids that are absolutely free of charge. It has also become a good opportunity for their family and friends to gather and enjoy Christmas together.

Generous giving by sponsors, politicians, local councils

This event was made possible as a generous total of over $42,000 was raised via fundraising efforts from volunteers.

Furthermore, with the help of sponsors from local businesses along with overwhelming personal donations from politicians, local councils, friends and colleagues and (of course) church members. The children and parents were blessed with a chance to experience the spirit of Christmas.

Interview with special guests

For C4K 2009, our major local sponsors include: Zen Hot Yoga, Plainland Pharmacy and Hope Church Brisbane. Furthermore, the event was honoured by the attendance of various dignitaries including:

Lord Mayor Campbell Newman,
Indigenous Australian Elder Uncle Albert Holt,
Councillor Angela Owen-Taylor and Councillor Milton Dick.

The Honourable Lord Mayor, Mayor Campbell said:

“This event is different from others in that it is targeting families that are disadvantaged and that are going through difficult times. Christmas is a season where there are many commercialised messages targeting people to buy presents and therefore the more disadvantaged are usually shunned.” He also added that “events as such can help young people see others who need that support, practically do something about it and create a sense of personal responsibility, and a chance to empower young people to help the disadvantaged.”

Councillor Owen-Taylor said:

"I am impressed with the event and it sets a strong example for many young people in playing their part to make a difference in this community.”

Councillor Dick said:

“Many kids have came up to me weeks after the event in previous years to tell me how much they enjoyed it. It goes to show the great imprint that Christmas 4 Kids have left in the hearts of many children each year".

Reaching the community with love

Christmas 4 Kids started out as a way to reach out and influence the community and has indeed seen far-reaching impact on the lives of those within the region as reflected on the pure enjoyment and happiness on the faces of the children and adults alike.

Hands of Hope plans to continue holding Christmas 4 Kids again in 2010. We thank God for the continual favour He has given to us to build rapport with the local community as we prepare for the building of Unidus Community Centre in Willawong.

We wish to thank everyone who gave their time and resources so generously to make this event possible and also to God for His provision.

For more information about Christmas 4 Kids contact:

Lisa Toh (Christmas 4 Kids Coordinator)
Email: lisamtoh@gmail.com

www.c4k.net.au

HIM FAMILY NEWS

2010-01-28T12:25:00.009+10:00

Hope Chicago Christmas 2009

A month before Christmas, Hope Chicago was already excited about it. Members started inviting friends for our Christmas Sunday Service since November. We prepared a skit and the Christmas worship. The skit “Do you hear what I hear?” was about a father that came to know Jesus as the light of the world through facing major issues in his life.

In addition, we also had singing solo and choir singing the traditional Christmas songs during the service. Pastor Ben and Pastor Dinah came from Singapore to minister to us. Pastor Ben was also our speaker at our Christmas Sunday Service.

Our Hope Chicago Church tradition for every Christmas is to collect a special offering for one family in need. This Christmas, we collected a love offering for Carl Willis, an 11 year old boy whose mother passed away when he was 6, whose father is disabled, and who is now taken care of by his grandmother.

On Christmas Eve, our Pastor David and his wife Malay had members with no Christmas plans to come to their place for dinner and to spend a night at their home. We came with a dish each and enjoyed fellowship with one another. At midnight, each one of us wrote a birthday card to Jesus and celebrated His birthday together.

Lily Lam & Roger Robinson
www.hopeNA.org

Hope Hatfield (UK) Christmas Celebration

Hope Church Hatfield is located to the north of London and is one of the three churches that made up Hope London. It celebrated its first Anniversary in Oct, 2009. It is one of the fastest growing churches in Hope Europe.

Hope Hatfield had a meaningful and fun-filled Christmas month. Our celebration lasted for the whole month of December. On the first Friday of December, the two Hope International Fellowships (IFs) from the two campuses in the University of Hertfordshire (College Lane Campus and de-Havilland Campus) came together to sing carols at the Learning Resource Centre of the university.

Many non-Christian visitors joined us in the carolling for the very first time in their life. We felt so blessed singing the good news of Jesus Christ to those passer-bys.

On the second week of December, on Friday, both Hope IFs combined to hold a Christmas evangelistic care groups, where many visitors attended. We had a lot of food, games, songs and fun. We exchanged gifts at the end of the care group. On Sunday, we had our Christmas Celebration Service. It was really a great opportunity to tell our friends about the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ through a video presentation and the preaching.

During the Christmas time, we organised a five days, 4 nights Christmas break at two locations (Jordan and Milton Keynes) outside London, where 50 people joined. This was simply a 3 Fs break (fellowship, fun and food). On Christmas Eve, everyone from both locations gathered at Milton Keynes site to have steamboat. After dinner, we had ice-breaker games and a talent night. Many talents were discovered that night.

Indeed, December was a great month for all of us. Going into 2010, we pray that the presence of God is with us and we want to "Arise, Go Forth!" for God in a tremendous way.

Eldos Then
Hope Hatfield, United Kingdom

Hope Tokyo and Kawaski

We wish you a Merry Christmas and a blessed New Year!

For Hope Tokyo and Hope Kawasaki, we celebrated Christmas with a candlelight service. The theme was “Shine”, as Jesus is our light of hope.

In a city like Tokyo, people love to go out and see the beautiful lights illuminating everywhere. Many enjoy those lights, yet they may still miss the Great Light: Jesus. We want to bring the good news to those who do not know Him personally.

Before this event, we prayed for at least 80 attendees. God, however, answered our prayers in a way that we could not have imagined; we had 100 people join us. Praise God that some accepted Christ and came back to the church.

In 2010, we want to begin the ministry by joining H.I.M Global Prayer. We also aim to improve the quality of the Sunday Service, start a children’s ministry and develop Hope Japan resources. God bless you!

Chew and Masami
Hope Tokyo & Kawaski (Website)

Hope Manila Christmas Celebration

The month of December brought much excitement in our Hope Manila Family. Our excitement was not because of the gifts we would receive from others, but remembering that the greatest gift of all is Jesus and that this greatest gift is meant to be shared to others! In addition, our hearts were filled with much joy and enthusiasm as many of our families, colleagues and friends join us in our grand celebration; our total number that day was 302!

The response to the altar call after the preaching of Dr. Eunice and the life-changing testimony of Anna Lyn was simply one of the largest witnessed in our hall this year! We witnessed 66 people respond to receive Jesus!

Though we (the Philippines) are a Catholic country, many of us have never really had a true encounter with God. However, during Christmas, as in our daily lives, we need to remember that we have been made to receive His gift of love for us. Therefore, it was thrilling, this Christmas, for us to have our turn to give back to Him through sacrifices of love.

There was a very entertaining performance by Hope Kids. They were all in costumes (with parents on standby providing cues) and they entertained us through lunch. Following them were some impromptu contests. However, the most important question in the end was about whether we had truly displayed our love for our brothers and sisters by giving them the opportunity to receive and share with us the greatest gift of having Jesus living in us. We thank God for the work of His Spirit and the joy and strength that He gave us in serving Him!

Pastor Soradej & Dr Eunice
Hope Manila, the Philippines

Hope KL Christmas Service

This year’s Christmas service for Hope Kuala Lumpur (KL) was held at a special venue in Dewan Mutiara, Jalan Ipoh. It is an important event, especially for Christians, and around 500 people attended the Christmas Service. Pastor Simon Eng shared an impactful Christmas message called ‘A Gift worth Receiving’. Christmas is about receiving the gift of miracles, the gift of transformation and the gift of hope.

Christmas Celebration Video

It was also a time of giving. Many people were seen lugging bags of presents for their friends, families, and visitors. Christmas would not be complete without carols and familiar tunes. The praise and worship session was peppered with modern adaptations of well-known Christmas numbers.

There were powerful multimedia testimonies of God’s transformation working in three different lives (Vincent, Jacky, and Jin Chuan). The testimonies told how God dealt with life issues such as bad-temperedness, bad habits, financial matters, and family issues. There was a choir performance from the Mandarin church singing familiar songs, alternating between English and Mandarin. The PKC children also had programmes lined for them, with a clown to liven up the mood. After the sermon, the church pastors and counsellors ministered to those who had needs and prayer requests.

After the service, there were more gifts giving sessions. Many were seen giving presents to various people. There was a table games session over lunch fellowship with gift hampers were given to the winners. Then, there was also the table gift exchange. At the end of it all, Christmas is more than the surge in excitement, the festive mood of the season, and the presents. It is about a miraculous gift from God: the Saviour to the world.
Hope Malaysia Website

Hope Kota Kinabalu, Merry Christmas and Blessed New Year!

Never have we had such a Christmas celebration as this year’s six-week celebration from November 22, 2009-January 3, 2010. This year, we recognized that Christmas is the season for the church to reach out to others for the Lord.

This year, our Christmas theme “One Life One Love” best described the focus of the Christmas season. It is all about how one life became one love. The life of Jesus has become one love to the world. Similarly, our life can become one love to someone else.

The direct outcome of our Christmas celebration this year was to witness more than 10 salvations, from youths to working adults. One of them accepted Christ during our house to house invitation to our Christmas celebration!

Besides participating in the Amazing Carols hosted by the Sutera Harbour Resort, a 5-star resort in our city, our Christmas carol team was also specially invited by the local branch of one of the international banks to sing Christmas carols. Not only did a lot of ministers come for such occasion, the son to our honorable Prime Minister was also present!

In line with this Christmas celebration, the church also organized a visit to a home for less fortunate children. There, we blessed the children. In addition, we also held the Children’s Christmas Party where there were more than 30 children coming together for a time of fellowship and sharing the season of joy.

Unto God be all the glory!

Ps. Anthony Ng
Hope Kota Kinabalu church

Hope Auckland, New Zealand Christmas

Christmas in 2009 was a fruitful one here in Hope Auckland. Leading up to ourChristmas Service on the 20th of December, we went out to spread Christmas cheer in the community. Church members from across the life groups, including children, gathered and sang the carols they had practiced very hard the many Sundays leading up to it.

We sang at a rehabilitation centre and two elderly homes over the evenings of the 17th and 18th. We were even able to present gifts to a home thanks to the generous donations of Hope Aucklanders.

The 20th of December was our Christmas Service, themed “From: Him, To: You.” It featured a musical trio and a hip hop dance/acting performance as well as an outdoor photo booth, Kodak Korner.

The next day, we took to an ice-skating rink for our “Christmas Party on Ice” in an effort to raise money for the charity Childfund. With a huge turnout of both church members and visitors, we were able to raise a grand total of $1500. Overall, it was an exciting season for the church, with talents and abilities being pulled together to produce a wonderful time for all!

Pastor Bernard & Angela Soh
Hope Auckland, New Zealand Website

Hope Perth: Christmas in Katanning

The Christmas celebration service in Katanning was a time to showcase and testify God’s goodness and blessings in our mission effort in Katanning.

On the 19th of December, 2009, with the help of our brothers and sisters in Katanning, we had a wonderful Christmas celebration.

There were 13 members from Perth who went to Katanning on a mission trip. 43 adults and 14 ethnic Chinese children from Katanning, which represents half the ethnic Chinese residents in Katanning, had a great time of fellowship at this event.

After three years of mission effort in Katanning, building up believers from the ground up, our life group in Katanning, which consists of 13 regular members, was now able to organise and co-ordinate a major celebration as a church. For the Christmas event, they invited their friends, prepared great food for lunch and held two special performances.

After sharing the message, Ps Stephen made an altar call. We had three visitors make the decision to accept Jesus as their personal Lord and Saviour. Praise the Lord!

We are looking forward to a great year in Katanning as Hope Perth increases our mission effort to Katanning, a town 350km away from Perth, yet very close to our heart.

Pastor Stephen & Hannah
Hope Perth & Hope Katanning Website

Hope Calamba CHRISTMAS SERVICE

The celebration of Christmas at Hope Calamba was a victorious one. We had a total of 40 attendees, with four accepting Christ. We asked people to join us in a 10-day fasting prior to the Christmas event. We received several words from God telling us of revival and increase. And truly, it came to pass.

The theme of our celebration was “Celebrating the gift of Christmas.” The message was focused on Jesus being the greatest gift that humans could ever receive. Aside from the four salvations, many responded to the altar call.

Aside from the service, we organised a competition among care groups to showcase a presentation of any kind about Christmas. Some performed a song, the kids sang a lovely rendition of a Christmas carol in their native language and the youth, who won the competition, gave a play about Jesus’ birth.

“Gift Giving” Carol, December 26 and 27, 2009. It is part of our activities lined up for the Christmas season. We know that it is customary for the carollers to receive something after performing, but we wanted to do it the other way around. Instead of giving us something, we wanted to give listeners a gift or a token. We went to some of the new visitors’ homes to reach out to their family members and to the barangay captain. They were truly grateful and inspired by what our church did. As a result, some of them came and visited our church and are consistently attended our worship service. Praise God!

During our Christmas Carols, we all managed to travel and visit homes with just one car, courtesy of Pastor Henry, that fits six people and four bicycles used by eight people. The paths and streets were dark and rough, yet they continued travelling. We saw a great display of self-sacrifice among our people.

Pastor Henry & Hani
Hope Calamba, the Philippines

HOPE NORWAY: CHURCH ON THE NEXT LEVEL

2010-01-05T15:00:00.016+10:00

The NEXT LEVEL can be to give JESUS to OTHERS.
The NEXT LEVEL can be to find your place in the church, become part of a team, and start working with the gifts God has given you.
The NEXT LEVEL can be to take responsibility and become a leader for something or someone.
The NEXT LEVEL does not stop until we are home in heaven. To be a disciple of Jesus is to be in constant growth and progress. There will always be a NEXT LEVEL!
We want to be a church on the NEXT LEVEL!

By Pastor Tonje K. Marken

Written by Wanda Håbrekke, Hope Oslo

SHINE FORTH HIS GLORY

2009-12-28T21:25:00.002+10:00

Ps Denis Lu is one of the pioneering members of Hope Kuching with Ps Simon in 1992. He curently serves as the senior pastor of Hope Kuching and is also overseeing the Hope churches and centres in Sabah, Labuan & Sarawak.

Ps Denis graduated with a Bachelor of Commerce from the University of Newcastle, New South Wales, Australia in 1991. He lectured at Stamford College Kuching and later became the principal of the college in 1995.

He went on to be an education counselor for Taylor’s College Malaysia before going full-time in 2001. Pastor Denis is married to Sister Chong Hai Eng and they have a 10 years old son, Azriel

SHINE FORTH HIS GLORY

Jesus reveals the keys to living a life of transformation through to His disciples.

But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God. John 3:21

1. A disciple lives by the truth.

The desire for truth drives the disciple to seek light, not darkness. Living is an active and continuous act. It is both a conscious and unconscious act, automatic you might say. We often breath in and out without even thinking about that marvel of respiration. At times, after a hard run, we gasp for air and are aware of the act of breathing!

Jesus answered, "It is written: 'Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.' Matthew 4:4

Is it truth that God is working in your heart even right now? Are you aware that He is working in you? What is God saying to you?

Is there a desire for truth, even truth that exposes the sins and filth within you? Is the hunger for truth greater than your hold on pride? Is the pull for truth stronger than the fear of shame?

Truth is the measurement by which a disciple lives by. He or she measures their own lives by the truth of God's Word. Whatever is out of alignment, the disciple changes. What is out of alignment in your life today?

To the Jews who had believed him, Jesus said, "If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. John 8:31

All sin has its root in lies and deception. We sin because we buy into the lies and deceptions of Satan, the father of lies. Eve bought into the serpent's lies that eating from the forbidden tree will not cause her to die but become wise. Adultery sells the lies that you can find the happiness and fulfillment with another person who is not your spouse.

Materialism sells the lie that you will find satisfaction and meaning in life through the accumulation of things and possessions.

Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For everything in the world—the cravings of sinful man, the lust of his eyes and the boasting of what he has and does—comes not from the Father but from the world. The world and its desires pass away, but the man who does the will of God lives forever. 1 John 2:15-17

Therefore the way out of the webbed jungle of lies is by living by God's truth.

2. A disciple's life can be seen plainly.

Observable. Distinguishable from those who are not disciples. Disciples bear the resemblance of the Master whom they follow. You find it in their mannerism, in their speech, in their thinking. The disciples imbibe the Master's philosophy of life. They live out that philosophy of life. They pass on that philosophy of life to others.

More than that, as Christ's disciples, they are new creations, new spiritual beings, born of heaven but living on earth!

When they saw the courage of Peter and John and realized that they were unschooled, ordinary men, they were astonished and they took note that these men had been with Jesus. Acts 4:13

In the field for the Olympics, you can tell the difference between the bulked up hammer throwers and the lean and tall high jumpers. The discipline and training to which they subscribe to, plus their natural physique of course and inclination and talents. The point is that you can tell them apart. Perhaps for other track and field disciplines it might be harder to tell them apart, but the point is clear. Just as you can observe an athlete competing in his or her events, you can observe a disciple in his or her life too.

Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. Hebrews 12:1

3. A disciple's life displays the workings of God.

A disciple is not inactive. He or she is active in the doing the will of God, and by the strength and provisions of God! In times of spiritual victories, you'll discern that God was behind the success of the disciple! In times of weaknesses and failures, you'll find the disciple seeking and receiving the grace of God to get up and get going again. Through it all, one will conclude, it is God at work in the disciple. Through such workings, God is revealed in the disciple, seen by the world, and therefore displaying the love and grace of God to the on-lookers.

But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me. 2 Corinthians 12:9

It is God who works mightily in the disciple's life. If he serves, he serves with the strength of God. If she leads, she leads by the grace of God. If they speak, they speak as if God Himself was speaking through them.

for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose. Phil 2:13

In the Great Barrier Reefs of Australia, you'll find all sorts of marine life, each with their distinct shapes and sizes, patterns, colors, habitats, and habits. Each one of these swimming creatures are so delightfully colorful and unique that you can be amazed at it and overwhelmed with praise to God, just by watching! So it is too that when people see the lives of Christ's disciples, they just erupt with praise to God, giving glory to God.

The workings of God is displayed in every facet of the disciple's life if he really allows them! So, don’t hide away God’s dealings & workings in your life! Share wisely and lovingly so that others too may pattern themselves into Christ-like disciples!

HIM VIDEOS

2009-12-28T19:33:00.008+10:00

Pastor Simon Eng Message

Hope London Church

HopeKids Ministry - Hope Church, Singapore

Calvary Charismatic Centre, Miri

A BIG YEAR IN HOPEKIDS MINISTRY

2009-12-28T19:19:00.003+10:00

[Photo: Hong Teck and Madelin, HopeKids Ministry - Hope Singapore]

The ministry is often perceived to be small so having God do big things in our midst in 2009 has created faith in all of us in the ministry. In 2009…

1. We connected kids to church

We will remember 2009 as the year where our kids care groups are formed. We raised12 key leaders to take up the unique challenge of lead kids as their CG leaders. We fulfill our value not to connect from afar but to know kids personally. Our care leader with their team will champion the goal of shepherding each of the sheep under their care. When there’s proximity, discipleship starts to make sense and we witness God working in many of the kids lives.

Our Holiday Club this year at the Rainforest KidzWorld in the Singapore Zoo created quite a splash when parents, volunteers and teachers play together during the mid year school holidays and we connected some kids for the first time.

2. We disciple kids intentionally

Our Heroes kids camp in June was for the focus on discipling kids. We brought together a team to intentionally to impart to our children the importance of God’s supernatural ability in a special 3 day 2 night camp in Malacca. We used high quality videos curriculum by Lifechurch.tv to facilitate teaching so that we can free our teachers and volunteers to be on the ground for discipling our kids closely. We had an amazing time with the fellowship, fun and learning God’s word together and closer friendships were formed during that extended time together.

In September, we introduced a segment called LIVE! challenge to our kids service where we issue a challenged for kids to share a testimony of how the Lord is working in their lives.

They are to share the testimony on stage in a segment called Open Mic the following week. That week we saw a queue of 6 kids coming in front to share God’s greatness. It was a sight to behold because the kids were not prompted what to share but just share spontaneously from their heart. After that, we called the video team came in to recapture some of these moments but its still far from the actual thing. Here’s the video as best as we can make it.

Hopekids Video

3. We led kids to Christ

Leading kids to Christ is always high in our priority. One week before the children’s day in HopeKids, we partner the whole church to outreach to kids. We had Pastor Jeffrey and Hong Teck co-preached a message about reaching the next generation.

It was well received that convictions grew about the need to plant seeds for the next generation. The whole church was mobilized to bring kids to church and we saw the children’s church broke 200 for the first time after months of stagnancy. As a result, our volunteers and teachers has a new leash of life to follow up, visit and contain the new wine (or is it ribena?) that God has poured in. It was a breakthrough point our hearts growing in excitement and commitment to the cause of reaching children for God.

This year also saw an expansion of the kids worship team with young and vibrant people stepping forward to join the vision of leading kids to worship Christ. It was awesome to hear testimonies of leaders in our worship team reminiscing the days where there’s only 1 or 2 musicians playing the service compared to today with 4 backup singers and a full band, week in and out. It’s a tremendous testimony of God working greatly in building the team so that kids can be lead well to worship Christ.

4. We build God’s team of children’s workers

What a year it was which began when we hosted our first ever children’s ministry conference. The Ripple’s Conference in March was a great time to build our volunteers and teams.

Children’s Ministry Team in Kuching and Germany graced the event, where we explored how to become Ripple Starters to start a ripple that will make an impact to our churches and nations in the future. It was the ministry’s first that was so well received that we are planning to run another next year together to focus on families.

As the year began with a focus to build teams, it ended with one as well. Our key leaders just came back from a retreat in Aloha Changi, a centre in the east side of Singapore. We simplify our ministry in the spirit of Mary to find out the ‘One thing’ that is needed in what we do. It was a good time of fun and we learned the one thing about ourselves, about building teams, about leading kids, connecting them and discipling them. The event cut over a Sunday as we intentionally train our second team take over the running of the HopeKids services back home.

Not everything went well that weekend but we know that God is making His people and teams for next year for the next generation.

In HopeKids we are grateful to God for what has happened. We are yet to finish the year with the team gearing up for another round of outreach in our Christmas and New Year party this year but we are already excited about our next Big year.

With our vision to see the renewal of the spiritual generation to fulfill the great commission and our way to do it to ‘Build Teams’, ‘Lead Kids’, ‘Connect Them’ and ‘Disciple Them’, we are excited about playing our part to fulfill the great commission along side the adult churches in the movement.

We look forward to a fresher and bigger 2010.

Hiew Hong Teck (HopeKids - Hope Singapore) has been in children’s ministry for almost 10 years, leading HopeKids, the children’s ministry in Hope Church (Singapore). He’s committed to lead others to lead children make the biggest difference in their generation.
He enjoys to investing in innovation and creativity to build effective processes, programmes and people to reach next generation children. He is an active facilitator of Focus of the Family’s Parenting with Confidence workshops and is married to Madelin and has 3 kids of his own aged 10, 8 and 5.

THE HOPE UNITED KINGDOM JOURNEY

2009-12-28T19:16:00.002+10:00

It all started on Thursday, 22nd May 1998 when Kim and I landed in the Heathrow Airport, London. We wasted no time and had our first fellowship on Sunday, 25th May in our small living room in North London. We were 4 people at that meeting [Pic. 1].

Hope London video

After a few months of meeting at home, we held our first public meeting at London City YMCA on Sunday, 2nd August [Pic. 2]. 12 people and a dog joined the 1st celebration service [Pic. 3].

The Hope UK journey, like all church pioneering work, was never plain sailing. Church attendance was more erratic than the Financial Times Stock Exchange indices, a roller coaster experience that is both exhilarating and frightening.

Gradually, home groups cropped up in different parts of London, to cater for the spread of our people in this vast metropolitan.

[Hope London church anniversary]

In 2001, another small fellowship started in Leeds, a city in Northern England, a 3-hours journey from London.

A group of mainly nurses in Ealing, W London was growing in size. So instead of them having to travel about one hour by car to Central London for Sunday service, they were encouraged to start their own service in W London. Indeed, the first service started in 2005.

A few years ago, a group of students studying in the University of Hertfordshire to the north of London decided to start a fellowship.

Students came and went, but a few faithful persevered to keep the fellowship alive despite of low attendance. Then, about a year ago, God opened a door for them to have access to the use of the University Chaplaincy. God also brought many overseas students to join the fellowship. They became the fastest growing group in the UK!

[Hope Hatfield church anniversary]

Now, in the UK, we are 4 churches – one in Leeds and 3 in London (North, West and Central).

The average Sunday attendance totals over 300 people, roughly evenly shared by the 4 churches. This year, they respectively celebrated their 8th, 1st, 4th and 11th Anniversary.

[Hope Leeds church anniversary]

Together, they took the overall attendance to over 500 people. The Anniversaries were truly a time of thanks-giving to our great God and His faithfulness!

Besides the 4 churches, we also have fellowship in major cities including Birmingham, Nottingham and Southampton, where students are reaching out to fellow students in their campuses. The aim is to pioneer in many other cities principally through the student ministry.

[Hope Ealing church]

The Hope UK journey had a very humble beginning. Kim and I are indebted to the numerous brethrens who have joined at different time to partake in the Great Commission in the UK. By God’s grace, we will soldier on to saturate the United Kingdom with Biblical and vibrant churches up to the return of our Lord Jesus Christ!

Your brother,

Pastor Pk Tse
London, United Kingdom