Inaugural Service

Last Saturday was the inaugural service of Ang Mo Kio Presbyterian Church. It marked the coming of age of AMKPC as a full congregation, after 13 years and 4 months (almost to the day!)as a part of Covenant Presbyterian Church. It was a great event, which we had started planning and preparing for well before the end of last year.In fact, even the sending out of invitations was a big event where all church members, both youth and adult stayed back after service one Sunday and cut, pasted, wrote and sent out 700 invitation cards to all the churches in the English Presbytery. (fortunately we did not need to lick 700 envelopes....)

Saturday saw the church packed almost to full capacity, with members of the EP Session turning out in their full robed splendour. I honestly have never seen so many ordained ministers in our church before, and we welcomed back many who have preached in our church regularly before, such as Rev Henry Hong and others, as well as others who have had closer connection with AMKPC, such as Rev Keith Lai and Rev Tan Cheng Huat.

Many wonderful words were said, and many kind and encouraging thoughts expressed. Some of the things which struck me most:

Rev Henry Hong's short exhortation where he said that he sensed that the people of AMK needed comforting, even in these tough times without a lead pastor. He made the point that often we think of how churches commission missionaries and other full time workers, but he suggested that AMK was a church that commissioned pastors. It was an interesting point, because he went back over the history of our pastors, and as I listened to him, I realised that we had indeed made an impact in our former pastors' lives, just as they had made an impact in ours. Paster Chee Hian is now pastoring in Canada, Pastor Maggie is in the US equipping herself to groom a whole new generation of pastors to be, Pastor Andrew has found for himself a wonderful ministry that reaches out to young girls who are abused. These are the people that we at AMK have had the privilege of crossing paths with, and hopefully we have helped them to grow as they have helped us to grow. He encouraged us at AMK to take comfort from this fact, that just as we serve in a school ministry, no one stays in school forever. They have to graduate at some point, and in the same way, our pastors have "graduated" from AMKPC to move on to where God has called them.

One of the other messages that struck me was also the one delivered by Rev David Ng, who was representing the Chinese Presbytery. The message was delivered in Mandarin, so please forgive me if the translation is not the best...
He shared that he had actually been baptised in Jubilee, our original "grandmother" church, and he witnessed Covenant being sent out to form a new congregation. He was very glad and proud to be able to witness how Covenenant had sent AMK out, and especially to witness AMK become a full congregation, and he referred to us as the "grandaughter" generation (sun zi tang hui). What he shared that touched me most was when he said that he looked forward to seeing AMK commission another congregation, which would be the "great-grandaughter" generation. As he shared that, I too thought that, yes, we have come a long way to becoming a full congregation, but that should be our next focus, on nurturing and growing the next generation.

We had many others who shared wonderful words, especially Rev Keith who expressed sadness and gladness that we had "grown up". He did clarify that it was more sadness than gladness, in case you were wondering!

After the service, everyone adjourned to the canteen for dinner. The canteen was transformed into a beautiful restaurant like-setting, with soft yellow lighting, pink and white tablecloths and buffet lines. You would not imagine that the canteen could be changed so drastically, but all credit to Ada, Ming Tze and the logistics and decor team for doing a great job.

I know, I know, you all want photos, but I'm waiting for the photographers to pass me the CDs and I will upload them as soon as I can. In the meantime, welcome all of you to the new full congregation of Ang Mo Kio Presbyterian Church! In case you have not sent back your membership transfer forms, please do so as soon as possible....