Words from the Senior Pastor

Rev Andrew Choy

Church Direction

The church’s overall direction has been focused on providing space for renewal. With the growing awareness surrounding mental health in modern times, one aspect of renewal is emphasised through plans to raise awareness and promote mental and emotional well-being within our church during 2024. The pastoral team has benefitted from and sought out external speakers and ministries, inviting some to deliver seminars and workshops in the hope of making the church more informed about mental health. Another aspect of renewal centres around corporate worship and individuals’ relationships with God.

As a diverse, multilingual church, we have been working on promoting unity within the One Body (Eph 4:1-6). On the one hand, the church has been actively revising its By-Laws to align with the denomination’s focus on empowering individual congregations of multilingual churches like ours to make ministry decisions more autonomously, ultimately benefiting the entire church. On the other hand, the leadership has been mindful of the challenges and has been addressing concerns about maintaining unity amid separate services and meetings for different congregations. Key events such as the 35th Anniversary Service, the year-end combined church lunch in 2023, and the planning for other combined events, including July’s combined church prayer meeting, November’s baptism service, December’s combined church Christmas event in 2024, and the 2025 combined church camp, highlight a focus on a united body.

Leadership Teams

Renewed and vibrant leadership teams are indispensable for church growth. Training for elders (and potential elders) was provided by Dr Peter Laughlin in the last quarter of 2023. The Board of Elders (BoE) has been reading and reflecting on the book Emotionally Healthy Spirituality since the beginning of 2024, with the goal of integrating spirituality with emotional health. Additionally, regular fellowship gatherings between the BoE and the Board of Deacons have been planned for 2024 to enhance collaboration among the top leadership teams.

At the pastoral team level, there are ongoing reviews and evaluations of pastoral staff, with discussions on renewing ministry calls and addressing leadership transitions. We were saddened to receive the news of the retirement of Rev Leo Kwan and the resignation of Rev Andrew Tibbs, both of whom have served our church faithfully for the past eight years. Although we feel a great loss, we trust in God’s timing to provide His committed servants to shepherd His people in due course.

As part of the denominational initiative to ensure our pastors are empowered and supervised in their pastoral ministry, all pastors will begin receiving ongoing professional supervision starting in the fourth quarter of 2024. Additionally, our church is blessed to be able to serve the wider C&MA movement through Rev Hiram Lau’s role as the treasurer of the Australian Chinese Alliance Churches Committee, and Ps Eric Lai’s participation in the coordinating team for the Chinese Alliance World Fellowship youth missions conference to be held in Taiwan in 2025.

Training and Education

Training and education have been emphasised across multiple levels. The pastoral team participated in the Mental Health First Aid course in the second quarter of 2024, with plans to extend similar training, in a laity-friendly way, to the wider church. Workshops and seminars held in our church, featuring local speakers like Rev Ming Leung and various Christian psychologists, as well as those from overseas such as One Circle (Hong Kong) and Amazing Grace Worship Music Ministry (Hong Kong), have been a tremendous blessing to our leaders and general members.

Renewal without God’s word will not come to fruition. We echo the psalmist’s words, “Your word is a lamp for my feet, a light on my path” (Ps 119:105). In His perfect timing, our gracious God initiated a Bible Study Fellowship (BSF) group on our church premises for Mandarin-speaking ladies. It is a small Bible study group, but it has been over a year in the making. We are praying and waiting on God to open more doors so that different congregations and groups in our church can engage more systematically with His word for life transformation.

Other Ministries

Ministries across the English, Mandarin, and Cantonese congregations remain active, with many brothers and sisters wholeheartedly devoted to serving our gracious God and one another in growth/fellowship groups, visitation & outreach endeavours, prayer meetings, and various other church events and activities.

In 2024, our Mandarin congregation celebrated its 10th anniversary with honoured external guests, and leaders from our church’s other congregations joining together to count the Lord’s blessings. The church also collaborated with various organisations to hold events for equipping and outreach purposes, including those from Hong Kong, such as One Circle in April, Amazing Grace Worship Music Ministry in May, and HaDavar Yeshiva in September; as well as the local Australian Chinese Missions for Christ in August. Through the Mandarin congregation’s connections, the church also participated in the annual Murray Farm Public School Carnival in September to reach out to the community.

For more information on other ministries, please read the remaining report with gratitude, acknowledging God’s loving care and guidance for our church.