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English Congregation Workplan

CARRYING THE CROSS  

“If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself

and take up his cross daily and follow me…” (Luke 9:23)

 

      

In the context preceding this passage on Peter’s confession of Christ in Luke 9:18-27, the disciples were exposed to and had witnessed the full array of Jesus’ power and authority. Jesus had power over nature—calmed the storm (8:22-25); He had power over the spiritual—cast the demons (vv.26-39); He had power over the physical—healed the bleeding woman, passively, through her touch of Him (vv.43-48); He had power over the natural—the resurrecting of the dead girl (vv.49-56). And in chapter 9 onwards, the Lord Jesus gave them these same powers (9:1-9) and then co-perform with them the miracle of feeding the five thousand (vv.10-17).
 
It seemed the disciples have indeed followed the right person at the right time and who has the right powers—and more importantly—willing to share them. For the disciples, they would have been at the moment soaring on cloud nine. They had the power, they had to pull and they had the people—they had blessings in abundance. And the Lord Jesus thought it was high time to conduct a reality check (vv.18-26)—“Who do you say I am?”
 
This is an important question to the disciples. The people were looking for a temporal saviour of political liberation, blessings, and long life. But Christ came as the eternal Saviour spiritual liberation, blessings, and eternal life. Spiritual victories can only be scored the spiritual way—“The Son of Man must suffer many things…”. That is why, “If anyone would come after [Christ], he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow [Christ].”
 
We hear it from the Master’s mouth—discipleship or being a disciple of Christ—is to follow in the footsteps and ways of the Master. Hence for this year, we want to return to the basics, to relook again and strengthen our foundation based on the five pillars inherent in a healthy Christian life:
 
  • Worship—“Love God with all your heart;”
  • Ministry—“Love your neighbor as yourself;”
  • Evangelism/Missions—“Go…make disciples;”
  • Fellowship—“Baptize them…;” and
  • Discipleship—“Teaching them to do….”
GOALS

Spiritual Health Satisfaction Check (SHSC)

Purpose:     To allow one to have a gauge of the oneself’s spiritual health and through successive checks to refocus on important areas.
Action:          Sign pledge card for own retention and reminder
Two copies of SHSC, one for own retention, the other for church statistical purpose.
                         Conduct first check in Dec 2008
                         Conduct second check in June 2009
                         Conduct third check in Dec 2009
 
Reading Through the Bible

Purpose:           To encourage and uphold Bible reading as a fundamental discipleship requirement.
Action:             Read through the Bible, Old and New Testament simultaneously, in 2 years
                           Sign pledge card for own retention and reminder
   Track via printed book mark with daily chapters and boxes for checking
   Weekly Bible quizzes to be inserted in bulletin
                           Year-end fill in acknowledgement of completion slip for submission
                           Year-end acknowledgement of efforts for completion
 
Daily Quiet Time

Purpose:           To encourage and uphold Quiet Time as a fundamental discipleship requirement.
Action:             Whole congregation to use common quiet time material
            Sign “Pledge Card” for own retention and reminder
            Track via “Accountability Card” printed behind pledge card
                            Monthly sharing of devotional insights during Love Offering time
                            Year-end fill in acknowledgement of completion slip for submission
                            Year-end acknowledgement of efforts for completion
 
Book Reading

Purpose:           To encourage personal responsibility towards growth in spiritual knowledge
Action:             Recommend and subsidize book to congregation
 
Growing Together (Peer Mentoring)

Purpose:           To encourage Christian Fellowship at a more conducive and intimate level.
Action:          To build up, with the EC leadership members as base, a core group of people with the maturity and knowledge of peer mentoring
The EXCO members will identify each a non-exco member who is stable and mature, ideally the 2nd tier leader for that ministry to approach and pair up (those who are married may find another couple.)
The pairs will have to meet up once a month with a worked out list of objectives and directions.
All pairs will come together every quarter for Q&A and also for briefings and teachings on concept of mentoring.
The pair will be paired for a year, after which, they will be split and “multiply”, bringing together with them the concepts gleaned to form another pair.
 
 
Five Pillars

Purpose:     To intentionally look into and build-up the Five Pillars to a healthy Christian life and church.
Action:             Pulpit messages to address the five pillars
                          Equipping School/Sunday School/GYM classes to teach on the five pillars
  Cell-groups, Ladies’ Fellowship and Overseas Fellowship to conduct Bible studies on the five pillars
 
 
2008 Workplan
 
1.         Music Ministry
Our commitment in the music ministry is to encourage every believer in the English Congregation, both member and non-member, pursue corporate and individual worship that pleases God. To achieve this, we will be planning for more trainings to improve our skills. Also, music ministry team members are also encouraged to minister beyond the pulpit like during prayer meetings, helping out in the Sunday School or other fellowship meetings. Prayer times will also be set aside before the commencement of worship rehearsals.
2.         Children Ministry
Following last year, the Children Ministry will continue to adopt a multi-faceted approach in the coming year to make the children ministry a congregation-wide involvement. We will focus on teacher development like arranging for skill-based courses. Also, the teaching schedule will be revised to allow for the teachers themselves to join the Equipping School classes. Teaching methods will also be enhanced via multimedia to make it interactive and engaging. Children will also be exposed to prayer and memorization of Scriptures. The youth and music ministry members will also be invited to help out in the praise segment of the children worship.
 
For nurturing the spiritual development of the children and to have better communication with parents, we have set up a system whereby a teacher will mentor 3 children throughout the year to care for the child and communicate with parents, writing of birthdays cards, calling when the child is absent for class. We will continue to refine and enhance this system to make it more viable and vibrant. We hope to achieve a two-fold purpose in this mentoring system: Firstly, to build a relationship with parents so that they see Children Ministry as a valuable partner to support their child’s spiritual development. Secondly, to relay relevant, important information about the progress of the child.
 
We would also be remaking the Children worship cum fellowship time. This is an important segment to let the children to have a time of worship and fellowship with one another through activities, games etc. On top of that, we will be adding the Christian education dimension apart from the fellowship element. We will also add in more structure and set up objectives to be achieved during this timeslot.
A Vacation Bible School will also organized in June with a special focus on reaching out to non-Christian children. The VBS will culminate on a Sunday where the children will have their own programs and whose parents will also be invited to attend a “graduation” service which will also be evangelistic in nature.
3.         Grace Youth Ministry (GYM)
Our Purpose: GYM exists to help our youth look up (in worship), look down (in discipleship), look in (for fellowship), look side (in ministry) and look out (in evangelism).
 
A purpose –driven youth ministry is built around the five purposes found in the Great Commandment (Matt 22:37-40) and the Great Commission (Matt 28:19-20). The five purposes that are found in these two passages are: Worship—“Love the Lord your God with all your heart”; Ministry—“Love your neighbour as yourself”; Evangelism—“Go and make disciples”; Fellowship—“Baptizing them”; Discipleship—“Teaching them to obey.”
 
Our Plans: At the beginning of the year, the teachers will conduct a faith basics survey to have an insight into each teenager’s faith and relationship with God, so that we can adapt our ministry strategy and activities to their specific needs. Through the survey, we will be able to determine “The Five Most Important Truths” our youth need to know and make sure that they know those truths by the time they leave our ministry. We will bring the youth through a time of reflection on their spiritual journey and to discover God’s purpose in their lives. We want to help them deepen their love relationship with Jesus and his church. To equip them for service, leadership and witness, and to encourage them to look beyond themselves to love and care for one another.
 
In our desire to shift the GYM to Saturday afternoons, we will be conducting two Saturday Praise Band sessions, every quarter. The Saturday activities will be stepped up depending on the response from the group to facilitate smooth transition by 2010. This will cater to more time and space to support the various GYM activities in the future. We will invite external speakers or our Pastors to share on specific topics like “BGR”, “Sexuality and the Christian teen”, “Stress”, “Relating to parents”, “Chastity” for girls, etc. We will also organize our annual Youth camp at the second half of the year.
4.         Ladies Fellowship
The LF theme is: Sisters are for celebrating joys and sharing of tears. The objective is to:
1.   Facilitate and enhance bonding and encouragement amongst the sisters and reaching out to their families, other members within the church and friends.
2.   Be an effective channel to reach out to the sisters who are unable to attend Cell Groups (CGs) due to their other commitments.
The LF programs will focus on 3 main areas.
1.   Worshiping God: We will be intentional about emphasizing worship in our LF.
2.   Growing Spiritually: By including a bible-study/devotional segment in our programs, we hope to challenge our sisters to greater spiritual growth.
3.   Caring for Each Other: As members of the body of Christ, we are to care for other members of that same body in very real and meaningful ways. We want to lift each other up in prayer, we lend a shoulder of support during tough times, we celebrate each other’s joys. We hope to create a relationship in which we can be comfortable and open to each other.  
 
5.         Overseas Fellowship (OF)
The Overseas Fellowship continues to be an avenue for domestic helpers from overseas to meet, relax and share of their Christian faith. OF members will progressively be integrated into the EC congregation with active participation in the worship service. They will be rostered for ushering duties and song presentations. The sisters from the Ladies Fellowship will also be encouraged to have combined activities with OF sisters.
6.         Equipping School
 Reading of Christian literature will continue. Congregation will be encouraged to read one book for 2009. Reading of articles will be bi-weekly instead of monthly.  The topics will be based on the 5 pillars or purposes of the church namely: Worship Fellowship; Discipleship; Missions/Evangelism and Ministry. There are on changes to the program structure of the Equipping School (Bible teaching; Forums; and Topical Discussions).
7.         Prayer
No changes to the current structure and emphasis except that the Prayer Day will be incorporated into the bi-monthly prayer meeting. This is to avoid over-crowding the congregation and church calendar of events.  
8.         Evangelism
The main thrust of evangelism in EC is through participation in the International Student Outreach ministry as befrienders or host family. However, outreach to other groups like friends, family members, colleagues would still be through the CG as the main platform. The CGs will continue organizing the sowing and reaping events.
9.         Cell Group (CG)
The CG will emphasize on the sharing of devotion by the CG members based on their devotional as well as the memorizing of Scripture in line with the Bible reading program (one verse bi-weekly). The training of CGLs will resume with the focus on leading Bible study and fellowship meeting and how to be a “Barnabas.” The training on Conversational Evangelism will be shifted to the Moriah Fellowship. 
10.       Missions
The proposal on doing short-term missions on a long-term basis at a fixed location (field) has been approved in principle by the Missions committee. The committee will further discuss and iron out the issues pertaining to its implementation this year.