ANNUAL MINISTRY REPORT 2023

Senior Pastor's Report

Gather Team

Grow Generations Team

Grow Communities Team

Go Team

Admin-Ops & Comms


Senior Pastor's Report

Dear Church,

2023 brought with it many challenges, but also many new beginnings.  It was especially encouraging to hear the strong resonance from the leaders for Vision 2028 and also to see how God has already began preparing the way for Intergenerational Mentoring to be our new culture. 

Staffing

We welcomed Ps Dawn Lee, who joined us on 1 January 2023.  She serves with Ps Ho in the Chinese Congregation and oversees the Chinese Life Change Groups and Next Generation Ministries. 

We bid farewell to Ps Daniel Seow at the end of 2023 and pray that God will lead him to his next station soon. 

The turnover of pastors has been a common phenomenon faced by many Chinese churches. The difficulty in hiring new pastors and helping them adapt to the structure and culture of the church are long-term problems we struggle to resolve.  After discussion with Ps Ho, our Chinese Congregational pastor, Ps Jimmy Won was asked to join the pastoral team of the Chinese congregation. 

Ps Ivan Liew has been on extended leave since 1 October 2023. We pray that he will be able to be restored to our pastoral team in the future.  

Mrs Khoo Hern Ern continues into the third year of her Master of Arts in Counselling at TCA College and will finish at the end of 2025. Mr Khoo Seng Khong continues his Master of Divinity at Singapore Bible College and expects to finish in May 2026.

Discipleship Focus

2023 was a year for us to consolidate and deepen the FORM of discipleship in ourselves.  These measures of a disciple are not a passing fad for Woodlands EFC. Our mission is to make disciples in Woodlands and the world, and these measures describe the kind of disciples we seek to nurture and reproduce.

We are glad to hear that many more are using the “I will …” statements in their own lives as a tool to move from their Bible reading to obedience. We are also encouraged to hear that many huddles in our LCGs are scheduling additional meetups on their own. This surely means that the objective of forming deeper relationships in our Huddles to strengthen discipleship are bearing fruit. We are also encouraged to hear that more LCGs are now also trying to grow deep in their Huddles. 

Other Key Events

As we began planning for the next five years, several events paved the way and prepared our hearts to anticipate Vision 2028.

Young Adult & Youth Retreat (June 2023)

This was a special retreat where youths, young adults and adults came together to hear and learn precious lessons from one another across the different generations. This milestone retreat tore down walls and opened conversations across the generations. It began to give our young adults and youths a greater sense of belonging in the church. We pray that this momentum will carry us well into the future.

Marriage Mentoring

19 couples came forward to be trained as marriage mentors in 2023. This allows us to have a greater capacity to prepare couples for marriage and to continue mentoring them in their first years of marriage. And as the relationship between the older couples and the younger couples grow, we pray this will lead to mentoring in parenting too. We have also put aside 20% of our marriage mentoring capacity to mentor couples from our neighbourhood, through Woodlands Social Centre. 

Outreach

2023 was also a year of transition for Woodlands Social Centre. Our Executive Director, Mrs Tricia Yeo, left in April, and Mr Joel Seah took over the role in July. We are now ready to re-engage our Woodlands Community again! Activities are already being lined up for the first half of 2024 as we anticipate Food Distribution to Block 806 and the setup of our Prison Televisit Centre. Do come to pray and work with WSC to transform Woodlands for Christ.

Looking Forward

As we look forward to Vision 2028, we realise that this is a huge vision that will result in us having quite a different church from what we have now. We will continue building on the FORM of discipleship because these are the fundamental measures of what a disciple should be. On that foundation, we will build an intergenerational church through mentoring. It is a beautiful picture of the future, and more importantly, it is a biblical picture of what the Church should be. 

There is much to be done, and some say that five years is too short. But, as I described above, I am glad to see that God has already prepared the way for what He wants to do in and through us. And because it is God’s design, we know that He will surely help us to do it. 

May we walk in step with Him as He leads the way.

Lim Kee Oon
Senior Pastor


ANNUAL MINISTRY REPORT 2023

Senior Pastor's Report

Gather Team

Grow Generations Team

Grow Communities Team

Go Team

Admin-Ops & Comms