Blessed New, and Old, Year!

By Ps Alby Yip

It is indeed a Blessed New, and Old, Year for us in Zion Bishan. There is so much to be thankful to God for. For foreign missions, God has continued to lead us to reach people who need to hear the Gospel the most: those Unreached or Least reached communities in Nepal, India, Indonesia, Malaysia and West Asia. We have been exploring work in Mongolia and are encouraged by God’s leading so far for ministry there.

On the home front, we’ve seen firmer tie-ups with our community partner, Allkin Senior Service in Sin Ming reaching out to the rental blocks, which culminated in a Christmas Community Party. This partnership will continue this year with more outreach activities. We’ve also increased our partnership with St Luke’s Elder Care (SLEC) with more outreach events to seniors in the community. We also met recently with the leadership team of SLEC to explore a more formal SLEC-Zion Bishan partnership to run senior-centric activities in our church premises this new year. 

In terms of our own church ministries, we thank God that the congregational model is slowly taking shape. We pray that in this new year, we will be able to make more progress in each congregation, and more importantly, fulfil our vision of Presenting Everyone Mature in Christ. 

One of the key highlights of the past year was the official submission of our land lease renewal application. We are eagerly expecting to receive a notification soon of the amount to pay for our lease renewal, well in time for this to be tabled for congregational approval at the next ECM. Given the renewal rates of other churches who have renewed their lease, we thank God that we are likely to have a sufficient amount in our Land Lease Renewal Fund for our lease renewal.

Please accept my heartfelt thanks to all of you, members and worshippers, for your unwavering support and sacrificial giving to make this possible. I thank God for you all and pray for God Himself to be your reward and portion. I thank God also for being with us every step of this journey. Personally, it was a fascinating adventure to witness first-hand how God has miraculously led us these six years through His faithful and timely provisions. All glory and thanks be to God!

As we anticipate the imminent completion of the land lease renewal process, Session has decided that the name, “Land Lease Renewal Fund (LLRF)” will no longer be in effect from 1 January 2024 and will revert to the original name General Project Fund (GPF).”  The bank account used for the LLRF has always been named GPF.  We “pasted” the label LLRF to make it clearer and intentional as we needed to raise 15 million, in five years, 2017-2022. 

The General Project Fund, sometimes also known as the Building Fund, has usually been kept by churches along with another operational account like our General & Missions Fund (GMF). The reason we need the GPF account is to gradually put aside funds needed for periodical major building repairs and upgrades. It is also to slowly save up for the next lease renewal. As such, we will need to continue to keep the GPF bank account.

Thank you again for your partnership in the Gospel in this home we fondly call Zion Bishan. Let us continue in the New Year to fulfil our calling to be a City on a Hill, a Light to the Nations!