“This is the fulfillment of the thoughts God gave to us. We are living out our dream!”

The Senior Pastor’s voice rang throughout the auditorium as he took to the stage during the newly added worship service back at City Harvest Church’s (CHC) own Jurong West premises on December 2, 2007. Just two years after the church moved out of this place, a part of the church is now back to begin another chapter in the life of the congregation.

In December 2005, after outgrowing the place, CHC shifted to the east and started two services at Singapore Expo Hall 8. As the church continued its regular services and grew in influence, it became apparent that there was an obvious need to continue the work in the western part of Singapore. After all, this was the location where CHC broke through the 10,000-mark when it first moved in, in December 2002. And many breakthroughs were also achieved during the four to five years that the church met in this building.

Thereafter, Ps. Kong felt a strong prompting in his heart to start an additional English service in Jurong after an eventful week lecturing at City Harvest Bible Training Center. As he was standing at the pulpit teaching, he recalled feeling a strong presence of God in the main auditorium. Within a few months, it was decided that a part of the congregation would return to the west and pioneer a third English service.

With this move, another home base would be established in CHC. Now, the church would operate in two locations—Singapore Expo and Jurong West.

THE MIRACLE BUILDING

Referred fondly to by the members as the “miracle building,” the structure at Jurong West Street 91 is a testament of their faith. The church bought the land in 1997, in the midst of the worst economic crisis Asia had seen. At that time, the church was only 7,000-strong but God honored the faith and sacrifice of these members and the church was able to pay off this S$48 million-dollar building debt-free!

Even after the English congregation moved to Singapore Expo, Jurong West still continued to house the Children’s Church, Chinese Church, Dialect Church, Indonesian Church, JAMs Church and other ministries throughout the week. It was also in Jurong that the church received revelation of the cultural mandate and the call to impact the marketplace. Many of the founding members started to experience promotion and favor in their workplace. Many saw great increase in their return on investments and financial blessings added to them.

LOOKING AHEAD

The church is not the physical building; the church is about the people. Cell group leader, Darice Ng, emphasizes this point, “I think the new service at Jurong West is really a God-idea for us to expand and enlarge the work of the kingdom. It’s a turning point for our church to move up to the next level. Through this, we all have a greater urgency to reach out to the lost, especially those in the west.”

During the inaugural service in December, Service Pastor, Aries Zulkarnain, opened the meeting with a bang. Amidst the palpable excitement in the air, he said, “We want to start our brand new service here at Jurong West. We want to grow the church. It’s our first service here and the place is already packed. We’ll need to start another service,” which prompted the congregation to cheer.

From the start of the service, the atmosphere was electrifying as the congregation began to praise and worship. The tangible presence God descended upon the people as they lifted their voices to heaven. The service continued with its line of special items ranging from a dance performance to a choir recital.

In that service, Ps. Kong preached a powerful word on having faith and confidence in God. The key to having mountain-moving confidence is staying connected to God. He said succinctly, “Being attached to God is an absolute necessity.” The meeting ended with many coming forward to respond to the altar call.

If the first weekend at Jurong West is anything to go by, it is evident that we can expect greater breakthroughs in the years to come! HT