Clementi New Town Pioneer Work
September, 1977
In September 1977 the Rev William Denver Stone was charged by Bishop Kao Jih Chung of The Methodist Church in Singapore to initiate pioneer work in the vicinity of a new HDB housing estate bordered by Clementi Road.
The Rev Denver Stone began visiting the homes of Methodists and friends living in the area to tell them about the pioneer work of starting a new church. This pioneer work was undertaken with the help and support of members of Faith Methodist Church, other TRAC churches and churches from other denominations. The new HDB estate was then known as “Clementi New Town” and hence the name of the pioneer work.
Inaugural Worship Service
8 January, 1978
After four months of visitations and looking for a venue for the Worship Service, a place was finally found. Our Inaugural Worship Service was held on Sunday, January 8, 1978 at the Theatrette of the Singapore American School at 9.30 am. It was attended by about 70 adults and children.
We had to move!
7 MAY 1978
After four months of this temporary arrangement at the Singapore American School, we had to “un-pitch our tent” and move on. But God had already gone before us to provide for our next “camp” at the Anglo-Chinese Junior College (ACJC). The first Sunday Worship Service was held there on Sunday, May 7, 1978 in Theatre III, at 9.30 am.
The monthly rental at ACJC was $350 per month. Theatre III was available to us from 8 am to 12 noon and we also had use of the canteen, the hall space, and the large hall when needed.
God answered
our prayers again
December, 1978
Five months before we had to vacate ACJC, we were given a Temporary Occupation Licence on a disused British Army church in Portsdown Road, known formerly as “All Saints Church”. It was handed over by MINDEF to the Rev Ho Chee Sin, Pastor of Faith Methodist Church, who received it on our behalf. It was more than what we had hoped for. The complex of buildings comprised a small chapel (150-200 capacity), spacious grounds dotted with mature trees, and a few buildings which we could use as a church hall and Sunday School classrooms.
The first Worship Service was held on Christmas Day of 1978.
Planting the seed of a Local Conference
25 FeBruary 1979
In early 1979, after one year of planting the seed, the status of the congregation was still that of a “pioneer work congregation”, viz.,“Clementi New Town Pioneer Work”. “We are not authorised to have official members,” as the Rev Denver Stone explained to the congregation. Several members of the congregation who had professed their faith by baptism during their period of worship with the “pioneer work” were ironically not members of any local church. The “pioneer work” had no legal status within The Methodist Church in Singapore until it was constituted as a Local Conference.
A “Local Conference Question/Answer Time” was held at 10.30 am after the Worship Service on February 25, 1979 to explain the meaning and significance of forming a “Local Conference”. In the weeks following, members of the congregation were invited to return a form expressing their desire for a Local Conference and to request “Charter Membership in the proposed Local Conference”. By Sunday, March 18, 1979, 33 members of the congregation had returned the forms.
Birth of our Church
6 MAY 1979
After four months of this temporary arrangement at the Singapore American School, we had to “un-pitch our tent” and move on. But God had already gone before us to provide for our next “camp” at the Anglo-Chinese Junior College (ACJC). The first Sunday Worship Service was held there on Sunday, May 7, 1978 in Theatre III, at 9.30 am.
The monthly rental at ACJC was $350 per month. Theatre III was available to us from 8 am to 12 noon and we also had use of the canteen, the hall space, and the large hall when needed.
Where did our first members come from?
May, 1979
At the Thanksgiving Celebration Service on May 6, 1979, the number of Charter Members was 78. Our Founding Pastor, the Rev Denver Stone, had announced that the Charter Membership roll would remain open through May 1979.
The final number of Charter Members by end-May 1979 was 90. Slightly more than half were transfers from other Methodist Churches (50), but there was still a significant number who were new converts (32) and transfers from other denominations (8).
The Years of Disappointment
1982 - 1984
Unsuccessful bids for HDB sites
Our mind was never far from the need to acquire land to build our own permanent home. In fact TRAC had made two unsuccessful bids for HDB sites for our Church even before the constituting of the Local Conference: (a) 1977/78: Bid for Telok Blangah Housing Estate site, (b) 1977/78: Bid for Clementi New Town site for $240,000 – Lost to Roman Catholic Church by $80,000.
Notice to quit Portsdown Road and Renewed bids for site
After two unsuccessful bids for HDB sites in 1977 and 1978, we settled down – perhaps too comfortably – in our Portsdown Road premises. In early 1982 we were given notice to hand back the Portsdown Road site to the Government by the middle of that year. Our “eviction” was postponed a number of times as the Government’s redevelopment plans were delayed. Shaken out of our complacency, we looked for new sites to bid. There were few sites up for tender. By then the cost of sites had risen six fold.
With financial backing from Wesley Methodist Church, we bid $1.2 million for a site in Jurong East. Again we lost the bid – to the Seventh Day Adventist Church by a margin of $100,000. Then came the final notice to quit Portsdown Road by the end of 1984.
THE Years of Despair
1984
There were only a few weeks left before we had to vacate our place of worship at Portsdown Road by the end of 1984. This was a time of great anxiety. Permission to use the school hall of Fairfield Methodist Primary School as a temporary measure was first given and then quickly withdrawn. In the end, Fairfield School Board of Management finally relented and agreed to let us use the school hall with several conditions which were all accepted without question by us.
We held our first Worship Service in the Primary School hall on Sunday, December 9, 1984. The school was kind enough to let us use the chairs in the hall and we bought rolls of red carpet to protect the wooden floor. The weekly “ritual” after the Sunday Worship Service was for members of the congregation to carry the chairs to the back of the hall and stack them up. The seniors did their part, but much fell on the shoulders of the youth. We were thankful to God who has provided us with temporary shelter in our moment of need and despair.
Without a church building of our own, we were severely handicapped in reaching out to the schools and community. Building our church in the grounds of one of the Methodist schools in the area was the most logical solution but ironically it was also the least likely possibility,
given the circumstances of the time.
Disappointment soon turned into despair. At a congregational meeting during this period, some LCEC leaders even proposed that the Clementi Methodist Church be dissolved and members could return to the churches from where they had come. What about those who had joined us by profession of faith through baptism at our church? Where would they go? Clementi Methodist Church was the only church they had known! This proposal was “defeated” by a show of hands. Even if we had lost faith in ourselves, we should never lose faith in God.
The YEAR of Deliverance
4 September 1985
On September 4, 1985, a letter from the Ministry of Education arrived unexpectedly on the desks of the Principals of the two Fairfield Methodist Schools with an offer of a piece of land contiguous to the schools, in front of the Primary School. God has answered our prayers! The land was “created” miraculously by the realignment of Dover Road near its junction with North Buona Vista Road. The offer to the schools was conditional, that a “Chapel/Church” would be built on this piece of land within two years.
The schools accepted the land. The Fairfield School Board of Management, having been reluctant only a year before to allow us to use the Primary School hall temporarily, was now willing to let us build a church in the school grounds.
There was yet another surprising obstacle in store for us. When test bores were made at the site, it was found that extensive PUB electricity and gas lines were buried smack in the middle of the site earmarked for the Church, rendering it uneconomical for building. Miraculously, God provided the answer once more. The Fairfield School Board of Management was agreeable to exchanging the schools’ car park with the site earmarked for the Church. This is God’s sign to us that our Church has become part of the family of the two Methodist Schools and it is our mission to minister to them.
Our Mission Field
June 1988
When we first began with the church-planting vision of the Pioneer Work, our mission field was the HDB estates bordering Clementi New Town. God worked His miracles, and provided a site that is adjoined to the compound of Fairfield Methodist Primary School at Dover Road. We take this as God’s reminder to us that Methodist mission schools and Methodist churches have to work closely together.
The following excerpt taken from the concluding paragraph of our appeal (for a church building site) to the TRAC Executive Board in June 1988 bears repeating: “Education through the establishment of Methodist Schools has long been an important area of the Church’s mission and evangelism. Through the Schools, the Church can reach out to the present as well as the many future generations to come.”
Enter the new millennium
1995 - 2000
In our early years as a Local Conference, the vision was to reach out to residents in Clementi and the area around Portsdown Road. In our first Christmas Rally in 1981, tracts were distributed around Dover Road, Normanton Park, Portsdown Road and Commonwealth Avenue West.
In 1995, following our move to Aldersgate Chapel, we launched Vision 2000 for the new millennium: “To be a disciple-making Church serving the needs of her members and the community and those beyond”. This was emphasised in different ways by means of acronyms, e.g., GEMs for “Glorify Edify Multiply and the initials of our church name AMC for “Anointing Moulding Caring”.
Today, there is another Methodist Church along Dover Road, and several other churches are worshipping in the vicinity. Our mission remains just as relevant. As we continue to “reach out, touch lives and make disciples for Christ”, let us remember God’s faithfulness over the last 30 years, and be led by His Word.