Reflections of 2019... “A year of stretch!”

(📷: Photo order: 1: Started 2019 with 2 Pastors at CMC, 2: Discipleship Group with the Youth leaders, 3: CMC YA Retreat, 4: Vacation in England 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿, visited London & Old Trafford, in Manchester, 5: CG cluster coaches, 6: Back to 4 pastors at CMC, 7: Vacation to Kyoto, Nara, Osaka in Japan 🇯🇵, 8: IGNITE “Heartbeat” Camp 2019, 9: Christmas 🎄 party with both of our families)

I ended the year 2018, sharing at the watch-night service from Joshua 1:9 that for the year 2019, God has reminded me to “Be Strong & Courageous” ...“for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.”

And true enough, 2019 was a period of growth, in fact to use the words of Ps Vincent it was a “period of stretch”. Although we started the year in “uncharted waters” with only just 2 pastors and we didn’t know what to expect. But on hindsight, I believe God had His purposes & plans for that season as we saw God doing exciting things in the church & we saw the leaders & staff stepped up.

We started the year with our Transformed Series & 7 weeks of consecutive prayer meetings and this was where I really learn to trust that God is indeed our chief shepherd who will lead us every step of the way & equip us for His ministry.

I personally grew a lot as a young pastor, as I assimilated into this new family in the east & I was exposed to serve & lead in ministries across the church, and even to be involve in areas of the pastoral ministry that was new to me.

It was also a year where I build deeper relationships with members of the church and also the leaders of the CG & IGNITE ministries. I got to spend more time with this fantastic group of cluster coaches who meets diligently every fortnight & I also started a discipleship group with some of our youth leaders.

And came 1 August 2019, we had 4 pastors again, where I really enjoyed the last 5 months serving alongside this bigger & stronger team under the leadership of our new PIC. We continue to grow even more as a team, as our entire pastoral team planned ahead for 2020.

In September, we also had our first Young Adults retreat after 6 years, where we saw Young adults across CMC building deeper spiritual friendships with one another & to prepare themselves as His kingdom people in their vocations!

So as 2019 come to an end, and I look forward to the coming year. I believe God is preparing us as a church to be more Kingdom-minded and i’m really excited to see what God has in store for us as we step into the new year of 2020 being a “Church in Action” in the east, “Passionate for God, Loving the Community!”