Grassroots Prayer to Grow a Plant
Members have initiated a focused prayer session for the church plant in church on 28 February (Friday) at 8pm. While it began as the initiative of one care group, interest has grown and it is now open for anyone to join. Read more about this and see you there!
Church planting buzz
Of late we have seen quite a buzz in church as we have been thinking about church planting together. The church agreed to set aside funds for this endeavour at our EGM in November 2024. The elders also shared their heart for GBC to widen our reach to advance the Great Commission early this year. We also saw members become more intentional in thinking and praying about these plans.
There were more opportunities for the church to prayerfully discuss this at our January Members’ Meeting and the Prayer and Sharing Session last month. Members have also been speaking with our elders and one another to understand more about this effort.
The potential candidate for the role of Pastor for Church Planting & Missions also came to be our visiting preacher over two Sundays. Many members attended the two “Meet and Greet” Sunday sessions after hearing him preach “New Birth” from John 3 and “New Life” from John 4. In addition to Care Groups (CGs), he also visited Bible study groups, the Hymn Fellowship, Ladies’ Precept Group and other gatherings.
So what’s next? Prayer
While some of us may be raring to go, others need more time to understand and process the whirlwind of activity. Regardless of which we feel, we should continue to prioritise prayer. We should take for our example the reformer Martin Luther who once quipped, “I have so much to do today that I shall spend the first three hours in prayer.”
Members have initiated a focused prayer session for the church plant in church on 28 February (Friday). While it began as the initiative of one care group, interest has grown and the session held in church is open for anyone to join.
Andrew Sung, whose CG first mooted the idea of a time of prayer, leads a group based in Paya Lebar. Together with his wife Esther, the Sungs have been at GBC since 2019, and are parents to two young boys, Elliot and Aiden.
Andrew shared that his hopes for a time of prayer grew out of a desire to see a more prayerful GBC. As we make big decisions about our church life in the coming months, Andrew encourages us all to pray more together:
“Seeing the big decisions that we are making as a church, I want to build that culture of prayer as we go about the decision. I think it is clear in the early church too, such as in Acts 6. We know there were a number of big decisions that the disciples had to make and they devoted themselves to prayer and the ministry of the word. The disciples also modeled this pattern of seeing the Lord in prayer. So seeing that, I wanted to start something at the “grassroots” level too.
I had an opportunity to talk to a few elders before I started this. The general consensus was to go ahead, start small and see what happens. I brought it up with my CG and it got a pretty positive response from our group so we decided to do this instead of our regular social.
We also thought it would be good to open it up to other members at GBC. I shared that with the other CG leaders, with other folks, and I think over the past week or so, other members expressed their desire to join us. We can fit maybe close to 20 folks in our home but once it was clear we were getting close to 30, we needed more space. Pastor Andrew recommended that we should hold it at GBC, and so we are. This really started out as a grassroots effort, and it was encouraging to see GBC members’ desire to come together to pray. We are also very excited to open this to the church.”
This prayer session will begin at 8pm on 28 February (Friday) in Room 310. From about 7pm, members can bring their own dinner after work and fellowship with others before the session. Since there are now a number of CGs coming together, members may not know everyone, thus this pre-event dinner will be a good time for people to get to know one another and catch up.
The event will start promptly at 8pm and the session will be simple. There will be Scripture shared and prayer prompts for us to pray through together. We hope to pray for about 1 hour (i.e., 9pm). The whole thing will definitely end by 10pm, if not earlier.”
Patient, petitioning prayer
As a member of GBC, Andrew has some closing words of encouragement for fellow members:
“Church planting is going to require a lot of patience. In Scripture, we often see how God’s kingdom grows and expands, but it takes time. In Mark 4, we read of the parable of the sower, and the sower sows seeds, but it takes time for the seeds to grow. It is so important for us as a church to pray, pray earnestly and desire God to answer our prayers and guide us in these big decisions that are to come.
Faithfulness in this season is for us to be a prayerful church and seek the Lord's guidance as to how we are to go about planting this church. We have much confidence that we're praying for the right thing.
It does require a lot of work. It's going to require a lot of patience as a church. And I think the best thing we can do is really pray and seek the Lord's guidance.”
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Join us for this prayer session on 28 February (Friday) from 8pm in Room 310. Feel free to bring your dinner and fellowship with others from 7pm!