Missions Update: God’s Work in Our World
As a church, we desire to obey Jesus’ command to make disciples of all nations. Our Missions Committee has been seeking to do so in the area of missions. Specifically, we aim to achieve it by sending and supporting disciple-makers among peoples and nations in Asia, growing indigenous churches and working through sound partnerships to advance the gospel.
We are thankful for gospel partners overseas that align with these aims. At our recent Members’ Meeting on 9 March 2025, Elder Jonathan shared some updates from our partners and missionaries. In this article, we provide a more detailed update about the work that has been going on with one of our missions partners, First Baptist Bandung Church.
We have been partnering with First Baptist Bandung Church, who coordinates with SINERGI. SINERGI is a programme that stands for "Singapore-Indonesia Networking for Evangelism, Reach-out, Growth, and Initiatives" and it was launched in 2021 by Singapore and Indonesian churches seeking to fulfill the Great Commission among the Unreached People Groups in Indonesia and Southeast Asia. As of December 2024, the partnership includes 4 Singaporean churches, 4 Indonesian churches, 5 missions organisations and 3 Baptist conventions.
Missionaries that they sent out have 6 Core Missionary Tasks:
Entry: Missionaries identify and engage with UUPGs (Unengaged Unreached People Group), building relationships and understanding their unique cultural contexts.
Evangelism: Proclamation of the gospel so that every person hears the message of salvation in a way they can understand.
Disciple Making: Helping new believers grow in their faith and become mature followers of Christ.
Healthy Church Formation: Missionaries seek to plant churches that are self-sustaining, able to govern, support, and reproduce themselves.
Leadership Development: Training local leaders to take on the responsibility of guiding the church and continuing the mission.
Exit and Partnership: Transitioning leadership to local believers and churches, ensuring that the ministry continues to thrive long after the missionaries have moved on, while fostering ongoing partnerships.
Through this, SINERGI desires that their mission work is intentional, sustainable, and deeply rooted in the principles of biblical missiology.
The SINERGI programme provides regular update about the work that has been going on, and in a recent update, the team shared their entry efforts on how the teams have been seeking to establish connections with people through creative means, such as the selling of perfume and soap. Both their men’s and women’s teams were able to connect with “persons of peace” – individuals in the community who were open and willing to engage. Thank God that they have been able to establish connections and build relationships through these means.
In addition, there were also opportunities for evangelism. The gospel has been shared with many who have been opened to hearing and engaging the team. Continue to pray for these efforts as team members follow up with them!
They also continue to work towards planting a church. The team holds weekly prayer meetings and these gatherings have attracted interested individuals. They also continue to hold Sunday worship services in the homes of team members, and recently formed a youth fellowship group. Pray for these to bear fruit!
Church, let us continue to keep these efforts in prayer! Pray for the hearts of the people that they will be soft and ready to hear the gospel, receive it and grow in spiritual maturity. Pray also for God's continued protection for the team as they evangelise and share the gospel, that they will not grow weary of this work and continue to be sustained by God.