Looks Back in Gratitude, Part 2.
Aldersgate Methodist Church
Welcome to Part II of AMC’s early milestones, uploaded for the month of February. Have you read Part I, uploaded in January?
These milestones have been curated with our church’s 45th Anniversary in view, which we celebrate in May. This is an occasion to express gratitude to God for 45 years of blessings on our community of believers!
In this spirit, AMC’s Archives and History Committee invites you to embark on a journey through several milestones of AMC’s history. Each month this year, our church website will feature new write-ups on significant moments and developments in AMC’s early years.
For longtime members of AMC, these milestones will be brief but valuable reminders of how far we have come, and how thankful we must continue to be.
For those who have recently joined us, we invite you to meditate on these milestones with gratitude, to give thanks to God for the vibrant community we are part of today.
For those still reading, pay close attention to the details shared in these milestones—there will be quizzes during church service from time to time, and prizes, too!
Ready? Let’s Begin!
(2 - 5 mins read)
A Year on the Move
From Ulu Pandan to Dover Close East
As Rev. Denver Stone had said in his inaugural sermon of January 1978, “God has brought us to this place,” the Singapore American School, but for a “brief period of four months only.” Indeed, the month of May arrived all too quickly, and we needed to “un-pitch our tent” and move on.
Thankfully, God had already gone before us to provide for our next “camp” in the Anglo-Chinese Junior College (ACJC) at Dover Close East.
Our first Sunday Service at ACJC was held on 7th May 1978, at 9:30 am, in Lecture Theatre III (also known as LT3, Fig. 1). The Order of Worship for this first service records that Mr. Albert Low was the worship leader, and that the first hymn sung was “Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty” (Fig. 2).
Anglo-Chinese Junior College (ACJC)
Fig. 1: Worship service in ACJC’s Lecture Theatre III (c. May 1978), with the congregation seated in the students’ chairs equipped with writing tablets. At the lectern in the front of the lecture theatre stands Rev. Denver Stone.
Fig. 2. The first page of the Order of Worship for our first service in ACJC, 7 May 1978, preserved in our church archives.
The monthly rental at ACJC was $350 per month, but LT3 was made available to us from 8 a.m. to 12 noon. And, there was more! We also had permission to use the canteen, so fellowship time after each Sunday Service was held there, with leaders and worshippers staying back to do the washing up and to clean the premises. We even had access to larger venues such as the auditorium if needed.
Grateful for so much more space available, the congregation was now confronted with a new question posed by Rev. Stone: “How best can we use the facilities that are available to us?”
It did not matter that our arrangement with ACJC was temporary, and that we would soon need to find another venue. The Pioneer Work Committee would enthusiastically invest themselves in cultivating our budding community of worshippers, labouring as if they were building something meant to last, confident that God would bless their efforts.
Space Needed!
Thus, singers who were interested to form a choir were asked to meet Mrs. Lee Ken Lin; Baptism and Membership Classes were conducted at 8:15 a.m. every Sunday; a Worship and Music Committee began under Dr Chan Beng See; a Committee on Witnessing was started under Mr Ron Aspin; a Young Adults Camp was held at Fairy Point (Changi); and a nursery was started for the toddlers of worshippers attending the 9:30 a.m. service, with our first infant baptism conducted in ACJC and adult baptism at Labrador, Bedok Park Jetty.
Ultimately, the many new things begun during the 8 months we worshipped at ACJC would have to continue elsewhere. Our last service at 25 Dover Close East was held on a Sunday, on Christmas Eve morning in 1978.
Active
And then to Portsdown
We actually did find a place to celebrate Christmas day that year. God had answered our prayers again!
About five months before we had to vacate ACJC, the Methodist Church in Singapore had acquired a Temporary Occupation License for the disused British Army church premises in Portsdown Road. This complex of buildings once served as a Scottish Presbyterian garrison church and had been known as All Saints Church.
The Methodist Church in Singapore had initially planned to use the Portsdown premises as a training centre. Instead, as the Lord would have it, our congregation was granted the use of Portsdown!
And so, on Christmas Day in 1978, a congregation that just one day earlier was singing hymns in ACJC, and only months before had worshipped in the Singapore American School, now found itself at the A-shaped chapel in Portsdown, belting out the advent hymn, “O Come, All Ye Faithful” (figs. 3 and 4).
Celebrating Christmas Day
Fig. 3. The A-shaped chapel at Portsdown Road
Fig. 4. The Faith Methodist Church youth who helped start our church.
Fig. 5. First page of Order of Service for Christmas Day 1978, held at the Portsdown Road Sanctuary.
The Campus of All Saints Church
The campus of All Saints Church was more than we could have hoped for. The premises housed a small chapel (150-200 capacity), spacious grounds dotted with mature trees, and a couple of buildings which we could use as a church hall and Sunday School classrooms.
However, the chapel building was in poor condition, which required an initial amount of $2,000 for the minimal refurbishment needed so that we could move in. Youths from The Hiding Place would help to re-paint the chapel just in time for our Christmas service in 1978.
Also, the overall situation for our congregation remained precarious. It really did not seem worthwhile to plant our roots in Portsdown, for the property remained on a Temporary Occupational License, and we might be asked to move out at very short notice.
Not knowing when we would need to move again, we lived Sunday to Sunday, trusting in God.
As before, our congregation stepped forward in faith. We committed again to establishing a community meant to endure and, despite our limited funds, worked to support a renovation programme for the Portsdown sanctuary expected to cost about $15,000.
Would these efforts come to nought? How long would we be able to stay at Portsdown? Not knowing when we would need to move again, we lived Sunday to Sunday, trusting in God.