HIM FAMILY NEWS

Hope Singapore Marriage Enrichment Seminar



All of us come from a family and are building one. Family is the building block of the church, and marriage becomes the most vital of the relationships in it. The Marriage Seminar is a vital part of our church’s initiative to strengthen all relationships in our family.



This year, the Marriage Enrichment Seminar, entitled “RE” was conducted as part of Hope Church’s Valentine’s Seminar for all the married couples on 18 February 2011 at The Nexus Auditorium. Through the “RE” seminar, we challenged our people to Re-define, Re-established, Re-connect and Re-work the different aspects of their marriage to make it strong. We started the event with an activity to find out “How much do we know our spouse?”, followed by presentation of awards to model couples who exemplify godly attributes, before the talk entitled “Effective Couple Communication” by Alvin and Yee Ming, our Mandarin congregation leaders who are also experienced family life trainers. They exemplified great communication by tag-teaming to highlight to us pitfalls to avoid, and pointed out ways where we can better communicate with one another as couples.



Pastor Simon Eng, our HIM President was also present to grace the event by adding his thoughts and challenging us to embrace 3 additional key points to enhance our marriages. Pastor Jeff wrapped up the event with the point that “The world’s goal for marriage is happiness, God’s goal is holiness”, and that we should be salt and light to reach and win the whole city and the whole world, which aligned our direction for 2011. It was undoubtedly, a great way for Hope Singapore families to start the year!

Hope Singapore: Ripple Conference 2011



Ripple Conference is a next generation conference to empower the collaboration work of parents, kids and church leaders in Hope Church Singapore. We believe the synergy of a united team builds strong families and elevate them to their fullness in purpose to build the next generation church.

In this year’s conference “Collaborate”, held on 12 March at Suntec City Theatre, we set the stage for partnership of our families and church. It was a special time where a national movement leader, Jason Wong, spoke to us about the national father’s movement “Dads For Life” he initiated in Singapore. He shared the inspiration from Malachi 4:5-6 on the importance of having fathers’ heart connected to their children for blessing of Singapore and the church for the next generation. A special forum where parents and youth workers sat down to dialogue on the challenges and opportunities in collaboration concluded the day conference. People left with the encouragement and the empowerment to pay attention to the young and to work to lay the foundation for the next generation.


HIM Chiang Mai - Special Revival Sunday




The spiritual revival that brought joy to the brothers and sisters of the three congregations of HIM Chiang Mai family, (HIM Phuphing, HIM Sansai and HIM Mae Jo) consisted of stirring worship led by Ps. Prayuth Sariman, and sermon by Ps. Denis Lu (Senior Pastor of Hope Church Kuching). There were approximately 610 people in attendance and about 10 new believers.



This week, the church also organized a worship seminar for the worship teams from the three centres to develop skills and greater spiritual understanding. This was lead by Ps. Prayuth Sariman and resulted in a powerful worship session on Sunday.

In addition, there was training for the church team members and leaders in the area of prophecy. This was conducted by Ps. Denis Lu. The purpose was to share knowledge and enhance the spiritual dimension of the church. The end result should be the encouragement and expansion of the congregations by the Holy Spirit in HIM Chiang Mai.



God has said, “I have prepared HIM Chiang Mai to be a church that will glorify Me. I have prepared this church like a bow that is poised to shoot an arrow out at the target that I have prepared according to My will.”

Hope Kuching Bible Conference



HOPE Kuching held its Bible Conference (BC) on 11 – 13 March 2011 entitled “Envision”. God truly spoke to His people through the preaching of Ps. James Loke and Ps. Simon Eng.



Firstly, we all need to receive vision from God personally. This vision is given by God to all his children and we all need to apply this vision into our lives willingly. Secondly, we need God together in this vision as well as the following factors:

• Personal Factor

It is important that we always check our attitudes and spirit in all occasions. We need to ensure that our heart attitudes are pleasing to God. If God has our hearts, we can do great things for God. Guard our hearts for it is the wellspring of our lives.

• Team Factor

Everyone needs to be involved in fulfilling God’s vision. We need one another to build His church and people. Team factor also requires building covenantal relationship and unity among all God-appointed leaders. Working as a team is also crucial as each person has different gifting.

• God’s Factor

We need to rely on God’s power and learn to obediently follow His will. Finally, we need to serve God fully. We have many Sunday church goers but not many have been born again; not many are serving God fully. We need to be salt and light to the world and influence the seven spheres in our society: politics and government, law, education, economic and commerce, mass media, entertainment, and arts and literature. If every Christian serves God fully, many people shall be influenced and brought into the kingdom of God.

I thank God that our church has vision that is biblical and according to God’s calling for our lives. We need to start loving our vision, participating in our vision, and helping one another to fulfill this vision together. Written by Bro William Law, HOPE Kuching


Hope Davao Mission Trip - The Philippines



It was a cloudy Saturday morning when we arrived at Davao. We held great hopes that our mission will be truly blessed. It was our second visit to the city. We went with a heart of expectation that God will use us to effectively contribute to the work He is doing in Hope Davao. Brother Jun openly shared with us about the work in Hope Davao: its happenings and its challenges.



On Saturday night, we met with the core team and other church members for dinner. It was a wonderful time of fellowship as well as a time to encourage the group to endure the challenges. We shared devotions and everybody was blessed and ministered. We capped the night off with prayer and intercession.



The next day was another significant day as the Sunday service reaped a harvest of 25 people including three children. Dulce shared about salvation in Word for Life while Winnie shared her personal testimony about pioneering a church. The celebration was highlighted by the preaching on “The Power of Passion”. The emphasis was on passion for God, passion for people and passion for the Great Commission. The preaching ignited the congregation’s passion to serve God, gave them fresh encouragement and facilitated a new encounter with God. The passion was put into action with a new attendee eagerly inviting his family members to attend the Sunday service.

The mission team were greatly impacted as we were successful in achieving our mission in Davao. It also spurred us to take on greater challenges for future mission trips. We were also encouraged by the congregation’s hearts to commit to God and were so blessed by their love and great hospitality.

Please pray for Hope Davao to have:

• A new church venue
• Godly wisdom in extending God’s kingdom
• Regular visitors and members committed to God’s vision
• Experience breakthroughs in qualitative and quantitative faith goals
• New care groups being pioneered
  

Hani R. Seviilleno, Mission Dept


Hope Brisbane, Ablaze Service 4th Anniversary Celebration



Ablaze Service’s youth celebrated their fourth anniversary on Friday 11th March. God sat in with Ablaze as the service marked a significant milestone of its ministry. Four years of serving alongside each other, four years of chasing after God's heart, four years of trusting and hoping in our saviour Jesus Christ.

The past year has been such a great testimony as to how a small community of young people can make an impact when they’ve set their hearts on serving others. From caring for our city in Clean-Up Australia day, loving our neighbours by putting in our hearts and hands into the flood relief efforts, and lending our words of encouragement and prayers to brothers and sisters affected by the devastating earthquake in Japan through personalized handwritten letters and donations; Ablaze has shown itself so capable of being a strong and resilient pillar of support in a time like this to the people around us. We also saw the very first fully student-run youth camp – which was a great testament to God’s grace.



The special service marked the last service for the young adult’s lifegroup, Lighthouse, as they soon after moved onto Morning service. The anniversary service was a modest bittersweet remembrance of Lighthouse’s involvement in Ablaze youths’ lives and how God moved through each and every one of their lives.



The service kicked off with a few simple, yet amazing musical performances. As the service progressed, other special items included Lighthouse leaders Lisa Toh and Amy Law sharing and encouraging Lighthouse members to continue in God in this new season of their lives.



Torch shared with the congregation about how to live out our legacy. He challenged us all to follow Joshua's example and obey God's word, follow God, love God and serve God. The holy spirit moved in the hearts of Ablazians that night and helped us to look forward into the coming year for His plans for us.

The service closed with the youth of Ablaze coming together to pray for their older brothers and sisters in Lighthouse. Ablaze and Lighthouse together are excited for what God has in store for the coming year.

Torchie KL
Ablaze Ministries International
torchie@gmail.com
http://twitter.com/torchiekl