HIM FAMILY NEWS
Hope Leeds Church Anniversary
Hope Leeds Church is the only Hope church in northern England. The congregation of 70 people comprises mainly of Filipino families. With 152 people in attendance, the church celebrated its 10th anniversary on 4 September 2011. The theme was “Arise, Shine”. The audience was touched as they listened to four church members, representing four different periods of the church, sharing their experiences.
Another highlight was presentations of the four groups that make up the church: kids, youth, students and families. Through his message from Isaiah 60:1-9, Ps Prakich encouraged the congregation to believe in the greater things the Lord is going to do in their midst as they enter into the second decade of the church.
Written Ps Prakich, United Kingdom
Hope Ealing Church 6th Anniversary
Thank God for a wonderful Hope London West 6th Anniversary! It was a great time of celebrating the goodness and faithfulness of God. More than 200 people came to celebrate the occasion. The theme was “Moving Forward”. It was an honour to have Sister Kim Tse from Hope Hong Kong as our special guest.
The worship team performed their own composition "Moving On" as the church theme song. There was a special drama presentation by the youth and singles group. Dexter Cases preached the word of God entitled “Go Big, Move Bold and Act Now”. The church is very excited for what God is going to do for the years ahead as Hope London West moves forward.
Written by Dexter Cases
Singapore HopeKids Holiday Club 2011: CSI
A shrill, smoky bang; a sudden mysterious wrinkle in time and a desperately lost time-traveller who cannot recall anything, but knows that someone from somewhere in some time stole his ... something! This imaginative theme set the stage for our Hopekids Holiday Club event this year.
To bless families in Singapore, we organised this Holiday Club to connect and outreach to more parents and children. Held at Outward Bound (East Coast Park), over 700 people of all ages excitedly thronged the event, decked in bright cheery colours and even brighter smiles. From the Jurassic Age to Ancient Egypt, from Cowboy America to Futuristic Japan, we had creative and zany characters dressed up in a parade of colourful costumes spanning 10 epic epochs in history!
Of course, no Holiday Club is complete without fun and games! The children formed teams and ran all over the place while the Hopekids teachers led the way, helping them collect and decipher clues to discover the mysterious thief. (Psst... it was Pharaoh, by the way!)
The parents had a refreshing chill-out too! There was free coffee and a series of free workshops by experienced trainers from our own church. We covered stimulating and relevant topics such as motivating children for school and financial planning for the family. After the talks, the parents and their children came together to gather more clues and to finish solve the mysterious who, what and where; the questions posted at the start of the event! It all ended with good dinner, fabulous music and a thrilling Blessing Dip, with many families going home having truly enjoyed the day out.
This is the first Holiday Club that not only targeted the kids, but the parents as well. It brought whole families together to play with the children workers and new families were connected to the church. We want to communicate not just an event but also a strategy of families and church working together to rise up the next generation. God moves in an amazing way every year, but this year was memorable. A new ministry for kids with special needs was pioneered through this event and we are thankful for the power of God at work in us to expand His community.
Hope Kuala Lumpur Bible conference
Praise the Lord for a wonderful Bible Conference! It was held on 19-21 August 2011 with the theme of “Beautiful Feet”. We hosted a guest speaker from Australia, Pastor Steve Cioccolanti. Members from all the Hope daughter churches from Central Region excitedly gathered to attend the Bible Conference. We learned and shared many new things in just three days. We wished it could have been longer so we could have learned more!
During the three days, Ps. Steve shared on how to spread the gospel to our friends and loved ones. His gifted approach towards evangelism was simply amazing and unique. Over and over again, he stressed the importance of “knowing the problem first before providing the solution”. If we want to mirror the way Jesus preached the gospel, then we need to address the problem first before telling people the Good News. However, this is not enough; there needs to be faith. Faith in God is the key to everything in Christianity.
Ps Steve was very interactive in his sharing. He asked for responses from the audience to see how we evangelized to people. Pastor Steve then pointed out the things that we should and should not do. This was beneficial for all of us as we learned better and more effective ways to spread the gospel. Pastor Steve testified how his whole family came to know Christ within 12 months! He prayed for his father’s salvation ONCE, but that one-time prayer was filled with faith. Though his father resisted the gospel at first, eventually, Pastor Steve’s prayers were answered when his father accepted Christ on Ps. Steve’s birthday. Praise the Lord! Our God is GOOD!
All glory to God when many pre-believers responded to the altar calls and accepted Jesus Christ as their personal Lord and Saviour. This happened throughout the Bible Conference. We really praise God for the many new souls in the kingdom of eternity! Not to mention that many brothers and sisters purchased a copy of Ps. Steve’s book “From Buddha to Jesus”. The book, written by God through Pastor Steve, is a powerful tool in sparking readers to ponder about true life and death.
To conclude, the Bible Conference left a huge impact on all who attended. Praise God for the wider perspective of His word and for the great blessings we had from our invited speaker. We are all greatly inspired and refreshed by the word of God. Let us continue to press on and build up our faith in God because only faith will move the hands of God. It does not matter if we do not have all the skills in the world, but as long as we have faith, extraordinary skills will just come and mountains can REALLY move! Amen!
The month of September was a cause for much celebration to our Hope Family. We commemorated God’s faithfulness and goodness for these past fourteen years. We thank God for the life of Ps. Denis Lu, our guest speaker from Hope Kuching, Malaysia who preached a very powerful sermon entitled, “Streams in the Desert.”
The past fourteen years of journeying with the Lord has brought us much rejuvenation – enabling our family to grow in our intimacy with the Lord, burdening our heart for missions to extend God’s Kingdom all over the Philippines, and the Lord has raise up many faithful men and women who gladly work together. He has enriched our family into a loving and prayerful community.
We look forward for God’s mighty movement as He brings us to a higher level of faith, hope and love. Last month’s celebration brought about a breakthrough in our Hope Family’s history as our attendance was above 500 people. Over a hundred men and women committed their lives to accepting Christ as their Savior and Lord that day.
We were able to show heartfelt video testimonies of transformation among the members in our church about God’s healing power. During our service, we invited people who needed healing from the Lord. Over 50 people in the congregation responded. After our service, we continued our celebration by having lunch fellowship together. Our Multimedia team prepared several videos about what Hope Philippines is all about and a couple documentary videos.
We look forward for the coming years as God has opened doors and written new chapters for our Hope Family. We have started a new season. Come this November, our Hope Family will be having two services – English Congregation in the morning and Tagalog Congregation in the afternoon. God is awesome! Not only has God been doing a transformative change in the lives of our members, but also God is bringing about a transformative change in the physical aspect of our church – we will commence construction of our new church building in San Juan City.
Do keep us in prayer as we journey in with God. Surely, God is doing many things in our midst.
Written by Renee
