Like a young David gathering stones to battle Goliath, Singapore’s small but feisty Protestant church is preparing to reach Asia’s unsaved millions.
Singapore’s Protestant population—numbering some 122,000—would make up less than a quarter of Korea’s largest congregation. Even in tiny Singapore the church is small, comprising less than 5 percent of the city-state’s 2.6 million population. But like Singapore itself, the church’s influence is out of proportion to its size.
With the second-busiest seaport in the world, the largest airport in Asia, and a growing reputation as an international trade center, Singapore is a world crossroads of commerce. Its growing church is well represented among professionals in education, business, and government. The church is young, affluent, and evangelistic. And while it may be short on numbers, it is long on vision.
A World-Class Vision
When Singapore churches hosted a giant Luis Palau crusade earlier this year, they decided to reach not only their city, but the world as well. Singaporean church leaders were euphoric as 11,600 people responded to Palau’s altar calls, 60 percent making first-time decisions for Christ.
Satellite hook-ups broadcast the crusade halfway around the world, but that did not go far enough to satisfy church leaders. In the following months, they translated and rebroadcast Palau’s messages throughout Asia in a number of languages.
The church in Singapore is characterized by a sense of unity, exhuberant faith, and an almost naïve optimism. But that has not always been the case. During its first 100 years, the Singaporean church struggled to survive. At the end of the church’s first century, less than 1 percent of Singapore’s population were Christians. But in the 1950s, seeds of change were sown with the arrival of a number of denominational and parachurch missions groups, including strongly evangelistic student organizations. The last decade has been a time of reaping, as young people have poured into the church.
“The evangelical shift of the last 10 years has been largely due to the young people,” said Benjamin Chew, a retired medical doctor who divides his time among several national and international denominational and parachurch boards. “They are all-out for the gospel.”
Chew said more than 40 percent of the undergraduates on university campuses belong to one of three Christian student organizations: The Navigators, Campus Crusade for Christ, or Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship. On Singapore’s medical campus, 76 percent of the students are in one of those three groups. Some 1,300 members of Christian student organizations graduate from universities every year.
Singapore’s university graduates are selected for top positions in education, government, and business. They have become members of Parliament, presidents of corporations, and university administrators. Indeed, Chew said, most of Singapore’s university administrators are Christians.
The Charismatic Movement
Staid denominational churches have become bastions of evangelicalism—largely as a result of the charismatic movement. (Charismatic and Pentecostal congregations are the fastest-growing Singaporean churches.) Healing, exorcism, and crisis counseling are elements of the fastest-growing churches, according to Keith Hinton, author of Growing Churches Singapore Style (OMF Books).
Because the Chinese majority in Singapore is typically pragmatic, Hinton writes, “the Christianity we present must be practical and life-changing right down at the gut level of healing for the body, daily guidance and answered prayer. Anything less lacks credibility to many.”
The charismatic movement has also penetrated the business community, largely through the Full Gospel Business Men’s Fellowship, International. In a 1980 survey, 24 percent of administrators and managers in Singapore were found to be Christians.
The growing edge of the Singaporean church is English speaking, with nearly all evangelistic efforts carried out in English. Singapore’s largest church, Calvary Charismatic Center, grew from a handful of worshipers in 1977 to some 4,500 today. Although Calvary’s largest services are English speaking, the church has five different language congregations with ministries in nine languages. (Many churches have multiple congregations worshiping in a variety of languages. Singaporeans speak many languages, including English, five major Chinese dialects, several Indian languages, Malay, and dozens of others.)
In a city-state where missions fervor runs high, Calvary Charismatic Center makes waves with its aggressive missions program. Members give some $1.2 million per year to missions. And in the last three years, the church has sent 160 people on short-term churchplanting teams to more than a dozen countries throughout the world. About one-third of these short-termers have opted for full-time service.
As many as 370 Singaporeans are serving overseas as short-term and career missionaries. International mission agencies such as Operation Mobilization, Overseas Missionary Fellowship, and SIM International, are recruiting Singapore’s dedicated young people.
“The giving in Singapore for missions is unprecedented, in spite of the current recession—or maybe because of it,” said Chew. With money and manpower dedicated to the gospel pouring out of Singapore, the island nation may yet become the Antioch of Asia.
By Sharon E. Mumper.
