Adventist Crossroads
July - September 2000

A Powerful Experience
Elton Lee, Pastor of SDA Community Church

I had an eye-opening and powerful experience at the Cell Church Intensive workshop at Andrews University recently. Dr. Donald James, Cell Church “father” at the University brought us to a cell church about 30-minutes drive away. The church was planted by Mark Youngberg, a pastor of the Lake Union Conference. The Conference could only afford a half budget for him so the church offered to make up the other half.
Started about three years ago with eight people in the first cell, the church has grown to six cells with 65 people meeting in cells and about 150 in church attendance. They met in a shop rented from a Sunday church. They ran Spiritual Formation weekends, Encounter God weekends, Type A and Type B Evangelism weekends, Sponsor Training weekends, just to name a few.
They were also preparing for an evangelistic harvest event a month away by starting a fasting relay up to the harvest event. One member of the cell would fast from sunset Thursday to sunset Friday, then telephone the next cell member to continue, and so on. I signed up, too. The experience helped me to be less afraid of hunger; I overcame the psychological fear of fasting.
During the next three days, Pastors Toh See Wei, John Tan, Chan Shee Wai and I attended the intensive course on Cell Church. We learned about how a new Christian is nurtured into a "young Christian" and then a "mature Christian" through the structure of a cell church. I came away with the conviction that it was not leadership, or personality but prayer and spirituality that will enable the Holy Spirit to use the cell church effectively. This trip was a powerful experience for me personally.

An Awesome Experience
John Tan, Youth Ministry

Imagine a bunch of young adults excited about their faith in Jesus Christ. Imagine again this same bunch committed to plant groups all over to reach ‘lost’ people for Jesus.
Well this is no futile exercise of daydreaming. Such a group does exist—in the Seventh-day Adventist Church. This same dynamic group decided that it was time to gather like-minded youth church planters from all over the globe to meet in one place to pray, network, learn, brainstorm, recuperate and most importantly encounter God.
The event? ya seeds 2K (Young Adults Seeds 2000). The place? Andrews University. The time? Parallel to the North American Division’s annual church planting conference, SEEDS, from 21 to 24 June.
The young organizers knew they couldn’t teach everything there was to teach about church planting in just four days. Their goal was to make connections and to create an interactive, participatory experience focused on church planting and saving the lost. Gary Walter, seminary student at Andrews University and one of the organizers, remarked, “God exceeded our wildest dreams. For months we’ve been praying and planning. We knew we wanted to do what God wanted, yet we are imperfect humans. We pressed on. The registrations came in slowly... would anyone else see the value of gathering to experiment with “designing a church from scratch?” Do others see the need to engage the postmodern culture?”
Walter’s faith was rewarded. Over 60 people registered for “ya seeds.” The main organizers of the parent SEEDS conference also gave the young adults full rein in running their thing. Although YA Seeds was a new and unproven venture, it represented a timely breath of fresh air.
The event started with a prayer brunch. After that there were two half-days of presentations. Then the work began—divided into teams, everyone began to wrestle with the issues of designing a church...from scratch. Two of these groups were serious— they were in the process of planting a new church. By then it was evident that the Spirit of God was moving within the small “congregation.” God-sized things were happening. Walter reported, “As one of the organizers, I was awestruck. God was moving mightily and I was humbled. People were beginning to testify to God’s work in their hearts. A true Christian community was being formed.”
An example of how God moved was on the Thursday night of the conference. The participants, including myself, experienced something unplanned. At the Seeds Cafe no one was ready to go home although it was already 11 pm. Two of the musicians got up and led in spontaneous praise and worship. For over an hour, we sang, we prayed, we listened, we testified. We encountered God. I was actually tired after a whole day of activities. But during the worship I felt energized! When we finally ended after midnight, we just lingered on totally awe-struck at the God-encounter we experienced.
The next day, many were quietly amazed —wide-eyed at the awesome encounter with our Creator. But several, who weren’t even at the Cafe had similar experiences. Either through private prayer or discussions with others they too experienced God Thursday night. It was apparent that God was moving amongst us. Gary Walter continued with this report, “By Friday afternoon we could see that lives were being changed. Some of us began to fast in addition to our multitude of prayers. We were almost afraid of our Sabbath morning worship— how could God be any more present? How could we handle a greater encounter with Him? But we were ready to worship! We needed to praise Him! We wanted and craved the encounter.
During our morning prayer, we asked our speaker to make an appeal. Keith, the speaker, was ready—and at the conclusion of our worship experience, four people gave their lives to Christ. Once again we were humbled. This was not designed to be an evangelistic event. SEEDS is for committed Christians who want to see Kingdom expansion. But, in addition to these new decisions for Christ, several people told us about their recommitment to live their lives in Him. Others received clarification for their calling. Some were rehabilitated after doing battle in the world. Still others received a vision to do something God-sized.”
The Sabbath worship service thrilled me. One of the four who accepted Christ was a 16-year- old pastor’s kid who was in my group. We had prayed for him and began to bond with him despite his initial reluctance to participate. What can I say? Our God is an awesome God! ya seeds -- we experienced God. Check out the website at: http://www.yaseeds.com


An Edifying Experience
Chan Fong Fong, Singapore SDA Chinese Church

As a delegate of the Southeast Asia Union Mission, I had the privilege of attending the recent 57th Session of the General Conference held in Toronto, Canada.
Our Church is truly a force to contend with in terms of its organizational structure. I learned that the Singapore Mission, which consists of all the local churches, is one of the missions in the Southeast Asia Union. Our Union belongs to the Southern Asia-Pacific Division which includes 13 countries in this region. At the moment, the General Conference has 91 Unions and 12 Divisions worldwide. There are about 11 million Seventh-day Adventists.
Throughout the session, the devotionals, the activities and the presentations focused on the theme “Almost Home.” On Sabbath, 55,000 people packed the stadium. It was an impressive sight.
Most of the time, the business meetings dealt with the CG Constitution and the Church Manual. The excellent musical presentations, concerts and the exhibition booths offered some relief.
All in all it was an edifying experience. It left me with a realization that we are “almost home” and we cannot afford to live as if “business is as usual.”


Farewell to Victor Lee
Over a lunch, the workers at the Mission bade farewell to Mr. Victor Lee who will be joining the Adventist Better Living Centre.
He served the Mission for a period of two years during which he was assistant pastor to several of our local churches and more recently he worked at Studio Elpizo where he produced the Crossroads programme.
His wife, Lizca, helped out for some time at the Seventh-day Adventist Kindergarten until son, Daniel arrived. On many occasions her beautiful singing enhanced the worships throughout our churches.
We thank Victor and Lizca and wish them well.

An Encouraging Start
Chan Shee Wai, Pastor of Balestier Road Church

The Natural Church Development (NCD) survey conducted some months ago at the Balestier Road Church revealed two areas that required special attention: Need-Oriented Evangelism and Holistic Small Groups.
The latter was addressed in a sermon on “Building God’s Community” during the Sabbath of 22 July. The emphasis was on establishing Holistic Small Groups in our church. Following the sermon a survey was conducted to gauge the response of the congregation. Six questions were asked. Forty-nine members (about 20% of the worshippers) participated in the survey.

1. I agree that I need to attend small group meetings: 28
2. I am planning to attend a small group meeting in the near future: 19
3. I am presently attending small group meetings: 20
4. I am having small group meeting in my house: 5
5. I want to open my house for small group meetings: 16
6. I am willing to be trained by the pastor to lead small groups: 16

After the worship one of the small group leaders came up to me. She said that she had thought about discontinuing the small group meeting she is holding at Bishan but changed her mind. She felt that God had spoken to her through the sermon. There was also a request from a new member to receive small group training. An elder wrote me an encouraging note, “I think this is the direction to see the church grow spiritually, drawing closer to one another and caring for each other.”
This is only the beginning in the implementation process. I praise God for opening minds to the importance and necessity of small groups in our church.


Something to Offer

Every Sunday morning at 11:00 a.m. some 15 to 20 people would gather at the
Youngberg Wellness Center on 798 Thomson Road to learn how to prepare food that promotes optimal health and strength. The six-week cooking and nutrition course is the first of a series of wellness programmes to be presented to the community.
One of the participants, Dr. Ling, a specialist with the Eye Hospital, was so impressed by the first lesson that she brought a friend the following week. The Adventist health reform message and diet fascinated them. On the third session, she apparently could not contain herself anymore and inquired, “I heard that you Adventists are actually healthier people. Can you tell me more about the clean and unclean food that you often talk about?” So between food tasting and the cooking demonstration an informal Bible study was conducted.
There is also an evening stretching class conducted once a week that focuses on body awareness, relaxation and deep breathing. This is a class designed specially for the highly-strung in our society who do not know how to slow down. A participant who has been on medication for insomnia and depression apparently found solace and friendship for she has been coming to not just the exercise classes but also to our cell group.
As Dr. Ling so aptly puts it, “It’s good that the Youngberg Wellness Center is doing something which most others aren’t doing in Singapore.”
Yes, Adventists do have something to offer to the world.