City Harvest Church

City Harvest Church (simplified Chinese: 城市丰收教会) or CHC is a megachurch located in Singapore.[1] It bases its values on Charismatic and Pentecostal teachings, with doctrinal emphasis on the Great Commandment, the Great Commission and the Cultural Mandate. It has been described by Charisma as "one of the largest congregations in Asia."[2] It is the largest independent church in Singapore, with 27,086 regular members and a record monthly average of 33,812 attendees in April 2009.[3] The church's highest record attendance was 57,691 during City Harvest's Christmas services in 2008. Its income for the year ending on 31 Mar 2009 was $34.7m which mainly came from tithes and offerings. [4]

The church is a full member of the National Council of Churches, Evangelical Fellowship of Singapore and Festival of Praise Fellowship. It has multiple, multi-lingual weekend services at two locations, its church building in Jurong West and the Singapore Expo. In Singapore, it operates various internal ministries and five affiliate organisations and companies. Overseas, CHC serves as the spiritual resource centre for related churches based in Asia, and has active relationships with churches and bible schools in Asia, conducting joint conferences and seminars with them annually.

The church has a mission "to build a church with a strong spiritual atmosphere of faith and purity, where every member is released into ministry, discipled in the Great Commandment to obey the Great Commission."[5]

Together with its Mission Statement, City Harvest Church has 17 statements of faith,[5] which form the basis of its teachings to the congregation and the foundation of its various ministries.

City Harvest Church was founded by Kong Hee with 20 people on May 7, 1989. During the early years, CHC met at various venues such as the Katong Park Hotel, NTUC Auditorium, Ministry of Environment Building, National Productivity Board Auditorium, Hotel Grand Central, Orchard Hotel, World Trade Centre and the Westin Hotel.

On June 4, 1995, CHC leased the former Hollywood Theatre at Tanjong Katong Road and held services there for six years.

On April 29, 2004, City Harvest was awarded the ISO 9001:2000 certification for quality management and process management.[6][7]

On December 15, 2001, the church moved to its permanent 2,300-seater venue at Jurong West Street 91. On December 11, 2005, the church rented another worship site at Singapore Expo Hall 8 for its weekend English services to accommodate its growing congregation. In addition to its services at the Singapore Expo, CHC introduced two additional weekend English services at its Jurong West premises on 2 December 2007, increasing the number of English services to four.

City Harvest Church currently has more than 33,000 attendees in its weekend services.[3] 55% of its members are below the age of 25 years.[8]

The senior pastor of the church, Kong Hee, and Pastor Choong Tsih Ming hold honorary positions and are not on the church’s payroll. The church has 10 licensed pastors on its payroll, with eight of them ordained as Reverends. The church employs 154 full-time staff at two locations - its Jurong West premises and its corporate office at Suntec City.[9]

City Harvest Church has 15 committees:

(1) Audit Committee (2) Programs & Services Committee (3) Fund-raising Committee (4) Appointment & Nomination Committee (5) Human Resource Committee (6) Investment Committee (7) Missions Committee (8) Marketplace Committee (9) Building Committee (10) Men's Ministry Committee (11) Singles Committee (12) Children's Committee (13) Counseling & Inner Healing Committee (14) Christian Education Committee (15) Creative Ministry Committee

The church holds different weekly services in English, Mandarin, Hokkien, Cantonese, Indonesian, and Tamil. It also has weekly services for children and the mentally challenged. [10]

CHC operates 36 internal ministries that ensure the smooth functioning of church services and various church-related activities and events. Almost all functions of the ministries are run by church members on a volunteer basis. The church believes that “every member is a minister in the house of God” and that each member should use his or her unique gifts, talents and abilities for the house of God. [11] It has various internal ministries in areas like media, technology, music, service and community services, the Boys Brigade and the Girls Brigade.[12]

The Usher ministry is the largest ministry in CHC, with over 800 members. The ministry renders practical support to facilitate the efficient running of every service and meeting. Aside from their role as greeters and ushers, they also prepare the hall for services; such as the chairs, bulletins, offerings and communion elements. [13]

A unique ministry in CHC is the Strikeforce ministry. It is part of the church’s music ministry and its purpose is to “train people to serve God in various expressions of rhythm, movement and drumming.” Strikeforce has taken part in many national events like the annual Chingay parade and also various church-wide conferences and events. [14]

This is a ministry started by CHC members, and was known previously as the City Harvest Symphony Orchestra. It performs in various church-wide conferences and events, and held its first performance under its new name, entitled “Sketches of Singapore” at the Asia Conference to an audience of 15,000. [15]

This ministry seeks to help to meet the needs of the hearing impaired with support groups, recreational and tuition programs.

The volunteers befriend the hearing impaired and help them in developing their social skills. To be a volunteer in this ministry, they will be trained in Sign Language courses conducted by City Harvest Community Services Association. [16]

Realizing the need to help the terminally-ill who are usually shunned by society, this ministry was started to provide practical and emotional support to this group of people.

The volunteers make regular visits through home or hospital visitations in groups to patients including those suffering from Multiple Sclerosis and HIV/Aids.

In order to be properly equipped for this ministry, the volunteers will attend training courses at the Communicable Disease Centre before they start to serve.[17][18]

The City Harvest Bible Training Center (CHBTC) was started in 1994 with the purpose of training up pastors, missionaries and church workers for the establishing of local churches in Asia. [19] It conducts a five-month, full-time programe offering an Advanced Certificate of Theology. CHBTC is accredited with the Ministry of Education in Singapore and CaseTrust for Education. In the past 12 years, more than 2,000 graduates from more than 30 countries have graduated from its courses. [20]

[21]

City Harvest Community Services Association (CHCSA) currently employs 8 full-time staff and was registered with the Registry of Societies (ROS 162/97 WEL) on August 16, 1997. It received full membership with the National Council of Social Service on January 7, 2000. The current President of CHCSA is Toh Poh Chin Eileen. On April 29, 2004, CHCSA attained the ISO 9001:2000 certification. In 2008 alone, CHCSA provided 20,932 services to 15,239 unique individuals of which 6,314 were assisted on a regular basis. [22]

Co-funded by the Ministry of Community Development, Youth and Sports[23], Singapore, City Harvest Education Centre (CHEC) has been registered with the Ministry of Education since 2002.[24] The purpose of CHEC is "to provide effective and affordable education to private candidates sitting for the GCE 'N' and 'O' level examinations." In 2006, CHEC's students made up about 7 per cent of all private candidates in Singapore that sat for the O-level examinations. CHEC is also the first school in Singapore to offer dance as a GCE O-level subject. CHEC is especially noted for employing unconventional teaching styles to aid students who did not fare well in mainstream schools[25], as well as having Singapore's youngest school principal[26].

O School, a performing-arts center, is a "social enterprise" supported by MCYS ComCare Enterprise Fund ([1]).[27] A social enterprise is a sustainable business with a social mission, where business is used to serve its social cause. O School was started with three social objectives in mind:

Cell group (CG) is a major part of the church's ministry. The CG meeting is a time where members meet in smaller groups for worship, prayers and Bible studies. The meetings are usually held once a week, on a day decided by the CG leader and its locations can be found throughout Singapore. Currently, there are 600 CG leaders with some running more than two CGs. CG leaders are mostly lay members of the church who have gone through the church's discipleship and leadership training. Cell groups are divided into youth and adult cell groups, with youth cell groups comprising adolescent individuals of ages 12 to 18.

Accordingly to CHC's senior pastor, as the Church grows larger in numbers, "Cell groups provide the optimum context for effective discipleship"[28], where members can still forge close relationships with fellow Christians in a much smaller setting. Positive peer pressure can also be exuded in smaller cell groups, fostering strong bonds of friendship among church members.

City Harvest Church has 46 affiliate "Harvest" churches in 2008. CHC has direct supervision over 28 of them, while 18 come under the oversight of Harvest School of Ministry led by Rev. George Ong. In 2007, CHC sent out 1,070 mission teams to help Christian agencies overseas.[29]

Like most Charismatic churches, CHC uses contemporary music and settings for praise and worship, with a choir and a wide range of musical instruments.[30] It also has a strong drama team for its stage productions. [31] In 2008, CHC's music style was featured in ChannelNewsAsia prime time program 'Get Rea!'

In 2004, the church’s webcast of its services reached approximately 578,560 viewers from 131 countries, or 11,126 viewers per weekend. The church also has a 30-minute television broadcast program called "Harvest Time," which is broadcast on 13 Cable Television Networks and satellites, with a potential viewership of about 640 million[32] . Harvest Time is available in its original English-language or Chinese-language translation, depending on the broadcast station.[33]

The church publishes a magazine quarterly called Harvest Times (founded in 1999).[34][35] It has a readership of 60,000

In 2006, a Chinese version of Harvest Times - Chinese Harvest Times was started and has a readership of close to 45,000.

On 1 April 2009, Harvest Times is launched online and is available at www.harvesttimes.com.sg

List of awards received.[34]

City Harvest Church is the organizer of Emerge, a four-day youth conference. In 2007, 8,830 youth leaders and delegates from a total of 16 nations attended the event. CHC also co-hosts Emerge conferences in Malaysia and Taiwan every year. There are 61 competitions including Spelling Bee, Math Olympaid, Word Power, Singing Contest, Preaching Challenge, Blog Design, Short Film, Make-up & Costume Design, Extreme Sports, etc. The May 31 opening night of the Singapore Emerge 2007 was broadcast "live" on GOD TV to 122 million homes in more than 200 nations and territories.[38]

Asia Conference is a biannual five-day conferences with workshops and sessions. Speakers, Bible teachers, Worship leaders and Christian artists were invited to teach and perform at the conference.

The inaugural Asia Conference was held in November 2008 and drew over 20,000 foreign delegates from 68 countries. Speakers include Kong Hee, Phil Pringle, Chris Pringle, Ulf Ekman, A. R. Bernard and Benny Hinn. Don Moen, C3 Band, Carola Häggkvist and True Worshippers also performed during the conference.

The event used up 3 halls and 26 rooms for the 10 conference sessions and 53 elective workshops.

The next Asia Conference will be held in May 2010. Confirmed speakers include Kong Hee, Phil Pringle, A. R. Bernard, Steve Munsey, David Yonggi Cho and Reinhard Bonnke.

The church building located at Jurong West Street 91 was completed in 2002. Construction of the building costs S$48 million (US$26.6 million) and seats up to 2,300 attendees. [39]

It is the first titanium-clad building in Asia and is modelled after the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain. Special limestone for part of the building was imported from Europe. The frontage of the building has a fountain wall which is lit up at night. There are more than 200 parking lots within the building.

The lounge area on the first floor has plasma television monitors built into the walls featuring local news program or video recordings of past church services. There is a café, a rooftop garden, a children’s playground and wading pool, a baptism pool as well as a small putting green for golf enthusiasts.

The auditorium (which is underground) covers 1,700 square meters and is totally column-free. There are two artist make-up rooms directly behind the stage. The stage was created by Dan Hess, a designer who formerly worked with Christie’s Auction House in New York.

On December 15, 2005, CHC began renting Hall 8 of Singapore Expo as an additional worship venue with a seating configuration that accommodates a maximum of 8,100 attendees. Currently the church is on a building fund drive for another bigger building to house its increased attendance.

Straits times reported that the church will be committing to a $310 million project to buy a piece of land and erect a building on it filling it with shops, restaurants and a 12,000 seat auditorium. Dr Kong, the church's senior pastor has commented that "we will have a church in the marketplace, for the marketplace, to penetrate the marketplace." [40]

Bethany Independent-Presbyterian Church Singapore · Church of the Province of South East Asia in Singapore · City Harvest Church · Cornerstone Community Church · Elim Church Singapore · Evangel Family Church · Grace Assembly of God · Grace Church · Lighthouse Evangelism · Methodist Church in Singapore · New Creation Church · Singapore Baptist Convention · True Jesus Church in Singapore ·

Roman Catholicism in Singapore ·

Singapore Armenian Church ·

Coordinates: 1°20′35″N 103°41′31″E / 1.343041°N 103.691915°E / 1.343041; 103.691915