Junior Sunday School Report 2021

 

Colossians 2:6-7: “As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in him: Rooted and built up in him, and stablished in the faith, as ye have been taught, abounding therein with thanksgiving.”

Our objectives (based on Colossians 2:6-7) are to lead the children:

1. to the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ (Receive)
2. to obey God and be a good testimony (Walk)
3. to a vibrant spiritual life (Rooted & Built up)
4. to a clear understanding of the basic Christian doctrines and teachings in the Word of God (Stablished and abounding)

In 2021, the Junior Sunday School (JSS) was still faced with much uncertainties and many changes because of the pandemic. Thank God for His grace and mercies that helped us overcome these challenges. After using Zoom for about a year in 2020, most of the JSS teachers, parents and even the children were very well versed in using Zoom by 2021. Zoom is a very useful tool, but having JSS lessons over Zoom is always a last resort. Thank God that for the most part of 2021, we could have physical JSS classes in church. However, in order to slow down the increasing number of COVID-19 cases, the government did not allow in-person religious classes for a few weeks in May, July, August and October. Thus, JSS lessons had to be via Zoom during that period. Otherwise, we provided Zoom for children only on a case-by case basis (i.e. for children who were unwell and could not come to church or whose parents did not allow them to come to church, etc).

 As the church continued with “Walking Worthy of Our Calling” as the theme in 2021, the JSS followed suit. In line with this theme, Rev Dennis Kwok spoke to the children on “Walk not as other Gentiles walk” (3 Jan), “Walk in love” (16 May) and “Walk as Wise” (7 November) over 3 Open Sundays. Ng Boon Choo and Liz Yeo assisted him by leading the children in message related activities.

Due to the pandemic, we could not have a 2-day-1-night Young Teens-cum-Junior Retreat in church. But thank God that we could still have a 2-and-a-half-day Retreat from 18 to 19 March. The theme was “Drawing Closer to God.” Rev Zhu Jian Wei was our speaker. Thank God for a blessed Retreat with 13 fulltime and 2 part-time attendees, and 3 helpers. May the Lord help everyone to apply the lessons learnt.

We also thank and praise God for leading us through the other major events in our JSS calendar in 2021. These included the General Meetings (7 March and 7 November, prerecorded messages), Combined Department Easter Programme (4 April), Combined Department Reformation Programme (31 October), Vacation Bible School (23 to 24 November, via Zoom), Combined Department Christmas Programme (19 December) and Promotion Sunday (26 December). Without God, we can do nothing. As the pandemic rages on, please continue to pray for the ministry of the JSS. May the LORD continue to keep us faithful.

Truth Children's Fellowship 2021

Committee: Eld Winston (advisor), Boon Choo and Tina Wong

The Truth Children’s Fellowship (TCF) is a ministry that reach out to children from age four to twelve.

The objectives of the TCF are:
1.            To evangelize boys and girls with the pure gospel of Jesus Christ.
2.            To establish them in the Word of God for Christian living.

Thank God for enabling TCF to meet uninterrupted throughout 2021. As Covid-19 Pandemic rages on, we did have to continue to make adjustments to our program but as much as possible, when the government rules allowed for it, we would meet physically in church and then provide Zoom to those children who needed it. We started the year with about 13 children and about 4 to 5 teachers regularly at each TCF meeting. Praise God that in spite of the pandemic, we ended the year with about 18 children regularly attending TCF.

TCF celebrated its 14^th Anniversary on 27 February with over 30 attendees. Rev Dennis Kwok spoke on “Praise Ye the LORD” (Ps 117). We also watch a photo slide show of the TCF Key events in 2020. Everyone who came received a painted rock each with the words “Praise Ye the LORD” as door gifts.  These were paper weights hand painted by the TCF children. While we missed the close fellowship over refreshment as we had in the past but we are still thankful to God that we could still meet physically to remember God’s goodness to TCF even in the times of the pandemic.

Due to the pandemic, bi-weekly library, bi-weekly games and the twice-yearly outings continued to be on hold in 2021. Physical meetings were also not possible all the time. Some of our meetings had to be moved on to Zoom in May, July, Aug and Oct because the government tightened their rules. Both our Missions Program (7 Aug) and Children’s Day Program (1 Oct) had to be moved on to Zoom as well. Although meeting on Zoom does limit our interaction with the children but thank God for this means to minister to the children.       

By the grace of God, TCF still meet every Saturday, 3.30 to 5 pm (except on School holidays and public holidays) in church. Please continue to pray for our ministry. Do also invite the children of your unbelieving relatives and friends to come to TCF and hear the good news. Invitations to TCF can be found on the display table every Lord’s Day.