A Warm Welcome
On 1st May 2024, 78 members of the HVMC congregation met at the Holiday Inn at The Atrium for the 3rd HVMC Life Group Convention – the theme was “Building Up to Reach Out”. Pastor Jeremy Ong conducted the workshop and it was, as Eugel Yeo put it, “very different from the past two conventions because it felt like a family gathering working out issues together”.
There were many things to ponder from the message given, starting from the Theology of Welcome. Pastor Jeremy explained how our Trinitarian God chose to create humans to partake in the work of creation (Genesis 2:15). When we fell into sin, God made it His mission to save us by choosing Abraham (Genesis 15:1, 17:1-2) and then made it Israel's mission (Exodus 19:5-6) to save the world. We inherited the Missio Dei, the mission of God to welcome others (2 Corinthians 15:5, 1 Peter 2:9) into the fellowship of God.
So the message is basically “it's not about me or you (believers)”. This is also not about church growth numbers. We are called to “make disciples” of all nations (Matthew 28:8) and we ignore it at our peril (Matthew 25:39-41), when Jesus asks us if we have been obedient to His calling to serve the least of our brothers, or are we just like the Pharisees, making salvation about an exclusive fellowship of just God and us.
The discussion about what kind of life group we are, using the continuum of “Exclusive, Closed, Open, Hospitable, Inviting”, provoked intense debate for all the groups because of the questions arising from where we are and where we want to be. While acknowledging where we are currently and our limitations, we can always strive to do better.
The Practices of Welcome was also an eye-opening experiment as Pastor Jeremy introduced six practices we can consider adopting, as a life group, to be more welcoming. The practices are:-
Alone Together (the practice of being in community while being alone)
The Love Feast or Agape Meal (fellowship over a meal with prayer and song)
Saying Hello (listening and responding in welcome)
Build Up Each Other
Moving Into the Neighborhood (Jesus' walk on earth for 30 years as a carpenter)
Practising Hospitality
We were all challenged to think how we can be more welcoming as a life group.
We also discussed how some life group members may be concerned that introducing new joiners would disrupt the comfort level of the life group, just as they reached a new level of intimacy and sharing. Pastor Jeremy reminded us of the Methodist practice of “bands”, a small group of two or three members who meet regularly as accountability partners, not only to pray together, but also to share their struggles. We must avoid a rigid approach and it certainly is a challenge worth thinking about - how we can grow in intimacy as a life group while still being welcoming to new joiners.
Our Filipino Sisters
It was really encouraging to see so many members coming forward to share how we can improve the life group experience for everyone. Some of the youth from HVMC were represented, as were the Filipino Fellowship sisters, who chose to give up their Labour Day holiday to spend it at the Convention.
We look forward to a renewed commitment to make life groups more welcoming this year so that by 2026, we can send teams out on short term Mission trips as we strive to fulfill our Missio Dei.
Rebecca Chen
