Rev Kong Hee is popularly known as the evergreen youth pastor of Singapore. Leading a mega church of more than 23,000 at the time of this writing, he is passionate in reaching the youth for Jesus. Just enter his church website, you will discover all form of outreach strategies. Through community services, sports, singing, dancing, studying - you name it they have it. Every domain there is to reach the youth, they are there excelling in almost all of them.
But this is not how the story began in Singapore. Youth work came through different agencies in the 1950s-70s - Youth for Christ, Boys' and Girls' Brigade, Navigators, Campus Crusade for Christ, Christian Fellowship, etc. These agencies went for the youth market via the institution route. We saw many fruits through these ministries. In fact many of the church leaders in Singapore today are the fruits of these ministries.
All these work climaxed at the late 80’s . Then came the mega churches which went into these institutions with their own campus and school ministries. Conflicts were real whereby members of the agencies had to take sides, i.e. whether to stay in their local church or leave so as to stay in these agencies.
Things improved with the Love Singapore Movement. Churches and parachurches came together for concerts of prayer and reconciliation. It was indeed a glorious time for youth work too. It was also during this period that churches were reminded to sow among the youth again. Rev Kong took hold of the call and went with it. The rest is history.
Looking forward, I believe more churches must plow more into youth work. We need more mega churches like City Harvest Church. Singapore could be reached in 1 day, if the youth is won!
(Thus, this little attempt of mine in penning down my memory and experiences in this e-book to encourage more youth workers to embrace the call.)
Photo taken from City Harvest Church website.
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