By Rev Dr Bernard Chao*

HVMC was constituted fourteen years ago by its initial 132 founding members and two pastors. I am so glad to have been a part of God’s move amongst us then, and now.

*HVMC’s Founding Members at the 2012 Inaugural Service*

Today, I am glad that HVMC has doubled in membership and more than doubled in the number of worshippers. It is strangely comforting to have returned to HVMC to find so many faces that are new to me (but whom I hope to get to know soon), because this means our church has been growing in its faith and witness.

At our very first service on Sunday 8 July 2012, the children sang the opening song “We Are the Church.” This song is as old as me as it was written in 1972. Its lyrics remind us that the church is not a building but a people and also who the church is for—it is for everyone.

The world speaks of being inclusive, but Christians are called to go beyond passive inclusivity. We are called to bear active witness about our Lord Jesus to “all nations” (Matthew 28:19; Acts 1:8). As the lyrics of that first song we sang in 2012 declares, the church stands as a witness to, and a community for, persons “with many kinds of faces: all colours and all ages…from all times and places.” The penultimate stanza underscores our mission to tell “the good news through the world to all who would hear it.”

How are you doing in reaching the “everyone” around you in your spheres of life and communities? The church for everyone means that you and I have an active responsibility to intentionally reach out, invite, show hospitality and witness to the people God has placed us among.

As you read this, who are the “many kinds of people” and which are the “many kinds of faces” the Holy Spirit is bringing to your mind? Our church is for them too.

The latest General Household Survey 2025 just released by the Singapore government recorded a decline in the percentage of residents who identified as Christians from 18.9% in 2020 to 17.1% in 2025 (Straits Times, 30 June 2026). The number of Protestants, in particular, dropped by 16%. Our gospel work is more pressing, not less.

The apostle Paul’s question echoes through time to us: “…how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard?” (Romans 10:14). Our work of telling “everyone” around us about the love of our heavenly Father, the joy we have in the Spirit, and invitation of Jesus to the fullness of life for now and eternity, is far from complete, and beckons each of us.

Since our beginning, this has been a church where loving God and loving others matters. This includes obeying God’s commission and bearing witness to others. Each one of us matter in this gospel work.

As the lyrics of the song reminds us, “I count if I am ninety, or nine, or just a baby.” You matter and you count, in how we will be a church together and a church for everyone.

HVMC’S 14th Anniversary celebration