The Auckland Chinese Methodist Church was established in 1993 with a passion for seeing Chinese speaking immigrants have a church community. Their vision for this community included, not just one in which congregants could speak and attend a service in Mandarin, but also one that could make the gospel accessible to those whose first language is Mandarin.
The church (an ethnic church, with the first generation of church members primarily being Chinese speakers from Malaysia, Taiwan, Hong Kong) initially started with small numbers of attendees coming together to form the church. However, space quickly became an issue. Pastor Philip says, ‘we quickly realised [we] were running out of space. So, needed to expand, build more classrooms, and build a second hall for all kinds of gatherings, like fellowships, Sunday schools and various ministries. In the past, we’ve been focusing a lot on outreach, especially for children, in children's ministry locally.’ Pastor Philip joined the church in June 2020 after he graduated from the Singapore Bible College with a Master of Divinity.
The church approached Christian Savings for help with finances for the extension of the church after an unsuccessful interaction with their bank.
In the planning stages, the church knew that the space itself had to be flexible, ‘it’s not just a building, I guess you could call it an education block, or a second hall where we can facilitate the need for fellowship across all ages’ says, Pastor Philip.
Margaret Wu, the church representative who has worked closely with Christian Savings, said that dealing with Christian Savings has been pleasant as there is a sense of truthfulness between the two parties. It’s good that God’s vision is put first, ahead of everything else. Both parties want to expand God’s Kingdom and do the work of His ministry to push the gospel to the ends of the earth.
‘I am grateful that Christian Savings can help us in such a way, we wanted to buy the property next door, we first went to the bank, we found it difficult, so we we spoke with Christian Savings and got a loan straight away, which helped us buy next door and also finance our extension, we are thankful for that’, Rev Chan who joined the church in August 1994.
The church extension was completed in early May 2022.
