50 Years Building His Kingdom - Far Eastern Bible College

WORSHIP SERVICES
Milestones Of The English
Congregation Of Life Church
OUR CHURCH began
as The English
Service of Life
Church (Say Mia Tng)
when I answered the call of
our Teochew-speaking
Mother Church to pastor an
English Service for a new
generation of the English
educated. Without an English
Service, many of our
young people were slipping
to other churches worshipping
in English. I had just
graduated from Faith Seminary,
USA and immediately
we started on October 20,
1950.
The Services were held at our Mother
Church, 144 Prinsep Street in the afternoon
at 5.30 p.m. and the Sunday School at 4.00
p.m. Our young congregation was made up
of 30 members transferred from the Mother
Church with their children, totalling 50.
The core members came from the Chias,
the Chans, the Hengs, the Hsus, the Lims,
the Queks, and the Tows. Of the founding
members now worshipping at Gilstead are
old-faithfuls from the Chan, Heng, Lim and
Tow Clans. Other Lifers who joined Prinsep
Street in the course of development now
here are Elders Tay, Sng, Han and Koh and
their families.
In 1955, we started a Building Fund.
We prospected for land and through Rev.
Quek we discovered Gilstead Road. We
were among 22 other applicants, and by
God’s mercies, we were selected. (There
was no tender system in those days.) We
were granted a 99-year lease on our present
property at $1/- per sq. ft. as of 1957. Our
land measures 52,223 sq. ft. Half of this
area we paid in full, the rest at 4% interest
per annum.
144 Prinsep Street, 1950
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