Pastors United! MCS GC Combined Pastors Retreat | 12-14 Apr 2023
The General Conference (GC) Combined Pastors Retreat is held once every four years. We give thanks for the opportunity to gather once again with our colleagues from Trinity Annual Conference (TRAC) and Emmanuel Tamil Annual Conference (ETAC), especially after having faced all the challenges during the pandemic.
The emphasis of this retreat was on rest and fellowship with one another. The pastors were organised into four “Pastors in Group Sessions”. We would share and pray with one another in different pastors’ groups during each session. It was a wonderful experience seeing familiar faces as well as new pastors (MOTs) who have joined the Methodist family.
Bishop Gordon Wong took this opportunity to share with us some of the upcoming plans in MCS, and his message for the coming Aldersgate celebration. Following the theme from last year, on how we love God by showing our love to others, the theme this year will be “Loving God, by loving our religious neighbours”. It emphasises how we can be more loving and sympathetic towards our neighbours of other faiths. I thought this was an important and timely message for the Church, with Singapore being a multi-religious nation, where we needed to live in harmony with and love one another.
During the retreat, we were deeply saddened by the news of the passing of our beloved CAC colleague, the late Rev Goh Aik Hiang. This is especially so when all of us were in Malacca for this retreat and unable to return to Singapore in time for the wake service. Thanks to technology, and training from the pandemic days with the know-how of live streaming, despite being more than 200 km away, we could still participate in the Memorial Service together as a Conference. Members of CAC, and even some from TRAC and ETAC, were in attendance to give their final respects to the late Rev Goh. After the Memorial Service, CAC President Rev (Dr) Gregory Goh led us in a session of sharing, where we recollected our memories of the late Rev Goh Aik Hiang. Many were moved to tears with the sharing, and by the legacy and impact left by the late Rev Goh, an exemplary role model for many of our pastors. Words could not describe the atmosphere in the ballroom where we were gathered for the retreat.
At the end of this session, we were greeted with food that was lovingly “dabao-ed” for us by our TRAC colleagues, as we had to leave dinner early to attend the Memorial Service online. This act clearly demonstrated the close relationship within MCS. Despite being in different Conferences, and not all had known the late Rev Goh, our MCS brothers and sisters showed their love and care for us while we were paying our last respects to the late Rev Goh.
That sense of unity was how I felt throughout the retreat. We might not be a single large annual conference but we served the same Methodist Church, worshipping, sharing, and praying together as one body in this retreat. New connections were made, relationships forged, and resources shared. Praise be to God!
Rev Joshua Ong
Assistant Pastor at Queenstown Chinese Methodist Church
Member of CAC Board of Communications