It was five years in the making: City Harvest Church’s new weekly service for its youth movement Emerge finally launched on 4 January 2025. It happens every Saturday, 2pm at Suntec Hall 606.
God is never early, but He is never late. Senior pastor of the church, Kong Hee and his wife Sun had sensed five years ago that God wanted them to start a weekly Emerge service. But due to the pandemic, they had to shelve the plan.
The vision of the church is that the youths of the church will rise up and become disciples of Jesus. While the youths have been attending the main adult service up till 2024, a dedicated Emerge service will feature targeted messages for the young people, and also serve their needs better.
The Emerge service is helmed by the Emerge pastoral team: Pastor Audrey Ng (AN Zone), Pastor Lee Yi Lun (LYL Zone), Kelvin and Cynthia Tan (KEL Zone), Ee Zhen Ying (ZY Zone), Catherine Lee (CL Zone), Vincent Tan (VT Zone) and Gwendolyn Tan (ET-GT Zone).
Starting a brand new service for a different demographic requires the efforts of many, from the Emerge worship team to ushers, visual communications, graphics to security and more. But the combined efforts of all made the inaugural Emerge service a great success.
Pastor Kong opened the service with a gift to every youth member in the room: a NIV Holy Bible with the Emerge logo printed on it.
“No genuine Christian warrior will go anywhere without their sword of the spirit,” he declared, encouraging the youth to bring their Bible to Emerge services weekly.
Getting into his message, Ps Kong read out his anchor verse, Psalm 110:3 (ESV):
“Your people will offer themselves freely on the day of your power, in holy garments;
from the womb of the morning, the dew of your youth will be yours.”
GOD CHOOSES TO MOVE AMONG THE YOUTH
In 2000, Pastor Kong went to Taiwan for the first time. There, he heard God speak clearly to him, “I want to bring my Holy Spirit to this land. Will you bring a revival to Taiwan?”. The presence of the Holy Spirit was so strong and knew that he had to obey the prompting, although he struggled with the Chinese language.
A year later, he went back to Taipei and met an English missionary who had served there for two decades. The missionary claimed that Taiwanese youth have no time for God, but the Holy Spirit told Ps Kong otherwise.
Determined to obey God, Pastor Kong and Sun worked for the next eight years to bring revival among the Taiwanese youths. Through the Crossover concerts, they were able to reach many parts of Taiwan to share the Gospel, and thousands of youths came to Jesus.
Ps Kong and Sun also lived in Taiwan for a year in 2006 to train new church leaders through the School of Theology (SOT). Over that period, Christianity among the Taiwan youths grew.
Missiologists refer to the most unreached region in the world as the “10/40 window”, which refers to the region of 10° and 40° latitude north of the equator, between North Africa, the Middle East and Asia.
But, Ps Kong told the Emerge congregation, what is more important today is what scholars call the “13/30 window”, the age group between 13 to 30 that represents the greatest harvest field. Half the world’s population is under 30 years old, which is the age group that is most open to the gospel. Most Christians – 97% – receive Christ before the age of 30, and 72% before 18.
Ps Kong next read Acts 2:17 – “In the last days, God says, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams.”
He pointed out that three of four of the groups mentioned are young people. God’s plan has always been to use the youth, as they are more open to spiritual things than any other generation, he said. Because of this, throughout history, the devil has targeted young people to distract, deceive and destroy them.
He encouraged the congregation, reminding them that the last century was known as the century of the Holy Spirit, being marked by revivals such as:
- the Wonsan Revival (1903)
- the Welsh Revival (1904)
- the Azusa Street Revival (1906)
- the Charismatic Renewal (1967)
- the Jesus Movement (1972)
And the Christian leaders who throughout the years have made a great impact in the church’s history were all young people:
- William Booth (1829-1912) – preached in the slum of London at 15
- Charles Spurgeon (1834-1892) – built a church building at 30
- Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758) – pastored a church at 21
- John Wesley (1703-1791) – started the Holy Club at Oxford University
- George Whitefield (1714-1770) – preached to crowds of 30,000 at 25
- David Yonggi Cho (1936-2021) – built the world’s largest church at 25
- Kong Hee (1989-present) – became a senior pastor of CHC at 25
3 THINGS YOUTHS ARE CALLED TO
“Spirit-filled youths will fill the earth,” the senior pastor declared. He urged the congregation to accept God’s plan and purpose for them, listing three things they are called to by the Lord.
1. A Call to Willingness
“Your attitude determines your altitude, which cannot be forced: it’s the real you. If your love is forced, it’s not genuine. Just because your parents are Christian doesn’t make you a Christian. You must have your encounter and relationship with the Spirit. Your devotion to God is not dependent on others,” Ps Kong emphasised.
The word “willingness” resonated deeply with Catherine Lee, a pastoral supervisor in Emerge. She felt that when one is willing, anything is possible because when God speaks, the willingness will bring about obedience, which leads to change or action.
“When we have willing hearts, we will always say yes to God again and again,” she added.
2. A Call to Holiness
Ps Kong reiterated the anchor verse to encourage the youths to live a clean and holy life for Jesus.
Holiness is the decision Christians willingly make every single day: “I make a decision to surrender to the Holy Spirit, empower me, help me to live a life pleasing to You today, help me to forgive and love like Jesus.”
What youths wear signal their identity. It reflects who they are and the culture they are promoting. So is what they are promoting pleasing to God?
Ps Kong challenged them: “A massive revival is coming, God wants to use you, but are you willing to be holy as He is holy?”
3. A Call to the Holy Spirit
Christians must be filled with the Holy Spirit to overflowing, so that they can touch those who have yet to know Jesus.
Ps Kong described, “Everywhere I go, when I mingle with friends, I bring life to people in dry places, I usher in the healing and refreshing of the presence of Jesus.”
“Emerge is going to new heights!”
CHC members Aidan Choi, 13, and Samuel Ng, 14, shared a memorable moment during the altar call. They felt God’s tangible presence, prompting them to seek Jesus with all their hearts and make their lives meaningful and holy for Him.
When asked how they would describe the first Emerge service in one word, answers that emerged included “forgiven”, “glory-filled”, “powerful”, “fantastic”, “evangelistic”, “exciting”, “joyful”, “electric”, “amazing”.
Jin Yi Tan, 29, a youth cell group leader, had an encouraging message for the Emerge youth: “Warm up your hearts and get ready: Emerge is going into new heights!”
She was moved by the atmosphere of faith that the generations would be added to God’s Kingdom. “It’s going to be something spectacular and I can’t wait for the newcomers to experience God’s love every single week!”
For updates, follow @chcemerge on Instagram.
