Dear friend,

Every September and October, SYFC leaders and staff will gather for our planning retreat. This time round, we used the results gathered from an intergenerational survey conducted with Christians in Singapore to focus our discussions on its implications for our work amongst the Christian students. Here are three points of consideration for us in the coming year.

Conviction

For the young respondents who have been attending church all their lives, many start to develop questions about the Christian faith when they become teens. They question about the reality of God and feel a disconnect between what they know and what they are experiencing. It is therefore important to be there for them, to not be judgmental and to engage them in discussions that will help them find answers to their questions. In this way, they will be strengthened in their faith, be more assured of their salvation and maybe more motivated to share the gospel with others.

Community

Young people are digital natives who grow up in the social media world. Since the pandemic, they have been feeling very isolated and are yearning for genuine relationships which involve more than just gaining more followers and ‘likes’. Young people want to hear real struggles and have friends who will hear theirs and still love them for who they are. Hence, we need to build a trust community where mutual learning and encouragement can take place.

Contextualise

In terms of gospel sharing, young people prefer to do it organically and for those who struggle to do so, we have a variety of gospel tools to help them. However, one of our volunteers rightly pointed out that nobody will find a tool effective if it is suddenly whipped out, say, when we are queueing for food. So, other than teaching young people how to use the tools, we need to equip and encourage them to talk about God in their daily conversations with others. Then when it is needed and appropriate, they can use the tools to assist them to share the Good News.

Please pray for us as we continue to look to God for His guidance to teach and encourage Christian youth in their faith journey and to involve them in gospel work.

God be our Helper.

All Glory To God,

Richard Tan

National Director

P.S. Thank you for being an instrument of God’s faithfulness to SYFC and our staff have been blessed by your prayers and giving. I would like to make a special appeal to you to consider giving to the staff’s 13th month salary. Many of you have responded generously to this appeal before and we look to God once again to provide the bonus through you. The little extra will go a long way to help the staff cover any unexpected expenses as we continue to serve here in SYFC. Thank you.