Grace Assembly (神召會恩典堂) is one of the megachurches in Singapore, led by Senior Pastor Rev. Dr. David Lim. It belongs to the Assemblies of God of Singapore, a Protestant denomination of Christianity. It is currently the largest Assembly of God church in Singapore.
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Grace has currently two worship locations, Grace I at Tanglin, and Grace II at Bukit Batok. Grace I has a traditional appearance with steeple-like designs and wooden pews, built in the late 1970s. It was previously the only meeting venue for Grace members, till a sister church, Grace II came into existence.
Grace II is situated in Bukit Batok. The 14.9 million dollar project was carried out by Laud Architects. The four storey building comprises a 1200-seat auditorium, 400-seat chapel, a rooftop, a basement car park and other function rooms. Grace II was dedicated on 20 August 2006, along with more than 1400 members, pastors and distinguished guests, including DrAmy Khor Lean Suan, the Mayor of South West Community Development Council (CDC) and a Member of Parliament in Singapore. Rev. Howard Cummings and Grace Assembly's founder, Sis Lula Baird also attended.
Grace Assembly currently has a staff strength of 63 led by Senior Pastor Rev. Calvin Lee. 37 staff takes on pastoral and ministry roles and 26 perform administrative roles. Some pastors serve as “community pastors”, who oversee a G.R.A.C.E community.
Grace Assembly places high emphasis on world missions. As of October 2007, Grace has planted more than 560 churches around the world.
Grace Communities form the heart of the congregation whose members span the island. Cells, small groups of members, meet on a regular basis, usually during the weekday at a member’s house for worship, learning the Word and fellowship. This approach employed is effective in reaching the large body of members.
Grace has a family focus which can be evidently seen from the sermons preached from the pulpit to the various ministries found in Grace, such as the Grace Family Club, as well as the REACH Family Service Centre founded by Pastor Calvin Lee, situated in the heartlands of Bishan estate in Singapore. The various ministries at Grace cater to people of every age group.
One of the notable events would be the annual Grace Retreat in June, which is usually a five-day overseas trip to Malaysia, where members can interact with one another without the constraints on a normal service.
The youth ministry, R-AGE (Redeeming A Generation for Eternity) in Grace caters to youth and young adults from ages 13 to 25. Weekly services include the youth and young adult services. An annual youth conference, the Rhema Conference, has replaced the youth camp as the annual event for R-AGE youths since 2006. The three-day conference is held in Grace II in Bukit Batok in December.
An outreach ministry, Crossroad47, was set up by Pastor Ronald Yow, aiming at the community youth in Bukit Batok.
The 1,200-strong Chinese congregation in Grace is one of the stronger Chinese congregations among the churches in Singapore. It comprises people from adults to elderly, and has three sub-congregations attending the Mandarin, Hokkien and Cantonese services. Evangelistic services are particularly frequent in the Chinese ministry, with many Chinese Christian celebrities and pastors sharing their faith with newcomers, such as Huang Xiu Ling, a veteran news broadcaster in “Channel 8 News” of Mediacorp.
The primary campus in Tanglin Road would be redeveloped to meet the future needs of the church and the community it serves. The new building has a potential capacity triple that of the current 335 Tanglin campus, with capacity to house between 8,000 to 10,000 across three service slots. It features a 2,000 seater auditorium, a unique Petra rock inspired atrium and some 350 carpark lots to meet the needs of the congregation.
The fifty-two million dollar project is estimated to complete by the year 2013.