Largest Denominations, Churches Here Show Growth Since 2000

Friday, Jan. 22, 2010 Posted: 9:19:04PM HKT

The facade of the Methodist Centre along Barker Road, the headquarters of The Methodist Church in Singapore, the largest Protestant denomination in Singapore. (Photo: CP)

Updated.

The largest denominations and churches in Singapore have grown since the turn of the millennium, a recent survey by The Christian Post showed.

Major historic mainline denominations experienced steady growth in the last decade.

The Singapore Anglican Church or the Diocese of Singapore entered the third millennium with 16,659 baptised and confirmed members and ended 2008 with 21,019 members, a 26.17 percent increase.

CP understands that the 2009 report for the Diocese will be available only May this year.

Between 2000 and 2009 the Diocese also planted one parish, the Light of Christ Church Woodlands, and focused on rebuilding most of its 26 parishes.

The Methodist Church in Singapore registered 30,393 baptised members at the turn of 2000; membership increased 23 percent to over 37,000 members presently.

Methodists built the most number of churches among denominations and churches in the survey.

The denomination built four churches: three English stream churches, namely, the Agape Methodist Church, Christalite Methodist Chapel and the Living Waters Methodist Church; and one Indian stream church, the Telugu Methodist Church. There are a total of 44 Methodist churches in Singapore.

At 42 percent, The Presbyterian Church In Singapore experienced the greatest growth in terms of proportion among the mainline denominations surveyed.

Numerically the denomination's membership increased from 12,000 members at the turn of 2000 to about 17,000 members by the end of 2009.

The denomination received one church as its member, increasing the number of churches currently under its jurisdiction to 33 churches.

While the Pentecostal-Charismatic Assemblies of God of Singapore registered a lower total worship attendance and total registered membership in 2008 (21,423 attendants, 13,809 members) than in 2000 (24,409 attendants, 14,863 members), CP understands that this is due to one church with a congregation size of 2,330 people having withdrawn its affiliation with AG and another church with a congregation size of around 8,000 people not having submitted its report for 2008.

The AG 2009 report will be available at the end of March.

AG churches baptised 10,617 people in the last ten years.

Denominations aside, the three largest churches showed phenomenal growth.

The City Harvest Church, which entered 2000 with an average church attendance of 7,042 people, ended 2009 nearly five times larger at 33,812 people, of whom 77 percent were first-time converts to Christianity.

New Creation Church is not far behind.

The church, which entered 2000 with 3,857 attendants, has steadily grown to 18,983 members by the end of last year - almost a fourfold increase.

Another large church, the Lighthouse Evangelism, registered an average of 5,238 weekend attendants at the turn of the millennium, a number which more than doubled by end 2009 to 11,500 weekend attendants.

Last year the church made 1,655 converts and saw 623 rededications by Christians.

There are around 570 Protestant churches in Singapore.

These churches, which have a typical congregation size of 200 people, either belong to one of 20 denominations or are stand-alone, 'independent' churches.

Twenty Protestant churches are considered megachurches, a term used to refer to churches with a congregation of at least 2,000 people; the number of megachurches here has exactly doubled since the turn of 2000.

The 2000 Census, the latest to date, registered nearly 15 percent of Singapore’s population as Christian.

Some Christian leaders, however, believe the actual figure is closer to 20 percent.

Update: New Creation Church's attendance figures updated on Tuesday, 26 January 2010.

Edmond Chua
edmond@christianpost.com